The accumulation of decent housing
matters both because of the difference it makes to living
standards and because of its centrality to economic
development. The consequences for living standards are
far-reaching. In addition to directly conferring utility,
decent housing improves health and enables children to do
homework. It frees up women's time and enables them to
participate in the labor market. More subtly, a home and its

Climate change is a huge challenge for
the agriculture and rural development (ARD) sector in
Romania. On the one hand, agriculture is a source of
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and must therefore be
expected to contribute towards the climate change mitigation
goals of the Europe 2020 strategy. European farmers,
foresters, rural businesses, and other local people
therefore need to start paying much greater attention to

This report provides tremendous insight
on gender norms an area that has been resistant to change,
and that constrains achievement of gender equality across
many diverse cultures. The report synthesizes data collected
from more than 4,000 women and men in 97 communities across
20 countries. It is the largest dataset ever collected on
the topic of gender and development, providing an
unprecedented opportunity to examine potential patterns

As in many developing countries, data
collection has proved to be a considerable challenge in
Papua New Guinea (PNG). A welcome effort at data collection
on dispute incidence and personal security was made in
PNG's household income and expenditure survey (HIES or
the Survey), (2009-2010) an experience that also highlights
some of the challenges of such an exercise. For the first
time, the HIES asked questions about dispute incidence and

Romania relies on the European
Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) to achieve its
commitments to the European Union (EU) 2020 targets. The use
of the European Agriculture and Rural Development Fund
(EARDF) requires that at least 30 percent of the budget
allocated for rural development as part of the National
Rural Development Plan (NRDP) be spent on the environment
and addressing climate change. The forest sector rapid

Bhutan has undergone a major
socio-economic transformation over the past few decades.
Today, as a middle-income country guided by the unique
development philosophy of Gross National Happiness, it
continues to develop rapidly and become more integrated into
the global economy. Coinciding with its development, Bhutan
has also made considerable strides in closing gaps in gender
equality. The analysis of the Gender Policy Note (GPN)

In 2000, the Government of India
launched the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (hereinafter
PMGSY) with the primary objective of providing all-weather
road connectivity (with necessary culverts and
cross-drainage structures operable throughout the year), to
eligible unconnected habitations in rural areas. Currently,
about 60 percent of the 170,000 eligible habitations have a
road. By the end of 2010, expenditures for the program had

This paper explains the major issues and
lessons derived from the national forest management program
and REDD+ initiatives in Tanzania. It finds that addressing
the most important drivers of forest degradation and
deforestation, in particular the country energy needs and
landownership, is essential for success in reducing
emissions regardless of the type of program implemented. It
also finds that, through the national program, forest users

Accelerating inclusive growth - the type
that creates more and better jobs and reduces poverty - is a
key challenge for the Philippines. Instead of rising
agricultural productivity paving the way for the development
of a vibrant labor-intensive manufacturing sector and
subsequently of a high-skill services sector, the converse
has taken place in the Philippines. Agricultural
productivity has remained depressed, manufacturing has

Women in post-conflict economies face a
number of challenges. Often their businesses stay at
embryonic stages only, due to three key limitations relating
to: knowledge of business vision and management; access to
finance and markets; and access to role models and networks.
Added to the complexity is the risk of having to start all
over again due to their countriesapos; political instability
and the limited infrastructure to make their businesses

Community-based paralegalism has been
active in the Philippines for the past 30 years, and yet its
contribution to access to justice and the advancement of the
rights and entitlements of the poor has been largely an
undocumented. This paper attempts to provide a framework
study on the history, nature, and scope of paralegal work in
the Philippines, based on the experience of 12 organizations
that are active in the training and development of

The Government of Bangladesh, with help
from the World Bank and other donors, has provided aid to a
local agency called Infrastructure Development Company
Limited and its partner organizations to devise a credit
scheme for marketing solar home system units and making
these an affordable alternative to grid electricity for poor
people in remote areas. This paper uses household survey
data to examine the financing scheme behind the