This country note briefly summarizes
information relevant to both climate change and agriculture
in Colombia, with focus on policy developments (including
action plans and programs) and institutional make-up. Like
most countries in Latin America, Colombia has submitted one
national communication to the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) with a second one
under preparation. Agriculture (including land use change

Poverty reduction strategies (PRSs)
provide a central framework for macroeconomic, structural,
and social policies in developing countries. Because of the
numerous and complex links between environment and poverty,
it is important that environmental issues are taken into
account in the PRS process. This paper follows six previous
assessments of the degree of mainstreaming environment in
the PRS process using a similar methodology to present

This paper examines three systems of
courts of justice, each in a different country in the region
of South Pacific islands known as Melanesia, where state
legal systems have been adopted from former European
colonial governments. The systems discussed are, by
comparison, 'hybrid', each of them having been
established with the intention of addressing disputes among
small-scale social groups by less formal means or by taking

This paper assesses the role of ideas in
economic change, combining economic and historical analysis
with insights from psychology, sociology and anthropology.
Belief systems shape the system of categories
("pre-confirmatory bias") and perceptions
(confirmatory bias), and are themselves constrained by
fundamental values. The authors illustrate the model using
the historical construction of racial categories. Given the

This learning note prepares policymakers
to engage with their technical experts and staff in
designing and implementing an evidence-informed response to
the challenges of existing and future slum settlements. To
that end, the note discusses a set of indicators and data
analysis techniques needed in the identification and
characterization of slums as well as relevant lessons and
examples. In addition, the noted discusses the data

The objective of this paper is to
determine the ability of farmers in Africa to detect climate
change, and to ascertain how they have adapted to whatever
climate change they believe has occurred. The paper also
asks farmers whether they perceive any barriers to
adaptation and attempts to determine the characteristics of
those farmers who, despite claiming to have witnessed
climate change, have not yet responded to it. The study is

This study analyzes the complicated and
dynamic nature of welfare differences across space. The
objectives are two-fold. First, the study seeks to provide a
methodological framework useful for investigating the
determinants of the observed differences in the standards of
living between two regions at a given point in time. Second,
it aims to provide empirical evidence on regional welfare
differences to inform the policy debate surrounding regional

This paper provides evidence from one of
the poorest countries of the world that the property rights
matter for efficiency, investment, and growth. With all land
state-owned, the threat of land redistribution never appears
far off the agenda. Land rental and leasing have been made
legal, but transfer rights remain restricted and the
perception of continuing tenure insecurity remains quite
strong. Using a unique panel data set, this study

This assessment of poverty and
inequality comes at an important juncture for Kenya. The
December 2007 elections and subsequent pronouncements of the
newly formed Grand Coalition have underlined the salience of
these issues to ordinary Kenyans, and for policy makers. The
violence in early 2008 highlighted the importance of
addressing poverty and inequality as major goals in their
own right, but also for instrumental reasons, as major goals

This document builds upon several recent
studies and reports carried out in the 2006-2007 period. The
first note, entitled analysis of housing supply mechanisms
(World Bank), analyzes the situation of housing supply in
urban areas in Egypt, including the study of existing formal
and informal mechanisms for the delivery of urban housing,
the institutions responsible for supply and regulation, the
characteristics of the formal and informal stock, and the

The relationship between wealth and
child labor has been widely examined. This paper uses three
rounds of time-series, cross-sectional data to examine the
relationship between wealth and child labor and schooling.
The paper finds that wealth is crucial in determining a
child's activities, but that this factor is far from
being a sufficient condition to enroll a child in school.
This is particularly the case for rural girls. Nonparametric

This study on Bangladesh Dhaka-improving
living conditions for the urban poor reflects a
comprehensive look at poverty in Dhaka with an aim to
provide the basis for an urban poverty reduction strategy
for the Government of Bangladesh, local authorities, donors,
and NGOs. While the needs in Dhaka are enormous, this study
focuses on analyzing those critical for the poor -
understanding the characteristics and dynamics of poverty,