The purpose of the Third Overall Performance Study (OPS3), commissioned by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Council, is "to assess the extent to which GEF has achieved, or is on its way towards achieving its main objectives, as laid down in the GEF Instrument and subsequent decisions by the GEF Council and the Assembly, including key documents such as the Operational Strategy and the Policy Recommendations agreed as part of the Third Replenishment of the GEF Trust Fund." (GEF/C.23/4) The OPS3 team recognizes that this study is taking place at a critical time and will provide input that

The authors describe and analyze water resources reform and decentralization of river basin management in the state of Ceara, Northeast Brazil, the poorest part of the country. The Jaguaribe river basin is located entirely within the state of Ceara. With a drainage area of 72,560 square kilometers, it covers almost half of the state's territory. The basin has 80 municipalities and more than 2 million people, about half rural and half urban, in primarily small towns, representing about a third of Ceara's population.

The objective of this study is to raise awareness and understanding of exposure and vulnerability to drought in Central Asian countries and the Caucasus and to introduce a strategic, pro-active framework of mitigation and prevention. The audiences of the report are the governments of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia in the Caucasus and Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and the Kyrgyz Republic in Central Asia. The report will further be of interest to NGOs and civil society, as well as donors.

The author looks at the feasibility and potential of instituting small-scale irrigation dams to reduce Ethiopia s dependence on rainfed agriculture and the associated food insecurity. He develops a theoretical framework to assess the welfare implications of irrigation development programs and provides empirical evidence from microdam construction and reforestation projects in northern Ethiopia. The author pays particular attention to health-related costs of establishing small-scale irrigation dams in areas prone to waterborne diseases.

Although early attempts at land titling
in Africa were often unsuccessful, the need to secure rights
in view of increased demand for land, options for
registration of a continuum of individual or communal rights
under new laws, and the scope for reducing costs by
combining information technology with participatory methods
have led to renewed interest. This paper uses a
difference-in-difference approach to assess economic impacts

Stakeholders' perceptions of
opportunities and constraints to sustainable land management
in Ethiopia was assessed through interviews and a review of
secondary data. Stakeholders included farmers as well as
representatives of development agencies, agricultural
organizations, donors, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs),
and agricultural research systems. Stakeholders generally
perceive that the numerous, well-intentioned but piecemeal

This sourcebook is intended to be a
ready reference for practitioners (including World Bank
stakeholders, clients in borrowing countries, and World Bank
project leaders) seeking state-of-the-art information about
good land management approaches, innovations for
investments, and close monitoring for potential scaling up.
This sourcebook is divided into three parts: the first part
identifies the need and scope for sustainable land

In every region of the world, the
intensification of crop-based agriculture has been
associated with a sharp increase in the use of chemical
fertilizer. Given the generally low levels of fertilizer use
in Africa, there can be little doubt that fertilizer use
must increase in Africa if the region is to meet its
agricultural growth targets, poverty reduction goals, and
environmental sustainability objectives. For this reason,

There is increasing interest in climate
change issues in Indonesia particularly in the lead-up to
the COP13 or Copenhagen meeting in Bali in December 2007
when there was renewed focus on Indonesia as the third
largest emitter of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the world due
to deforestation, peat-land degradation, and forest fires.
In Indonesia, the agriculture sector employs the largest
share, 45 percent, of Indonesia's labor and contributes

The analysis of the cost of
environmental degradation conducted as part of the country
environmental analysis (CEA) shows that the most costly
problems associated with environmental degradation are urban
and indoor air pollution; inadequate water supply,
sanitation, and hygiene; natural disasters (such as flooding
and landslides); and land degradation. The burden of these
costs falls most heavily on vulnerable segments of the

The workshop brings diverse perspectives
from outside the World Bank, providing a forum in which to
exchange ideas and debate in the course of developing the
World Development Report (WDR). Participants at the 2006
Berlin Workshop gathered to discuss challenges and successes
pertaining to agriculture and development. Agriculture is
the major sector contributing to economic development in
many poor countries. Three out of every four poor people in

This study reviews how the integration of environmental concerns into agriculture and forestry is progressing in the countries of Southeastern Europe (SEE) and of Eastern Europe, Caucasus, and Central Asia (EECCA) since 2000 and assesses prospects for the future. The present report is a contribution to the environment for Europe process. At the Fifth Ministerial Conference in Kiev in 2003, participants decided to pay greater attention to the needs of the EECCA and adopted an environmental strategy for the sub-region.