This paper discusses the social impacts
of Costa Rica's Payments for Environmental Services
(PSA) program and their effect on rural poverty. Although
the analysis is hampered by significant information gaps, we
believe that the PSA Program has probably managed to have an
impact on the poor. This impact is almost certainly positive
on the poor who were able to participate, but is difficult
to quantify. However, except for very few cases, it seems

It has often been assumed that payments
for watershed services (PWS) would go mostly to poor land
users, thus contributing to poverty reduction, but there has
been little empirical verification to date. This paper uses
data from highland Guatemala to assess the potential for PWS
to reduce poverty by examining whether the recipients of
payments for environmental services are likely to be poor.
The watersheds in which PWS would be feasible due to the

This report highlights the discussion,
processes, lessons learned in examining innovative options
for participation by all stakeholders in seeking new social
and economic contracts between civil society and urban
governments. The improvement in relationships is geared
towards providing better services for urban poor and
directly contributing to urban poverty alleviation. The
report attempts to capture the new wave of enthusiasm and

The author explores the issue of urban
over-concentration econometrically, using data from a panel
of 80 to 100 countries every 5 years from 1960 to 1995. He
finds the following: 1) At any level of development there is
indeed a best degree or national urban concentration. It
increases sharply as income rises, up to a per capita income
of about $ 5,000 (Penn World table purchasing parity
income), before declining modestly. The best degree of

The trend toward ever greater urbanization continues unabated across the globe. According to the United Nations, by 2025 closes to 5 billion people will live in urban areas. Many cities, especially in the developing world, are set to explode in size. Over the next decade and a half, Lagos is expected to increase its population 50 percent, to nearly 16 million. Naturally, there is an active debate on whether restricting the growth of megacities is desirable and whether doing so can make residents of those cities and their countries better off.

This paper focuses on three interrelated questions on urbanization and the geography of development. First, although we herald cities with their industrial bases as "engines of growth," does industrialization in fact drive urbanization? While such relationships appear in the data, the process is not straightforward. Among developing countries, changes in income or industrialization correlate only weakly with changes in urbanization. This suggests that policy and institutional factors may also influence the urbanization process.

The great 21st-century migration into cities will present both a great challenge for humanity and a significant opportunity for global economic growth. This paper describes the diverse patterns that define this metropolitan migration. It then lays out a framework for understanding the costs and benefits of new arrivals through migration's externalities and the challenges and policy tradeoffs that confront city stakeholders.

Madagascar has been entirely
unsuccessful in reducing the number of its people that are
poor, or extremely so, in the ten years since 2001, when
poverty was already at a very high level. This well-known
conclusion draws on the analysis of three successive rounds
of the national household expenditure surveys (enquete
periodiques aupres des menages, EPM) conducted by the
Madagascar National Institute of Statistics (INSTAT) in

El Barrio de Ykua Porâ en Chino Cue, Paraguay, es una extensa comunidad campesina generada a partir de una ocupación colectiva pionera. Unas 60 familias forman parte de la asociación de productores y productoras. La tenencia de la tierra es familiar. Cada familia porta un título provisorio emitido en 2010 por el INDERT, que les permite hacer gestiones ante instituciones estatales y privadas.

The objective of this study is to
develop an integrated basin planning framework for analyzing
and prioritizing water resources development options in
Afghanistan, and to demonstrate its application in the Kabul
River basin. Accordingly, the study focuses on the tasks of:
(a) analyzing the medium and long-term options for
developing the water resources of the Kabul River basin for
multiple purposes, including domestic and industrial water

The overall goal of this report and the
accompanying report summarizing the findings and
recommendations, both based on the economic and sector work
(ESW), is to advance the understanding and integration in
operational terms of environmental water allocation into
integrated water resources management. The specific
objectives of the reports are the following: 1) document the
changing understanding of environmental flows, both by water

The objective of this paper is to review
experience with completed country environmental analysis
(CEAs) to improve the effectiveness of CEAs as a strategic
analytical tool. Through in-depth analysis of the process,
methodologies, costs, and results of completed CEA pilots,
the paper assesses how effective CEAs have been in informing
and providing strategic guidance to the Bank and client
countries on environment-development issues and the extent