Over the past 10 years, transnational land grabs for rubber tree plantations have proliferated across Laos. Plantation concessions are being established on village lands that are represented as ‘degraded’ and legally classified as ‘state forests’, expropriated by government officials in the name of poverty alleviation with promises that plantations will provide new wage labour opportunities for those dispossessed.

Understanding the cost of inaction and beneftis of action are important in order for all stakeholders to be able to make sound, informed decisions about the amount and type of investments in land they make. Even though techniques for sustainable land management are known, many barriers remain and the financial and economic aspects are often put forward as primary obstacles. If the full value of land is not understood by all stakeholders, it may not be sustainable managed, leaving future generations with diminished choices and options to secure human and environmental well-being.

This note is a summary of a report that
considers urban areas as the complement to rural areas that
will allow the Plurinational State of Bolivia to achieve the
goals set forth in its Patriotic Agenda for the Bicentennial
2025. The report uses data available at the national level
from censuses and household surveys from the National
Statistics Institute (INE) and the Social and Economic
Policy Analysis Unit of the Ministry of Development Planning

Renato and Hecinta are raising six young
children in a rural area of Mozambique’s northern Nampula
Province. On just half a hectare, they grow rice, maize,
beans, cashew, peanuts, cabbage, and tomatoes, selling what
they can and eating the rest. But, like many of the 475
million smallholder household’s worldwide, agricultural
production is just one of their many income-generating
activities. They balance several sources of income, within

Policy makers in developing countries,
including India, are increasingly sensitive to the links
between spatial transformation and economic development.
However, the empirical knowledge available on those links is
most often insufficient to guide policy decisions. There is
no shortage of case studies on urban agglomerations of
different sorts, or of benchmarking exercises for states and
districts, but more systematic evidence is scarce. To help

People living in poverty are
particularly vulnerable to shocks, including those caused by
natural disasters such as floods and droughts. Previous
studies in local contexts have shown that poor people are
also often overrepresented in hazard-prone areas. However,
systematic evidence across countries demonstrating this
finding is lacking. This paper analyzes at the country level
whether poor people are disproportionally exposed to floods

The growing availability of free or
inexpensive satellite imagery has inspired many researchers
to investigate the use of earth observation data for
monitoring economic activity around the world. One of the
most popular earth observation data sets is the so-called
nighttime lights from the Defense Meteorological Satellite
Program. Researchers have found positive correlations
between nighttime lights and several economic variables.

This paper analyzes environmental
reliance, poverty, and climate vulnerability among more than
7,300 households in forest adjacent communities in 24
developing countries. The data are from the detailed,
quarterly income recording done by the Poverty Environment
Network project. Observed income is combined with predicted
income (based on households’ assets and other
characteristics) to create four categories of households:

Tajikistan’s economy exceeded
expectations during the first six months of 2015 despite a
challenging external environment. According to official
data, GDP growth slowed only moderately from 6.7 percent in
the first half of 2014 to 6.4 percent year on year (y/y) in
the first half of 2015, even as remittances from Russia
fell, global demand weakened, and prices for the country’s
key export commodities such as aluminum and cotton dropped

Bulgaria experienced strong economic
growth prior to and shortly after joining the European Union
(EU) in 2007. Under the better regulation program, the
government adopted over 100 measures to reduce the
regulatory and administrative burden, but no formal
mechanism was introduced to regularly monitor and review its
implementation at the national or municipal level. Some
areas, in which entrepreneurs expected to see improved

Poland’s economic growth over the last
25 years has been spectacular. In that period, Poland has
more than doubled its income per capita and became a
European growth champion. It was the only EU country to
avoid a recession in 2009. Its current GDP growth rate is
strong. Poland seems to be on the brink of its new ‘golden
age.’ Doing Business in Poland 2015 is the first subnational
report of the Doing Business series in Poland. It measures