After decades of growth and
experimentation, financial service providers (FSPs) have
learned that to achieve financial inclusion and generate
benefits for lower-income clients, one must be
customer-centric. The products should be designed to help
the poor improve lives, and service delivery must be
responsible, transparent, fair, and safe. Decision-making at
each level of the business should place customers at the

Position papers distributed to the 2,000 people who attended the South African Government’s National Land Tenure Summit, 4-6 September 2014. Comprises: Strengthening the Relative Rights of People Working on Land; Extension of Security of Tenure Amendment Bill; Communal Land Tenure Policy; Communal Property Associations; Agricultural Landholdings Policy; State Land Lease and Disposal Policy. Also an Oped by Ruth Hall, Secure tenure rights or share-holding for farm workers: will government listen?

Guest commentary by Matt Sommerville, Chief of Party for USAID Tenure and Global Climate Change (TGCC) project.
Tenure and New York Declaration on Forests

In Forécariah, Guinea, a remote-controlled mini-helicopter provided in cooperation with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) is helping the Government of Guinea and the local community aerially map the most likely locations of diamond deposits. That information will enable miners to lease parcels of land that are more likely to generate a return on their investment, the Government of Guinea to better monitor and regulate artisanal mining, and farmers to grow crops on surrounding land with fewer conflicts.

This report is based on research conducted throughout 2011–2012 in cooperation
with Ukrainian agricultural producer Mriya Agro Holding to assess
the country’s potential for producing cellulose from straw.
The objective of this report is to demonstrate – for the country’s decisionmakers,
agribusinesses, paper-industry players and financial institutions –
how Ukraine’s available supply of straw could be efficiently used to produce
paper and cardboard, through the implementation of a major straw-tocellulose
program.

This Africa's pulse newsletter
includes the following headings: recent economic trends;
global economic developments; and trends and outlook for
Sub-Saharan Africa.

The Africa Gas Initiative (AGI) has been
established by the Oil and Gas Division of the World Bank,
to promote the utilization of natural gas in Sub-Saharan
Africa. The study focuses on coastal countries - Angola,
Cameroon, Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, and Gabon - along the
West African coastline, and the Gulf of Guinea, where most
of the region's gas reserves are located, and where
significant proportions of the gas produced, is being wasted

Understanding Changes in Poverty brings
together different methods to decompose the contributions to
poverty reduction. A simple approach quantifies the
contribution of changes in demographics, employment,
earnings, public transfers, and remittances to poverty
reduction. A more complex approach quantifies the
contributions to poverty reduction from changes in
individual and household characteristics, including changes

Long cargo dwell times in ports are a
critical issue in Sub-Saharan African countries since they
result in slow import processes and are bound to
dramatically reduce trade. The main objective of this study
is to analyze long dwell times' causes in ports in
Sub-Saharan Africa from a shipper's perspective. The
findings point to the crucial importance of private sector
practices and incentives. The authors argue in the case of

Over the past few decades, the World
trading system has become increasingly more open. Tariff
rates have been reduced and quantitative restrictions
(quotas) have been progressively eliminated, e.g. the
Multi-Fiber Agreement (MFA). Most countries have adopted
more outward-looking economic policies, seeking to increase
growth and employment through expanding exports. Such
outward looking policies have even been adopted by countries

An essential part of the Pakistan
Infrastructure Implementation Capacity Assessment (PIICA)
was an assessment of available resources and the demand
generated for these resources by the proposed infrastructure
projects. A demand-supply gap analysis for Human Resources
(HR), major construction materials and equipment keeping in
view the Medium Term Development Framework (MTDF) for up to
2010 has been reviewed to better understand the constraints

This report summarizes the findings of a
study partially financed by the joint United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP)/World Bank Energy Sector
Management Assistance Programme (ESMAP). A plan was
designed to phase out in-use old motorcycles in partnership
with the government agencies and private sector
(manufacturers and local banks). The report presents a plan
to assist the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration ( BMA) to