The Strategic Environmental and Social
Assessment (SESA) of the mining sector in Sierra Leone was
undertaken in response to the Government of Sierra
Leone's (GOSL) request for assistance in developing its
minerals policy. The SESA will help meet long-term country
development by integrating environmental and social
considerations in mining sector reforms. The crucial aspect
of the SESA process is that the environmental and social

The objective of this study, requested
by the Minister of Housing, Utilities and Urban Development,
is to assist the government of Egypt in: formulating a
coherent national affordable housing strategy which puts in
place an effective institutional and regulatory framework
that creates the necessary conditions for an efficiently
functioning housing market, devises the incentive structure
needed to promote increased private sector participation in

Business development has been one of the main forces behind rapid poverty reduction in Vietnam. Together with the redistribution of agricultural land, and the broad coverage of social services, it allowed a large fraction of the population to engage in more productive occupations and raise their living standards. But businesses are still struggling with important constraints.

This report seeks to present micro
evidence on how environmental changes affect poor
households. It focuses primarily on environmental resources
that are outside the private sphere, particularly commonly
held and managed resources such as forests, fisheries, and
wildlife. The objectives for this volume are three-fold. It
is first interested in using an empirical data-driven
approach to examine the dependence of the poor on natural

China has been the most rapidly growing
economy in the world over the past 25 years. This growth has
fueled a remarkable increase in per capita income and a
decline in the poverty rate from 64 percent at the beginning
of reform to 10 percent in 2004. At the same time, however,
different kinds of disparities have increased. Income
inequality has risen, propelled by the rural-urban income
gap and by the growing disparity between highly educated

This paper tests the hypothesis that
enterprises may forgo formal finance in lieu of informal
credit by choice. They do so to avoid the additional
regulatory scrutiny and harassment that engaging with the
formal financial sector invites. We test this hypothesis
using enterprise-level data on 3,564 enterprises in 29
countries. In this sample, enterprises finance
approximately 57 percent of their working capital

Indigenous peoples make up less than 5
percent of the world's population, yet comprise 15
percent of the world's poor. The indigenous population
of Latin America is estimated at 28 million. Despite
significant changes in poverty overall, the proportion of
indigenous peoples in the region living in poverty - at
almost 80 percent - did not change much from the early 1990s
to the early 2000s. Economic Opportunities for Indigenous

In 2006 most of the people of Uganda,
with the notable exception of those in the conflict-blighted
Northern Region, enjoy a better quality of life and brighter
opportunities in a stable and growing economy. Uganda's
economy has bounced back beyond what could be regarded as
recovery, with real incomes per person now exceeding the
levels reached at Independence in 1962. The report structure
is as follows: volume one synthesizes the conclusions from

The migration of labor from rural to urban areas is an important part of the urbanization process in developing countries. Even though it has been the focus of abundant research over the past five decades, some key policy questions have not found clear answers yet. To what extent is internal migration a desirable phenomenon and under what circumstances? Should governments intervene and, if so, with what types of interventions? What should be their policy objectives?

This study assesses the development
effectiveness of World Bank assistance in addressing
constraints to agricultural development in Africa over the
period of fiscal years 1991-2006. This Independent
Evaluation Group (IEG) review of World Bank assistance to
agriculture in Africa has a twofold purpose. First, it is a
pilot for the proposed IEG study on Bank-wide assistance in
agriculture scheduled for fiscal year 2009. Second, the

The purpose of this book is to
contribute to the debate on how to confront the challenges
that Bolivia faces today. It is composed of a series of
studies on the current reality of Bolivia and has been
developed in conjunction with national and international
public policy experts. The studies present a diagnostic by
sector, a summary of the main challenges, and public policy
recommendations aimed at meeting these challenges. After

Despite significant changes in poverty
overall in Latin America, the proportion of indigenous
peoples living in poverty did not change much from the early
1990s to the present. While earlier work focused on human
development, much less has been done on the distribution and
returns to income-generating assets and the effect these
have on income generation strategies. The authors show that
low income and low assets are mutually reinforcing. For