In past four years, the World Bank, in
close cooperation with the Government of Zimbabwe, and the
support of international partners - has carried out a number
of studies and technical assistance activities in key areas
of the socio-economic recovery. In line with Bank’s Africa
strategy of fostering Africa’s economic transformation and
poverty reduction, the overall goal of these studies has
been to support broad-based development of Zimbabwe by

This module provides guidance and a
comprehensive menu of practical tools for integrating gender
in the planning, design, implementation, and evaluation of
projects and investments in climate-smart agriculture (CSA).
The module emphasizes the importance and ultimate goal of
integrating gender in CSA practices, which is to reduce
gender inequalities and ensure that men and women can
equally benefit from any intervention in the agricultural

The Government of Benin has requested an
update of the 2005 Diagnostic Trade Integration Study and
has asked the World Bank to take the leading role in this
exercise. The update’s objectives are to (a) take stock of
progress in the mainstreaming of trade in the government’s
national development strategy and of implementation of the
Action Matrix recommendations; (b) complement and deepen the
analysis in selected areas; and (c) revise and update the

Mauritania is a vast country covering
over a million square kilometers, where a relatively small
population of 3.5 million people lives on just one-fifth of
the country’s total area. With extremely advanced
desertification, the country is particularly vulnerable to
the impact of climate change and other external shocks. The
main sources of income in Mauritania are agriculture, which
is either irrigated or rain-fed, and livestock. This is

This reports focus is making global
value chains (GVCs) more inclusive. This is achieved by
overcoming participation constraints for Small and Medium
Enterprises (SMEs) and facilitation access for Low Income
Developing Countries (LIDCs).The two major points of this
report are 1) participation in GVCs is heterogeneous and
uneven, across and within countries and 2) available data
and survey-based evidence suggest that SME participation in

The Philippines is among the strongest performers in the region, bucking the trend. In the first half (H1) of 2015, among the major economies in the region, the only countries to accelerate their quarterly growth rates were the Philippines, from 5 to 5.6 percent, and Vietnam. In spite of this acceleration, for the two quarters combined, Philippine growth rate came out at 5.3 percent—its lowest half year growth rate since 2011. On the demand side, the strong performance of private domestic demand at 8.1 percent, supported by record low inflation and robust remittances, drove GDP growth.

This paper presents early evidence from
the first large-scale randomized-controlled trial of a land
formalization program. The study examines the links between
land demarcation and investment in rural Benin in light of a
model of agricultural production under insecure tenure. The
demarcation process involved communities in the mapping and
attribution of land rights; cornerstones marked parcel
boundaries and offered lasting landmarks. Consistent with

Over the last century, the urban spatial
structure of cities has transformed dramatically from the
traditional monocentric configuration to varying forms of
decentralized organization. This paper reviews the theory
and empirical evidence to understand the urban morphology of
jobs and land use within a city. This survey highlights four
broad insights: (i) The evolution of monocentric to
polycentric centers has been accompanied by structural

Well-managed urbanization can accelerate
Cote d’Ivoire’s ascendance to middle incomes. Such a large
gap in gross national income (GNI) per capita means that the
underlining economic drivers of urbanization are not being
fully harnessed in Cote d’Ivoire. Small cities at low
urbanization level facilitate internal scale economies, such
as hosting a large firm transforming local agricultural
products. Secondary cities at intermediate urbanization

Social norms affect almost every aspect
of people’s lives, and can be an obstacle to or support
economic development. This paper outlines what social norms
are and how they work, providing examples from everyday life
and from development case studies. Sometimes not much can be
done about changing undesirable social norms. In those
cases, development economists need to be aware of how the
existence of those norms can impact the effects of the

This study exploits a natural experiment
to investigate the impact of land reform on the fertility
outcomes of households in rural Ethiopia. Public policies
and customs created a situation where Ethiopian households
could influence their usufruct rights to land via a
demographic expansion of the family. The study evaluates the
impact of the abolishment of these pronatal property rights
on fertility outcomes. By matching aggregated census data

The Greenprint 2030 is a resolute
attempt on the part of MMDA to engage all stakeholders in a
process to create a common vision for the region’s future.
For the first time, all 16 cities and one municipality
comprising Metro Manila are linked under one vision that
sets developmental priorities for the region and provides
direction to achieve those priorities. The vision is
formulated within the wider Mega Manila context, considering