This paper estimates slum residents
willingness to pay for formalized land tenure in Pune,
India. In so doing, it offers evidence that the legal
assurance of slum residents occupancy of their lands could
benefit them. Previous studies have discussed legal and
non-legal factors that substantially influence the tenure
security of residents in informal settlements. However, it
remains unclear to what extent, and how, the assignment of

This report directly provide
recommendations for improvement of the quality of the
regional master socio-econsomic development plan and
national laud use plans for Vietnam, to the year 2020. It
provides analysis and assessment of the
reviewed-adjusted-ammended socio-economic development plan
for the Mekong Delta, which is aimed at improvement of the
quality and feasibility of regional socio-economic

This paper complements the results of
earlier work on factor misallocation. The paper first
expands the methodology and provides two important
decompositions for the main indices. The main result is that
factor and output misallocation across districts is at least
as important as misallocation within districts. Second, the
paper provides an exploration of the service sector that
complements earlier work on manufacturing. The analysis

Honduras is Central America’s
second-largest country with a population of more than 8
million and a land area of about 112,000 square kilometers.
The 20th century witnessed a profound economic
transformation and modernization in Honduras. Honduras’
persistent poverty is the result of long-term low per capita
growth and high inequality, perpetuated by the country’s
high vulnerability to shocks. First, over the past 40 years

The term “inclusive cities” is
increasingly being used as a “catch-all” phrase to signify
intent but with little precision in its use. In this note we
use “inclusive cities” to mean cities in which we see a
commitment to an inclusive politics with the establishment
of institutionalized interactions between organized groups
of disadvantaged citizens and the state with local
government taking a primary role. They are also cities in

Policy makers in developing countries,
including India, are increasingly sensitive to the links
between spatial transformation and economic development.
However, the empirical knowledge available on those links is
most often insufficient to guide policy decisions. There is
no shortage of case studies on urban agglomerations of
different sorts, or of benchmarking exercises for states and
districts, but more systematic evidence is scarce. To help

Over the last 20 years, poor rural
farmers in Nigeria have seen the benefits of community
organization as a tool for local economic development under
the National Fadama Development Project series. They have
witnessed improvements in rural areas that have embraced a
more inclusive and participatory model of local economic
decision making. Many communities have come together under
the umbrella of new institutional arrangements for

The housing finance market in Mali
remains small and under developed. Few banks currently offer
a full mortgage product with Banque Malienne de Solidarite,
Mali Housing Bank (BHM), Bank of Africa, and EcoBank being
the main lenders although at minimal levels. The total
annual housing need in Mali based on the household formation
rate amounts to 82,500, split between 51,100 urban units and
31,400 rural units. Overall some social housing is

The growing availability of free or
inexpensive satellite imagery has inspired many researchers
to investigate the use of earth observation data for
monitoring economic activity around the world. One of the
most popular earth observation data sets is the so-called
nighttime lights from the Defense Meteorological Satellite
Program. Researchers have found positive correlations
between nighttime lights and several economic variables.

At the core of the very rapid growth in the number of urban dwellers living in illegal settlements is the gap between the cost or availability of legal land sites on which housing can be built and what most individuals or households can afford to pay for accommodation. For most cities, the problems are further exacerbated by the high spatial concentration of economic activities (and thus employment opportunities). This paper looks at the many ways in which governments can increase the supply and lower the cost of land for housing.

In the context of Romania’s push toward
sustainable and inclusive development, the government has
asked the World Bank to support the harmonization of public
investments financed by the European Union and the state
budget. The current report describes the national program
for local development (PNDL’s) framework and project cycle
and provides an overview of the program’s project portfolio
in 2014. It also draws a number of preliminary observations

Recent surveys show considerable
progress in maternal and child health in Ethiopia. The
improvement has been in health outcomes and health services
coverage. The study examines how different groups have fared
in this progress. It tracked 11 health outcome indicators
and health interventions related to millennium development
goals one, four, and five. These are stunting, underweight,
wasting, neonatal mortality, infant mortality, under -five