Regulatory reform in all its
aspects--deregulation, re-regulation, simplification, and
building new institutional capacities for developing and
applying high quality market rules--should be integrated
throughout Mauritania's efforts to generate the growth
and market development needed to combat poverty, improve
standards of living, and lay the foundation for a
sustainable development. This report identifies practical

This report is intended as an input into
the Philippine Government's poverty eradication
strategy. The report aims to update our understanding of the
nature of poverty and the recent progress in poverty
reduction in the Philippines. It examines the extent to
which growth in the nineties has translated into poverty
reduction and analyzes how well publicly-provided social
services reach the poor and whether redistributive policies

This report highlights the discussion,
processes, lessons learned in examining innovative options
for participation by all stakeholders in seeking new social
and economic contracts between civil society and urban
governments. The improvement in relationships is geared
towards providing better services for urban poor and
directly contributing to urban poverty alleviation. The
report attempts to capture the new wave of enthusiasm and

Poverty in Zimbabwe increased
significantly during the 1990s, and it increased in all
sectors of the economy. In the middle of the decade, more
than 60 percent of Zimbabwean households fell below the
national poverty line. There are competing reasons for this:
some say it was the result of the government instituting the
Economic Structural Adjustment Program (ESAP), and others
say that ESAP's effectiveness was hampered by recurring

The Water Resources Sector Strategy
(WRSS) supports implementation of the Bank's 1993 Water
Resources Management Policy, using the experience updated
internationally, with water resources and management. This
country Water Resources Assistance Strategy (CWRAS)
identifies the Philippines principal water resource
challenges, the current situation, how the Bank is assisting
at present, and what it should in the future. In summary

Since its recovery of macroeconomic
stability in 1991, the Dominican Republic has experienced a
period of notable economic growth. Poverty has declined in
the 1990s. Nevertheless, a segment of the population-mainly
in rural areas-does not seem to have benefited from this
growth. Poverty in this country in 1998 is less than that of
other countries if one adjusts for the level of economic
development. The principal poverty characteristics are the

This case study, one of six evaluations
in a series of country case studies, aims to understand the
implementation of the 1991 Forest Strategy in World Bank
operations and to obtain the views of the various
stakeholders in the country about the involvement of the
Bank. Each country study examines the overall development of
the country's forest sector. This naturally includes
the environmental impacts on forests, such as degradation,

The overall finding of this report is
that much agricultural policy is made at the regional level,
and here the explicit price, and trade policy distortions
are significantly worse than at the federal level. The
result is patchwork of inconsistent policies, that has
fragmented the Russian national market. The most serious
policy issues at the federal level, are in the legal
framework, the continued state domination of some markets,

This regional study encompasses three
Central American countries: Nicaragua, Guatemala and
Honduras. The focus of this report is Guatemala. The study
is motivated by several factors: First is the recognition
that sub-national regions are becoming increasingly
heterogeneous, and economically differentiated as part of
ongoing processes of development and diversification, with
some areas advancing, and others being left behind. Second

This note on social protection has as
its objective establishing an exhaustive analysis/diagnosis
of the existing social protection framework and of preparing
an integrated approach through developing better social
protection priorities and plans of actions. It a) identifies
the social risks which the Moroccan people face generally;
b) examines current social protection initiatives (public,
private, and civil society-sponsored) set up to reduce

In this exploration of urban and regional dynamics in Poland after the transition, the authors find that the degree of urbanization, and primacy remains low in Poland. The largest cities are not growing at the rate that would be expected if post-transition adjustments were operating freely. As a result, Poland is not fully realizing external economies from urban agglomeration. Internal migration decreased significantly in the 1990s, with rural-to-urban migration declining dramatically.

The objective of this book is to provide
detailed advice on how to design multi-topic household
surveys based on the experience of past household surveys.
The book will help identify define objectives, identify data
needed to analyze objectives, and draft questionnaires to
collect such data. Much of the book is based on the
experience of the World Bank's Living Standard's
Measurement Study (LSMS) program, established in 1980 to