This article seeks to draw connections between a political ecology of global investment in resource sector development and a culturally informed understanding of rural out-migration across the Lao–Thai border. The author highlights how the departures of rural youth for wage labor in Thailand and the remittances they return to sending villages are becoming important for understanding agrarian transformations in Laos today. In the first section the author introduces the contemporary context of cross-border migrations across the Lao–Thai Mekong border.

This paper uses data collected in Thailand among permanent rural-urban migrants to analyse the motivations in land temporary transfers such as free loans or rentals. Land transfers are here looked at in a continuum and categorized according to three characteristics: the nature of the relationship between the parties of the exchange, the monetary nature of the payment as well as its explicit or imlicit nature. This methodology allows a richer typology than traditionnally used in empiric literature, and distinguishes between various loans that are not always free.

El presente documento se inserta en la identificación de prácticas y oportunidades para la ecoeficiencia en el sector de los residuos, presentando casos sobre la recuperación de áreas utilizadas para el vertido de residuos en Chile, trayendo consigo experiencias con beneficios invaluables, desde la perspectiva social, ambiental y de restauración paisajística, entendiéndola como el valor que marca y engrandece la creación de áreas verdes y espacios públicos a nivel de ciudad, haciendo sustentable el pasivo ambiental.

In Nederland zal het natter worden ten gevolge van de klimaatverandering. Meer regens, meer smeltwater in rivieren en een stijging van de zeespiegel zorgen voor een groter risico op overstromingen. Daarmee wordt klimaatverandering een niet weg te denken element in waterbeheer, kustverdediging, stedelijke ontwikkeling en natuurbeheer. Ieder ontwerp voor stedelijke of gebiedsontwikkeling zal rekening moeten houden met de mogelijke gevolgen van de opwarming van de aarde, of met een mooi woord ‘klimaatbestendig’ moeten zijn.

The efficiency and productivity of
Colombia's urban system will be a key determinant in
the ability of the country to transition from a middle
income to a higher-income economy. Colombia, as with most
Latin American countries, has experienced positive growth
rates in the past few years, mitigating the potential
adverse impacts of the global financial crisis. High
commodity prices as well as improvements in macroeconomic

This report investigates Egypt's
regional economic growth, explores the causes for
geographically unbalanced development, and proposes policy
options to make unbalanced growth compatible with inclusive
development. In Egypt, despite rapid progress in most
welfare indicators in lagging regions, there are still
substantial gaps in consumption and opportunities between
growth poles and the rest of the country. This report's

Informal settlements are a permanent
feature of South Africa's cities. Estimates from the
General Household Survey by Statistics South Africa show
that more than 26 percent of all households in the
country's six metropolitan areas live in informal
dwellings. The government's policy efforts have focused
on provision of subsidized housing, first introduced as part
of the Reconstruction and Development Program. Through the

The East Asian and Pacific region has
achieved tremendous progress in poverty reduction in recent
years. However, further progress in poverty reduction may be
undermined by the high levels of vulnerability in many
countries across the region. The term vulnerability is
viewed from an economic context, where it is conceived as
the likelihood of suffering from future deteriorations in
standard of living which may result in a state of poverty,

This report investigates Egypt's
regional economic growth, explores the causes for
geographically unbalanced development, and proposes policy
options to make unbalanced growth compatible with inclusive
development. Regional disparities in income and consumption
may be attributed to differences in natural endowments and
geographical location, but unbalanced growth is mostly due
to economies of scale, spillover effects, and the lower

Sri Lanka's country vision is to
become a global hub between the East and the West and an
upper middle-income country by 2016. Sri Lanka's urban
vision, as defined in the government's development
policy framework is to develop a system of competitive,
environmentally sustainable, well-linked cities clustered in
five metro regions and nine metro cities and to provide
every family with affordable and adequate urban shelter by