This paper reviews Pakistan's
agriculture performance and analyzes its agriculture and
water policies. It discusses the nature of rural poverty and
emphasizes the reasons why agricultural growth is a critical
component to any pro-poor growth strategy for Pakistan. It
supports these arguments by summarizing key results from
recent empirical analysis where the relative benefits of
agricultural versus non-agricultural led growth are

Twenty million people in Central America
cook with biomass using open fires or rudimentary stoves.
The number of people using biomass for cooking in the region
will remain significant for a long time due to high
incidence of poverty, high Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) prices
coupled with unsustainable LPG subsidies, as well as
relatively easy access to fuel wood in the region. Providing
these people with clean and efficient cooking solutions is

"Ecosystem services" has
become a catch-phrase for the complex connections between
the natural environment and human well-being. This paper
considers the impact of changes in the supply of ecosystem
services, and programs to increase their supply, on
near-term growth of gross domestic product. It focuses on
the relationship between locally generated versus
transboundary services and growth in developing countries,

This workbook is intended to help policy
makers in developing countries plan for a safer future in
urban areas in the face of natural disasters and the
consequences of climate change. It is based on the
experiences of three cities in Vietnam, Can Tho, Dong Hoi,
and Hanoi, that worked with international and local experts
under World Bank supervision to develop local resilience
action plans (LRAPs) in 2009-10. An LRAP is a detailed

Agricultural growth rates in the Latin
America and the Caribbean (LAC) region have been much slower
than the rest of the developing world. In the regions of
East Asia, South Asia and Middle East and North Africa, the
annual growth of agricultural Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
in 1980-2004 exceeded 3 percent, while growth in Sub-
Saharan Africa averaged almost 3 percent. This paper
attempts to present an overview of the agricultural sector

"Getting the prices right" is
a good starting point but is not sufficient for achieving
environmentally efficient outcomes. Other policy
interventions are often necessary to complement pricing
policies. Moreover, when pricing is not at all feasible,
regulatory and command-and-control policies must be used
instead. This paper focuses on three interrelated themes at
the core of the pricing problem. First, there is the

The global dialogue surrounding the
United Nations framework convention for climate change has
focused on two strategies for addressing challenges
associated with climate change: (1) mitigation (reducing the
accumulation of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere);
and (2) adaptation (reducing the vulnerability of societies
and ecosystems to the impacts of climate change). Forests
feature in both of these strategies. The role of forests as

Much of the rural poor -- who are
growing in number -- are concentrated in ecologically
fragile and remote areas. The key ecological scarcity
problem facing such poor households is a vicious cycle of
declining livelihoods, increased ecological degradation and
loss of resource commons, and declining ecosystem services
on which the poor depend. In addition, developing economies
with high concentrations of their populations on fragile

Developing countries are faced with the
dual challenge of reducing poverty while improving
management of natural capital and mitigating the emission of
greenhouse gases (GHGs) and local pollutants. The challenge
is particularly acute for large, rapidly growing economies,
such as India, China, and Brazil. In response to this
challenge, Energy Sector Management assistance Program
(ESMAP) and the World Bank began in 2007 to provide support

Reducing emissions from deforestation
and forest degradation and enhancing carbon stocks (REDD+)
has raised the profile of benefit sharing in the forest
sector. Sharing benefits, however, is not a new concept.
Previous work on benefit sharing (associated with
intellectual property, forest and agriculture concessions,
mining, and so forth) has focused on clarifying the concept
and examining how benefit sharing could feed into broader

The current report is a milestone for
preparing the Romanian climate change (CC) action plan. A CC
action plan should be based on the consolidation and
coordination of both mitigation and adaptation measures and
options. An important step in the elaboration of such a plan
is the selection of appropriate actions. This selection
requires the involvement of competent authorities in the key
sectors, including, in the case of Romania, transport,

Argentina has expanded the use of its
portion of the Parana-Paraguay waterways system for the
transportation of soy and other bulk commodities through an
innovative tolling system that self-finances the dredging
and maintenance of the rivers. Brazil, in turn, is pursuing
a 'green trucking' strategy to improve efficiency
of its cargo haulage industry, reduce petroleum usage, and
curb pollution from trucking. For the entire hemisphere, the
expansion of the Panama Canal will bring post-Panama vessels