The SWSR is a reference document on the status of global soil resources that provides regional assessments of soil change. The information is based on peer-reviewed scientific literature, complemented with expert knowledge and project outputs. It provides a description and a ranking of ten major soil threats that endanger ecosystem functions, goods and services globally and in each region separately. Additionally, it describes direct and indirect pressures on soils and ways and means to combat s oil degradation.

In West Africa, many countries are adversely affected by the effects of desertification, land degradation and drought(DLDD), with climate change also increasingly making an impact on local livelihoods. The most visible consequences are a loss of soil fertility and a reduction in agricultural productivity, which can lead to food and social crises and, consequently, to increased poverty. Furthermore, farmers are often forced to exploit the land to its maximum capacity in order to obtain good yields and to avoid the risk of famine.

A situational analysis on artisan mining was conducted in five Regional States
of Ethiopia, namely Oromia, Tigray, SNNP, Benishangul-Gumuz (BGR) and
Amhara as part of the EEITI process. The general objective of the study
is to analyze various aspects of artisan mining operations in Ethiopia, its economic
value, social contribution and social impacts. In addition, the assessment includes as
to what process could be undertaken to integrate artisan mining information into
EITI reports and EITI processes.

This report summarizes the key outcomes of the national efforts carried out in 2014 and 2015 towards putting in practice the land degradation neutrality concept. The LDN project, which was sponsored by the Republic of Korea, was carried out with the support of the UNCCD Secretariat and implemented in partnership with the Joint Research Center of the European Commission and CAP 2100 International.

Despite myriad challenges, Kenya has emerged in recent years as one of Africa’s frontier economies, with headline growth in the most recent decade propelling the country toward middle-income status. Less well understood is how risk dynamics associated with production, markets, and policy adversely impact sector performance, in terms of both influencing ex ante decision making among farmers, traders, and other sector stakeholders and causing ex post losses to crops, livestock, and incomes - destabilizing livelihoods and jeopardizing the country’s food security.

This assessment presents a synthesis of analysis to contribute to the definition of a lower carbon and greener growth path for Romania to 2050. The objective of Romania’s green growth path is to implement mitigation actions and undertake needed adaptation while preserving growth and employment. Romania has maintained a steady growth in output while containing the growth of its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. From now to 2050, real incomes in Romania are expected to continue to grow, and its carbon emissions are expected to continue declining.

This work summarizes background papers prepared for the World Bank Group with significant input from government counterparts and other development partners. It takes stock of major recent developments and argues that a lot has been achieved in the last decade in terms of production of commodities for export and food consumption, with favorable impact on rural poverty reduction. It also argues that the two factors driving the recent agricultural performance, namely favorable international prices and expansion of the agricultural frontier, have reached their limits.

Biofuels may make a substantial contribution to meeting the world’s energy needs. That contribution may come sooner and be greater if there is a strong climate policy to reduce greenhouse gases and biofuels can be produced in a way that minimizes greenhouse gas emissions. We investigate the land use implications of biofuels under different policy conditions using a computable general equilibrium model of the world economy that has been adapted to explicitly consider land use change.

Until recently public efforts to encourage conservation on private land in many countries has primarily been through uniform payment policies. Auctions are increasingly used as a payment mechanism to acquire public benefits such as conservation actions that provide environmental improvements on private land (e.g. the US Conservation Reserve Program (CRP).

The agglomeration bonus literature has not recognized the potential of conditional agreements to overcome the informational requirements, particularly those of landowners, necessary to induce spatially coordinated land conservation. The model presented in this paper shows that the net social benefits produced by a conditional agglomeration bonus program are at least as large as those produced by a traditional uniform subsidy whenever the benefit function exhibits threshold effects and the uniform and CAB subsidies are equal.

The objective of this transport component of the broader Africa Climate Business Plan (ACBP) is to begin to mainstream climate benefits into the World Bank’s transport program for Sub-Saharan Africa, the better to assist African countries in bringing their climate change efforts to scale.

Although recent developments greatly increased interest in African land tenure, few models to address these issues at the required scale have been identified or evaluated. Rwanda.s nation-wide land tenure regularization programme is of great interest.