Over the past dozen years, policymakers
have largely abandoned long-standing popular approaches for
addressing risk in agriculture without fully resolving the
question of how best to manage the negative consequences of
volatile agricultural markets. The article reviews the
transition from past policies and describes current
approaches that distinguish between the trade-related fiscal
consequences of commodity market volatility and the

This paper analyzes real estate market dynamics over the past decade in the city of Ahmedabad, India, with a view to improving the living conditions of the large population living in slums. The paper combines census data, the National Sample Survey, and slum household surveys to review the demand side of the market. Satellite photography was used to estimate the production of both formal and informal housing over the past ten years. Analysis of the execution of the development plan for the Ahmedabad region and town planning schemes shows how the system of housing supply has evolved.

The countries in Central and Eastern Europe began a remarkable transition from a centrally-planned economy towards a market economy in 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell and the Iron Curtain lifted. Land reforms with the objective to privatize state-owned agricultural land, managed by large-scale collective and state farms, were high on the political agenda in most countries of the region at the beginning of the transition. More than 20 years later the stage of implementation of land reform varies.

Cities emerge from the spatial concentration of people and economic activities. But spatial concentration is not enough; the economic viability of cities depends on people, ideas, and goods to move rapidly across the urban area. This constant movement within dense cities creates wealth but also various degrees of unpleasantness and misery that economists call negative externalities, such as congestion, pollution, and environmental degradation.

Inexorable urbanization and formalization have been the expectations in development discourse. Indeed, measures of urbanization and formalization have been provided and used as indicators of development. But while urbanization has proceeded apace in developing countries, formalization has slowed significantly over the past quarter century. These disconnect raises questions for development analysis and development policy. Why did one expect urbanization and formalization to go together in the first place?

This article traces the revenue category and legal concept of the Waste Land in Burma/Myanmar
from its original application by the British colonial apparatus in the nineteenth century, to its
later use in tandem with Burma Army counterinsurgent tactics starting in the 1960s, and finally
to the 2012 land laws and current issues in international investment. This adaptation of colonial
ideas about territorialization in the context of an ongoing civil war offers a new angle for under-

This study uses a newly compiled database of women's property rights and legal capacity covering 100 countries over 50 years to test for the impact of legal reforms on employment, health, and education outcomes for women and girls. The database demonstrates gender gaps in the ability to access and own property, sign legal documents in one's own name, and have equality or non-discrimination as a guiding principle of the country's constitution. In the initial period, 75 countries had gender gaps in at least one of these areas and often multiple ones.

Mexico needs to broaden and deepen its
financial system without compromising the financial
stability gains of the last decade. Much more private
investment is needed to transform the economy to boost
productivity, and despite improvements in recent years, many
households and firms still lack adequate access to financial
services. Strengthening competition and streamlining key
regulations for firms are key to increasing Mexico's

The Government of Indonesia (GOI) is in
the process of designing a national REDD+ mechanism to allow
it to access donor funding in the medium term, and funding
from a potential performance based mechanism in the long
term. This policy brief is focused on the broad question of
how REDD+ can address underlying community issues such as
lack of access to forest land, and does not deal with the
more specific questions of legal and institutional

This policy note provides a summary of
extensive analysis carried out on urban poverty in Indonesia
today and a review of main urban poverty programs, with the
objective of providing the basis for an urban poverty
reduction strategy. A second policy note, 'Indonesia:
evaluation of the urban Community-Driven Development, or CDD
program, Program Nasional Pemberdayaan Masyarakat
(PNPM)' summarizes a more detailed process evaluation

Risk-sensitive land use planning is
vital for sustainable economic development and effective
Disaster Risk Management (DRM). Urban development programs
should adopt risk-sensitive land use planning to encourage
resilient development guiding the growth of people, assets
and services within and away from hazardous zones. Many East
Asia and the Pacific (EAP) countries have national land use
policy and local plans which incorporate risk assessments;