This report examines the legal,
administrative, and regulatory barriers that are preventing
women in Kenya from contributing fully to the Kenyan
economy. Building on the 2004 Foreign Investment and
Advisory Service (FIAS) report, "Improving the
Commercial Legal Framework and Removing Administrative and
Regulatory Barriers to Investment," this study looks at
the bureaucratic barriers facing women in Kenya through a

There is compelling evidence of the
importance of gender equality for poverty reduction and
sustainable growth. So it should come as no surprise that
most development actors-international agencies, bilateral
donors, and most developing countries, have an official
policy for promoting gender equality. Millennium Development
Goal 3 (MDG3) on gender equality and women's
empowerment is shared global commitment. With only seven

Bringing together history and economics,
this paper presents a historical and processual
understanding of women's economic marginalization in
Sub-Saharan Africa from the pre-colonial period to the end
of colonial rule. It is not that women have not been
economically active or productive; it is rather that they
have often not been able to claim the proceeds of their
labor or have it formally accounted for. The paper focuses

The purpose of this Act, consisting of 123 sections divided into three Parts and four Schedules, is to give effect to certain provisions of the deed ofsettlement, which is a deed thatsettlesthe historical claims of Ngāti Pāhauwera.

Theft of public assets from developing
countries is an immense problem with a staggering
development impact. These thefts diverts valuable public
resources from addressing the abject poverty and fragile
infrastructure often present in such countries. Although the
exact magnitude of the proceeds of corruption circulating in
the global economy is impossible to ascertain, estimates
demonstrate the severity and scale of the problem at $20 to

This paper examines whether the son
preference and fertility behavior of Muslim couples respond
to the risk of inheritance expropriation by their extended
family. According to traditional Islamic inheritance
principles, only the son of a deceased man can exclude his
male agnates from inheritance and preserve his estate within
the nuclear household. The paper exploits cross-sectional
and time variation in the application of the Islamic

The institutional landscape of local
dispute resolution in Bangladesh is rich: it includes the
traditional process of shalish, longstanding and impressive
civil society efforts to improve on shalish, and a somewhat
less-explored provision for gram adalat or village courts.
Based on a nationally representative survey, qualitative
evidence from focus groups, and a telephone survey of 40
Union Parishad chairpersons (a little less than 1 percent of

The note is designed to assist Bank task
teams, working together with their country counterparts, who
may have varying levels of experience with promoting the
Rule of Law (ROL); some would be familiar with the African
context but not ROL, and for others, vice-versa. This note
may also represent a first introduction to ROL reform; for
those who have worked on such projects in the past, it
should supplement existing knowledge about this emerging

The study presents an analysis of the
situation of the Pygmies in Democratic Republic of Congo
(DRC), including their history and relations with the other,
mainly Bantu, populations. It provides a brief description
of their lifestyle, their socioeconomic status, and a
participatory diagnosis of the key factors that lead to
their current impoverishment and marginalization. The study
discusses the rationale for protecting Pygmy culture and

Little is known about the situation
facing widows and their dependent children in West Africa
especially after the widow remarries. Women in Malian
society are vulnerable to the loss of husbands especially in
rural areas. Households headed by widows have significantly
lower living standards on average than male or other female
headed households in both rural and urban areas; this holds
both unconditionally and conditional on observable household

The last two decades have witnessed a
growing recognition of the importance of taking cultural and
ethnic diversity into consideration when designing and
implementing development programs. As societies around the
world have become more culturally diverse, and the role
culture plays in the formation of identity has become better
understood, governments are beginning to pay greater
attention to the management of cultural diversity and are

Women's contributions to poverty
reduction, economic growth, and private sector development
are increasingly recognized globally. A growing amount of
research demonstrates the link between women's
empowerment and societal well-being. Yet research also
indicates that woman's economic contributions continue
to lag behind their achievements in health and education,
and a variety of barriers still prevent women in many parts