This Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD)
covers eight small Pacific island countries (PIC8):
Kiribati, Marshall Islands, the Federated States of
Micronesia, Palau, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. The
objective of the SCD is to identify the most critical
constraints and opportunities facing the PIC8 to meet the
global goals of ending absolute poverty and boosting shared
prosperity in a sustainable manner. The report is intended

This issue includes the following
headings: Climate Change and Rural Livelihoods in
Bangladesh; Natural Disasters and Household Well-Being; Road
Improvement and Deforestation, Pathways toward Zero-Carbon
Electricity; The Need for Broader Information in Climate
Change Assessment; Effectiveness of Protected Areas; and
Vulnerability to Malnutrition in the West African Sahel

This report is on possible improvements
on management of revenues from auctioning of European Union
Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) allowances and use of
flexibility mechanisms in Romania. The principal objective
of this report is to propose improvements on management of
revenue from the auctioning of EU ETS allowances, as well as
describe possible use of flexibility mechanisms in Romania,
in order to mobilize and enable both public and private

Mauritius has been a success story since
independence, moving from low income to uppermiddle-income
status. Close public-private partnerships facilitated
private sector-led growth in astable macroeconomic and
institutional environment. The government implemented an
activeindustrial policy to support private sector
competitiveness while exploiting global trade nichescreated
by preferential access arrangements. As a result, savings

The objective of this Systematic Country
Diagnostic (SCD) is to identify the priority constraints
Bolivia faces in sustaining its gains on reducing poverty
and enhancing shared prosperity over the next years. It will
analyze the dynamics behind the progress achieved in the
past decade on inclusive growth, and identify a number of
key constraints for sustaining and consolidating this
progress. The SCD begins, in Chapter two, with a

Colombia has made impressive strides in
reducing poverty and promoting shared prosperity during the
last decade. Extreme poverty fell from 17.7 percent in 2002
to 8.1 percent in 2014, while total poverty (including
moderate poverty) fell from 49.7 percent in 2002 to 29.5
percent in 2014. The decline implies that 6.2 million people
left poverty in the period. The multidimensional poverty
rate, which takes into account education, health, labor,

Biochar is the carbon-rich organic
matter that remains after heating biomass under the
minimization of oxygen during a process called pyrolysis.
There are a number of reasons why biochar systems may be
particularly relevant in developing-country contexts. This
report offers a review of what is known about opportunities
and risks of biochar systems. Its aim is to provide a
state-of-the-art overview of current knowledge regarding

The major role tropical forests play in
biodiversity and climate change has led the world to search
for effective ways to slow down deforestation. Community
forest management (CFM) is an example of the broader concept
of community-based natural resources management (CBNRM). As
part of the decentralization policy in many countries,
mainly in Africa and Asia, CFM was expected to promote: (i)
a more effective stewardship of the resources by involving

Effective environmental and social risk
management in development policy financing (DPF) is central
to achieving the World Bank’s goals of ending extreme
poverty and promoting shared prosperity in a sustainable
manner. If the World Bank is supporting far-reaching member
country reforms that are intended to contribute to the twin
goals, then it should seek to understand the impact of those
reforms on the poor. It should also ensure that the

This paper conducts an integrated
assessment of climate change impacts and climate mitigation
on agricultural commodity markets and food availability in
low- and middle-income countries. The analysis uses the
partial equilibrium model GLOBIOM to generate scenarios to
2080. The findings show that climate change effects on the
agricultural sector will increase progressively over the
century. By 2030, the impact of climate change on food

During the past decade, Georgia’s
pursuit of economic reforms led to impressive economic
growth, capital inflow, and investments. It helped improve
the business environment and infrastructure, strengthened
public finances, and liberalized trade. Georgia achieved
most of the human development targets of the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs). This progress did not result,
however, in improved environmental governance or better

Climate change is a core development
challenge in Tanzania, and the potential costs of inaction
are significant. Current climate variability (including
extreme events such as droughts and floods), already leads
to major economic costs in mainland Tanzania and in
Zanzibar. Individual annual events have economic costs in
excess of 1 percent of GDP, and occur regularly, reducing
long-term growth and affecting millions of people and