The Amazon basin is a key component of
the global carbon cycle. The old-growth rainforests in the
basin represent storage of ~ 120 petagrams of carbon (Pg C)
in their biomass. Annually, these tropical forests process
approximately 18 Pg C through respiration and
photosynthesis. This is more than twice the rate of global
anthropogenic fossil fuel emissions. The basin is also the
largest global repository of biodiversity and produces about

In Japan, the sustainable development of
cities and provinces has been vigorously pursued since the
late 1990s under various programs through the initiative of
the central government and local authorities. In 2009, the
World Bank launched an urban development initiative called
Eco2 Cities: Ecological Cities as Economic Cities (Eco2
Cities Initiative) to help cities in developing countries
achieve greater synergistic ecological and economic

Brazil, China and India have seen
falling poverty in their reform periods, but to varying
degrees and for different reasons. History left China with
favorable initial conditions for rapid poverty reduction
through market-led economic growth; at the outset of the
reform process there were ample distortions to remove and
relatively low inequality in access to the opportunities so
created, though inequality has risen markedly since. By

This paper utilizes the mixed effects
model to measure and decompose spatial disparity in per
capita expenditure in Bangladesh between 2000 and 2010. It
finds a significant decline in spatial disparity in urban
areas and the country as a whole but no substantial change
in rural areas. The decomposition analysis indicates that
average years of education, the percentage of households
with electricity connections, and phone ownership account

Migration has historically been a source
of opportunities for people to improve their lives and those
of their families. Today, the large differences in income
between places-particularly countries-continue to motivate
individuals to escape poverty through migration. The
potential advantages of migration for sending countries are
numerous. Through remittances, migration provides a means of
improving income and smoothing consumption; it enables

Housing development has direct and
indirect impacts on the environment. Through its design,
construction, and operation, housing represents a
significant point of direct consumption of natural
materials, water, and energy. Therefore, greenhouse gas
emissions embodied in housing can be very significant.
Moreover, in Brazil, civil construction is responsible for
the largest percentage of solid waste volume generated in

This note builds on the proactive
measures taken by the Government of China as announced in:
(i) the Decree of the state council of the people's
Republic of China, issued on 9 June 2008, providing
regulations on post-Wenchuan earthquake reconstruction; (ii)
the Directive on Counterpart Assistance (Directive) of 11
June 2008; and (iii) the land policies to support the
reconstruction of Wenchuan (land policies) of 11 June 2008

To ensure sustainable and optimal use of
its common property natural resources, Mexico will need to
strengthen its focus on enhancing stewardship in three key
sectors-forests, water, and energy resources. The key
objectives include the following: 1) identifying options
that would contribute to Mexico's climate agenda and
build social resilience through forest management; 2)
ensuring economically efficient and environmentally and

As the financial crisis has spread
through the world, the lack of real-time data has made it
difficult to track its impact in developing countries. This
paper uses a micro-simulation approach to assess the poverty
and distributional effects of the crisis in the Philippines.
The authors find increases in both the level and the depth
of aggregate poverty. Income shocks are relatively large in
the middle part of the income distribution. They also find

This Country Economic Memorandum (CEM)
is the first for Burundi since the 1980s. It has been
developed in collaboration with the government of Burundi.
The CEM has been prepared in cooperation with the African
development bank and the U.K. department for international
development. Burundi is one of the poorest countries in the
world, and has suffered from many years of civil conflict
and its consequences. In the last years, peace has been

Approaches to urban slums are a
multimedia sourcebook that comprises 14 self-running
audiovisual presentations and 18 video interviews. It is
organized into four broad sections: adaptive approaches,
proactive approaches, case profiles, and thematic
interviews. The sourcebook itself, which contains more than
nine viewing hours of content on CD-ROM, does not exist in
printed format. This guide provides an overview of the

Government of Azerbaijan (GoA) and the
World Bank have a long history of partnership in addressing
the needs of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the
country. The purpose of this study was to start identifying
gaps and areas for further engagement. The report would not
have been possible without the support of GoA counterparts.
The report pursues the argument that in order to expand the
choice of IDP livelihoods it is possible to build upon and