This technical note on access to finance addresses six questions: 1) what is the access to and use of financial services in the Philippines, how does it vary, and how does it compare to other countries? 2) What financial services are available to different market segments? 3) How do different categories of financial institutions contribute to outreach, and what is their potential to expand outreach? 4) How does the regulatory environment support access to finance? 5) What financial infrastructure is available to make credit decisions?

Ownership and control over assets such as land and housing provide direct and indirect benefits to individuals and households, including a secure place to live, the means of a livelihood, protection during emergencies, and collateral for credit that can be used for investment or consumption. Unfortunately, few studies - either at the micro or macro levels- examine the gender dimensions of asset ownership. This paper sets out a framework for researchers who are interested in collecting data on individual level asset ownership and analyzing the gender asset gap.

Los últimos episodios de volatilidad extrema de los precios en los mercados agrícolas mundiales presagian mayores y más frecuentes amenazas a la seguridad alimentaria mundial. Para reducir la vulnerabilidad de los países, las políticas deberían equiparlos para que puedan hacer frente a los efectos adversos de una volatilidad extrema, y mejorar el funcionamiento del mercado.

In Canada, where public ownership of forestland is prevalent, a central decision facing policy makers is how to allocate timber resources to private forest companies. Debates tend to focus around what proportion of the annual harvest should be devoted to markets as opposed to long-term contracts. To give a guide to policy makers, we surveyed forest firms from New Zealand and Sweden where this decision is based purely on a commercial basis. On average, mills source fifty percent of their fibre from the market.

The emergence of markets for mitigation of climate change presents new opportunities for increasing economic and ecological returns to rangelands in developing countries. Improving rangeland management is a potentially significant source of mitigation from sequestration. It is appealing due to the likely links to sustainable agricultural development and poverty reduction. Many of the changes needed to sequester carbon are also associated with improved rangeland productivity and incomes.

Cambodia emerged in the early 1990s from 30 years of conflict, the brutal Khmer Rouge era, and a decade of Vietnamese occupation, with one of the world’s lowest per-capita incomes, and with social indicators far behind those of neighboring Southeast Asian countries. Physical infrastructure had been largely destroyed. United Nations intervention led to a peace agreement in 1991, a new constitution, elections, and formation of a coalition government, although a reduced level of conflict and political instability continued until the late 1990s.

The world development report 2010 estimates that an additional $200 billion per year of climate-related financing is needed in developing countries between now and 2030 to keep global average temperature rise within 2 degrees Celsius. Developing countries face increased financing challenges over coming decades as they seek to pursue economic development along a lower emission trajectory.

Globalisation impacts on local land markets and land-use, land transaction costs affect food prices, and the combined effect is particularly damaging to women who produce food and put food on the table for their families. Article examines what is attracting investors and market speculators into the farm and land sectors; what is at stake for small farmers – especially women farmers – and long-term impacts for food production and food security; and what action is needed to enable women to secure access to natural resource and land assets for current and future generations?

The World Bank Group (WBG) has been active in public and private sector pollution management for the past several decades. The Bank has mainstreamed environmental health concerns into its rural and urban services through projects that improved the management of solid and hazardous waste and wastewater, and controlled pollution related to a large variety of sectors including transport, industry, energy, and mining, with each decade having its flagship issues and projects.

The paper analyses the governance choices in production quota with the Flemish nutrient production rights as a case. A static model of quota trade in the short run shows the inefficiency of discrete non-auctioned trade with fixed transaction costs. This model also shows that an obligation to quota sellers to stop their production stimulates structural change. A dynamic model of trade indicates that the measures taken to prevent speculative behaviour causes inefficiencies and stimulates overuse of quota if the penalties are too low.

The objective of this article is to provide new empirical evidence on landlord-tenant choices of share versus cash-rent contracts in U.S. agriculture. The focus is on the contribution of explanatory variables that represent transaction costs, risk-sharing incentives, or both. An empirical model of contract choice is tested against the 1999 Agricultural Economics and Land Ownership Survey (AELOS) and finds mixed evidence for low transaction cost and risk-sharing-incentive motives for landlord-tenant choices of a share versus cash-rent contract.

This report on Sudan's Investment Climate Assessment (ICA) provides a baseline assessment of challenges to productivity, diversification and inclusion. Chapter 1 describes some of the questions underlying the three issues of competitiveness, diversification and broad-based growth. Chapter 2 analyzes firm performance and competitiveness. Chapter 3 discusses markets and trust. Chapter 4 describes the role of the financial sector. Chapter 5 analyses the informal sector. Chapter 6 discusses the conflict-affected private sector development.