Release of the final report of the International Comparison Program (ICP) and publication of new estimates of purchasing power parities (PPPs) in World Development Indicators 2008 are an important statistical milestone. The estimates offer a consistent and comprehensive set of data on the cost of living in developed and developing countries, the first since 1997, when the results of the previous ICP data collection were published in World Development Indicators. The 2005 data cover 146 countries and territories, 29 more than the last round in 1993, and many for the first time.

The Forests Sourcebook is divided into
two parts. The first contains an introduction to the book
plus seven chapters covering topics associated with
enhancing the contribution of forests to poverty reduction,
engaging the private sector, meeting the growing demand for
forest products, optimizing forest functions at the
landscape level, improving forest governance, mainstreaming
forest considerations into macro policy dialogue, and

This policy note, Environmental
Management for a Sustainable Economic Development Strategy
for Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, investigates six environmental
management topics which will affect the capacity of the
province to develop the economy and need to be underpinned
by strong environmental and natural resource management. The
six topics cover: agriculture, forestry, fisheries, land and
water, environmental law and regulations, and spatial

The analysis of the cost of
environmental degradation conducted as part of the country
environmental analysis (CEA) shows that the most costly
problems associated with environmental degradation are urban
and indoor air pollution; inadequate water supply,
sanitation, and hygiene; natural disasters (such as flooding
and landslides); and land degradation. The burden of these
costs falls most heavily on vulnerable segments of the

This evaluation is the first of a series
that seeks lessons from the World Bank Group's
experience on how to carve out a sustainable growth path.
The World Bank Group has never had an explicit corporate
strategy on climate change against which evaluative
assessments could be made. However, a premise of this
evaluation series is that many of the climate-oriented
policies and investments under discussion have close

Worldwide, about 1.6 billion people lack
access to electricity services. There are also large
populations without access in the poorer countries of Asia
and Latin America, as well as in the rural and peri-urban
areas of middle income countries. However large-scale
electrification programs that is currently underway in
middle income countries and the poor countries of Asia will
increase household electricity access more rapidly than in

There are many causes, consequences, and
connections of deforestation and forest poverty in the
tropical world. This report specifically addresses the
potential dilemma of trade-offs between poverty reduction
and environmental protection. It seeks to improve the
diagnosis of forest problems and facilitate the prescription
and application of solutions by focusing on both the causes
and consequences of forest conversion to agriculture and on

The objective of this Country
Environmental Analysis (CEA) is to highlight the underlying
challenges and opportunities for Indonesia's
environment and management of its natural resources in order
to guide the World Bank support to Indonesian institutions
for more sustainable development. Rather, the CEA sets the
broader context (chapter one) and economic costs of
environmental degradation (chapter two) in order to identify

The carbon market is the most visible result of early regulatory efforts to mitigate climate change. Regulation constraining carbon emissions has spawned an emerging carbon market that was valued at US$64 billion (Euro 47 billion) in 2007. Its biggest success so far has been to send market signals for the price of mitigating carbon emissions. This, in turn, has stimulated innovation and carbon abatement worldwide, as motivated individuals, communities, companies and governments have cooperated to reduce emissions.

The scale of investment needed to slow
greenhouse gas emissions is larger than governments can
manage through transfers. Therefore, climate change policies
rely heavily on markets and private capital. This is
especially true in the case of the Kyoto Protocol with its
provisions for trade and investment in joint projects. This
paper describes institutions and policies important for new
carbon markets and explains their origins. Research efforts

Global climate change is occurring at an
accelerating pace, and the global greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions that are forcing climate change continue to
increase. Given the present pace of international actions,
it seems unlikely that atmospheric composition can be
stabilized at a level that will avoid "dangerous
anthropogenic interference" with the climate system, as
called for in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

This focus note presents key findings of
a 2008 report on implementing Financial Action task Force
(FATF) standards in developing countries The Financial
Sector Reform and Strengthening(FIRST) Initiative funded a
five-country study to analyze the effects of anti-money
laundering (AML) and combating the financing of terrorism
(CFT) regulation on access to finance, especially in
low-income populations. Standard AML and CFT measures