Although the potentially negative
impacts of credit constraints on economic development have
long been discussed conceptually, empirical evidence for
Africa remains limited. This study uses a direct elicitation
approach for a national sample of Rwandan rural households
to assess empirically the extent and nature of credit
rationing in the semi-formal sector and its impact using an
endogenous sample separation between credit-constrained and

Across the developing world, public
goods exert significant impacts on the local rural economy
in general and agricultural productivity and welfare
outcomes in particular. Economic and social-cultural
heterogeneity have, however, long been documented as
detrimental to collective capacity to provide public goods.
In particular, women are often under-represented in local
leadership and decision-making processes, as are young

The present report spotlights the major
challenges and the opportunities that lie ahead in fecal
sludge management and summarizes the findings from four case
studies that describe the current and potential market for
sludge removal, collection, and disposal in peri-urban
areas. These areas, inhabited by a variety of ethnic,
religious, and cultural groups, typically struggle with high
population density, insufficient land use planning, high

Brazil low carbon country case study was
two years in the making based on a study by the World Bank
assisted by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP)
and the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP).
It supports Brazil's integrated effort towards reducing
national and global-emissions GHG while promoting long-term
development. It builds on the best available knowledge and
is underpinned by a broad consultative process and survey of

This study, the first to concentrate on
Bangladesh's energy systems and their effects on the
lives of rural people, drew on these background studies, as
well as other World Bank-financed research on IAP and rural
infrastructure, to present a rural energy strategy for the
country. The study's broad aim was to identify ways to
improve the living standard in rural Bangladesh through
better and more efficient use of energy, while creating an

Albania provides a small amount of
social assistance to nearly 20 percent of its population
through a system that allows some community discretion in
determining distribution. This study investigates how well
this social assistance program is targeted to the poor.
Relative to other safety net programs in low-income
countries, social assistance in Albania is fairly well
targeted. Nevertheless, the system is hampered by the

This case study has been produced in response to a request to the Evidence on Demand Helpdesk. The objective of the request was to provide a detailed case study on the approach taken to land tenure reform by the DFID-funded Land Tenure Regularisation Programme (LTRSP) in Rwanda. The case study should provide the reader with an understanding of how land tenure reform can work under particular social, political and economic conditions, as well as the approach taken to ensure gender equality in land rights.

March 2014 – This paper assesses the extent to which Rwanda’s progressive legal framework has eliminated gender-based discrimination in access and control over land by taking a nuanced look at women’s ability to make land-related decisions and at the factors that affect their decision-making power.

March 2014 – Odisha, a state on the eastern coast of India, has endeavored over the years to enact laws aimed at providing land to those cultivating it and redistributing ownership of land. Landesa designed and piloted a model where a local youth (called a Community Resource Person) – identified by the community – is trained to provide additional capacity to local government land administration officials to identify and provide title to the formerly landless families. This model was subsequently scaled to cover 1,042 villages in seven districts of the state.

Paper discusses Zambia’s dual land tenure system, the ways in which gender issues have been incorporated in legal and policy documents, and the extent to which this has been reflected in practice. It also examines the role of donors in legal and policy processes and donor support to civil society in relation to women’s land rights. Gender and land policies provide for the allocation of land to women, but have little impact on the ground. Customary law is on the whole discriminatory against women, in particular with regard to land ownership.

Land rights for women are important to
women's overall role in the household economy. In most
Europe and Central Asia (ECA) countries, women have equal
rights to land by law, but practice varies widely across the
region. Improving gender outcomes in land administration is
therefore related more to education and the need to change
norms and habits than it is to a specific legislative
problem. Access to gender-disaggregated data and the

This paper presents a new type of land
market analysis relevant to cities with plural tenure
systems as in West Africa. The methodology hinges on a
systemic analysis of land delivery channels, which helps to
show how land is initially made available for circulation,
how tenure can be formalized incrementally, and the
different means whereby households can access land. The
analysis is applied to the area of Bamako in Mali, where