Environmental degradation primarily
affects the poor, both in rural and urban areas. Reversing
the downward spiral of this degradation is essential to any
strategy for reducing poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. This
study outlines the World Bank's strategy for improving
its assistance to SSA countries as they move toward
environmentally sustainable development (ESD). It assesses
the environmental situation and long-term trends in Africa,

The Niger Delta is one of the
world's largest wetlands and includes by far the
largest mangrove forest in Africa. Within this extremely
valuable ecosystem, oil activities are widespread - Rivers
State and Delta State produce 75 percent of Nigeria's
petroleum, which represents over 50 percent of national
government revenues. However, despite its vast oil reserves,
the region remains poor. Gross National product (GNP) per

Countries in transition from centrally
planned to market economies face several challenges when
planning investments. These include a lack of information
about beneficiary groups, particularly those in rural areas;
and the collapse of institutions maintained by the state
prior to transition. During preparation of the Estonia
Agriculture Project, the government sought World Bank
technical assistance to undertake a social assessment (SA)

Nigeria's urban infrastructure is
crumbling. Water supply, sewerage, sanitation, drainage,
roads, electricity, and waste disposal-all suffer from years
of serious neglect. Periodic and routine maintenance, by far
the most cost-effective infrastructure spending, is almost
zero. It has become the norm in Nigeria to wait for a
capital infusion to rehabilitate, replacing instead of
maintaining the infrastructure. But declining financial

About half of Kenya's rural
population (approximately 9 million people) was the poverty
line in 1992, a proportion unchanged from 1982. In urban
areas, approximately a million and a quarter persons or 30
percent of the population was below the poverty line. In the
early 1980s, Kenya's social indicators were distinctly
more favorable than those of most countries in the region,
and there was further progress. But many indicators

As countries develop, the demand for
water increases while water supply becomes less certain and
is often not enough to meet demand. In general, pressures
from both environment and human activities can increase the
likelihood of water scarcity. Such pressures include
increased socio-economic development and population growth,
change in people's diets, competition for available
water among different user sectors and growing climate

The authorities' determined implementation of stabilization measures over the past year has helped to avert a macroeconomic crisis. If the deterioration of the macroeconomic environment in 2010-11 was rapid, the improvement in the situation in the past twelve months has been equally swift. Regaining macroeconomic stability has been costly, but not stabilizing the economy would have led to even bigger losses.

Dzud is the Mongolian term for a winter weather disaster in which deep snow, severe cold, or other conditions render forage unavailable or inaccessible and lead to high livestock mortality. Dzud is a regular occurrence in Mongolia, and plays an important role in regulating livestock populations. However, dzud, especially when combined with other environmental or socio-economic stresses and changes, can have a significant impact on household well-being as well as local and national economies.

Urban sprawl has become a remarkable characteristic of urban development worldwide in the last decades. Urban sprawl refers to the extent of urbanization, which is a global phenomenon mainly driven by population growth and large scale migration. In developing countries like Iran, urban sprawl is taking its toll on the natural resources at an alarming pace. The purpose of this paper is to study urban growth and effective factors on them in the city of Urmia, Iran. We used quantitive data of the study area from the period between 1989 and 2007, and population censuses of Urmia.

Cognizant of the centrality of land policy issues in Africa, a joint initiative was undertaken by the African Union Commission (AUC), United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the African Development Bank (AfDB) in 2006, forming the genesis of the Land Policy Initiative (LPI). Through the LPI important actions and measures have been launched including a series of regional studies on land issues across Africa accompanied by rigorous consultations and discussions at regional and continental levels.

Municipal land sales provide one option for financing urban infrastructure investment. In countries where land is owned by the public sector, land is by far the most valuable asset on the municipal balance sheet. Selling land or long-term leasing rights to land use while investing the proceeds in infrastructure facilities can be viewed as a type of portfolio asset adjustment. This paper shows that in China many municipalities have financed more than half of their high rates of infrastructure investment from land sales, for periods of 10 to 15 years.

At the core of the very rapid growth in the number of urban dwellers living in illegal settlements is the gap between the cost or availability of legal land sites on which housing can be built and what most individuals or households can afford to pay for accommodation. For most cities, the problems are further exacerbated by the high spatial concentration of economic activities (and thus employment opportunities). This paper looks at the many ways in which governments can increase the supply and lower the cost of land for housing.