The objective of this paper is to
examine the challenges in the water sector faced by Armenia
today, and outline options for management and allocation of
its water resources in the future, considering the need for
a stable, transparent apublic sector management framework
and sustainable resource use for long-term private
investment and job creation, and for appropriate balances
among water uses for domestic, industrial, agriculture,

Until the late 1970s, the Finnish Road
and Waterways Administration (RWA), under Finland's
Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC),
operated as a highly centralized, monopolistic agency. The
country's thirteen road management districts had little
or no decision-making authority. Outsourcing construction
works was limited, contracting maintenance services was
rare, and RWA often implemented its road construction

Bringing the United States and major
developing countries to control their greenhouse gas
emissions will be the key challenge for the international
climate regime beyond the Kyoto Protocol. But in the current
quantity-based coordination, large uncertainties surrounding
future emissions and future abatement opportunities make the
costs of any commitment very difficult to assess ex ante,
hence a strong risk that the negotiation will be stalled.

Since the early 1990s, Jordan has
initiated efforts toward far-reaching stabilization and
structural reform. The reforms have aimed at laying the
foundations for a reduced role of the state,
private-sector-export-oriented-growth, employment, poverty
reduction, and overall improvement in the welfare of the
population. Due to this intensive effort, inflation has been
reduced, the current account of the balance of payments has

What are linkages between rural
infrastructure investments, and household welfare? In the
past, most of the evaluations to assess the effectiveness of
a project, focused on physical outputs, and success of
project implementation. In recent years, more attention has
been given to the impact of investments, particularly its
effect on the poor, both in economic, and non-economic
terms. The author presents findings from a survey of the

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 intensive development of tourism in
the Gulf of Aqaba presents both an opportunity and a dilemma
for Egypt. Intensive tourism, if left unmanaged, can inflict
irreversible damage on coral reef and desert ecosystems and
curtail the area's economic potential. Together with
current projections for a rapid expansion of the tourism
base in the Aqaba coast, degradation from mounting
recreational activities give rise to serious concerns about

Participatory community-based Natural
Resources Management (NRM) Projects have been implemented
over the last 5-6 years in Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, and
Niger with the support of France, Germany, Norway, the
United States, and the World Bank's International
Development Association facility. Furthermore, pilot
operation concentrating on specific NRM issues are underway
in Chad (pastoral perimeters) and Guinea (land tenure

Theoretical work has shown that
nonlinear dynamics in household incomes can yield poverty
traps and distribution-dependent growth. If this is true,
the potential implications for policy are dramatic:
effective social protection from transient poverty would be
an investment with lasting benefits, and pro-poor
redistribution would promote aggregate economic growth. The
authors test for nonlinearity in the dynamics of household

The review focuses on development and
the environment in Yemen, particularly analyzing the
environment resource base, where renewable fresh water is
scarce, mainly ground water, and its over exploitation is
one of the country's major environmental problems.
Fisheries resources are also important, while oil and gas
are significant resources contributing to some eighty five
percent of Yemen's export revenues. Environmental

The Russian Federation has one of the
richest natural resource endowments in the world. Despite
their importance in the Russian economy, natural resources
do not contribute as much as they could to public revenues.
Large resource rents (excess payments, or above-normal
profits generated by natural resources in scarce supply) are
dissipated through subsidies and wastage, or appropriated by
private interests. Failure to tax this rent means that taxes

Environmental impact assessment, or EIA
as it is known, is a procedures for evaluating the impact,
proposed activities may have on the environment. In recent
years, significant strides have been made to build a legal
foundation for EIAs in Sub-Saharan Africa. Whereas EIAs
typically used to be carried out only to meet requirements
of foreign donors, they are now mandated in twenty two
Sub-Saharan countries, as an important element of domestic