Municipalities in Mozambique were
established by law in 1997 and elected in 1998 for the first
time, only a few years after the peace agreement. Most
inherited archaic and dysfunctional remnants of colonial and
central government systems and infrastructure, and as such
limited progress was achieved in transforming them into
functioning local governments during the first mandate
(1998-2002). During the second mandate (2003-2008), however,

This report is the primary output from
the climate change impact and adaptation study for the
Bangkok Metropolitan Region (BMR) produced for the Bangkok
Metropolitan Administration (BMA) with financial support
provided by the World Bank. The report concerns climate
change, and provides an analysis of climate change impacts
and adaptation options for the BMR. In addition to the more
general matters on the physical setting and socioeconomics

Many countries succeed in generating
high economic growth at some point in their history. But
only a very few manage to sustain rapid growth for an
extended period. Only such a prolonged period of rapid
growth can have a significant impact on income per capita,
and such an impact often brings with it many other important
changes to people's lives. Cambodia has more than
doubled its income per capita over the past decade, from

This paper provides an overview of the
fiscal problems faced by five urban agglomerations in India,
namely, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennai, and Pune. It
analyzes the fiscal health of the five urban agglomerations,
quantifies their revenue capacities and expenditure needs,
and draws policy recommendations on the means to reduce the
gaps between revenue raising capacities and expenditure
needs. The main findings suggest that, except for five small

This paper uses district level data to
estimate the general relationship between climate, income
and life expectancy in Peru. The analysis finds that both
incomes and life expectancy show hump-shaped relationships,
with optimal average annual temperatures around 18-20ºC.
These estimated relationships were used to simulate the
likely effects of both past (1958-2008) and future
(2008-2058) climate change. At the aggregate level, future

The purpose of this Independence
Evaluation Group (IEG) special study is to illuminate the
scale and scope of Bank support for municipal development
and to draw specific lessons from the achievements and
failures of a sample of individual projects. The study
focuses on three dimensions of municipal management:
planning, finance, and service provision that figure
repeatedly in Bank financed municipal development projects

Trade policy reforms in recent decades
have sharply reduced the distortions that were harming
agriculture in developing countries, yet global trade in
farm products continues to be far more distorted than trade
in nonfarm goods. Those distortions reduce some forms of
poverty and inequality but worsen others, so the net effects
are unclear without empirical modeling. This paper
summarizes a series of new economy-wide global and national

Using a nested multinomial logit model
of car ownership and personal travel in Beijing circa 2005,
this paper compares the effectiveness of different policy
instruments to reduce traffic congestion and CO2 emissions.
The study shows that a congestion toll is more efficient
than a fuel tax in reducing traffic congestion, whereas a
fuel tax is more effective as a policy instrument for
reducing gasoline consumption and emissions. An improvement

The 2009 edition of the little green
data book includes a focus section, four introductory pages
that focus on a specific issue related to development and
the environment. This year the focus is on urban areas and
the environment, exploring how cities and climate change are
affecting the way we live and how good public policies can
improve prospects for future generations. Urbanization and
economic growth move in tandem. As emerging market economies

This paper assesses the state of
research and examines priorities for future work in the area
of urbanization and growth. This is done by reviewing and
summarizing the findings of five scoping papers covering the
following topics: urban poverty, the political economy of
urban poverty, urban real estate and housing, urban
infrastructure finance, and external assistance for urban development.

Today, 370 million people live in cities in earthquake prone areas and 310 million in cities with a high probability of tropical cyclones. By 2050 these numbers are likely to more than double, leading to a greater concentration of hazard risk in many of the world's cities. The authors discuss what sets hazard risk in urban areas apart, summarize estimates of valuation of hazard risk, and discuss implications for individual mitigation and public policy.

En Afrique, pres de 500 millions de personnes resident aujourd'hui dans des bidonvilles. La plupart de ces quartiers ne sont pas << en regle >> en matiere de foncier, d'habitat, d'amenagement ou de services. Les operations urbaines constituent un outil privilegie pour ameliorer les conditions de vie des habitants des quartiers precaires. Malgre des progres indeniables realises dans la derniere decennie, le bilan reste mitige, notamment en termes d'impacts social, economique, urbain et environnemental.