The present publication traces the history of the Bank's lending for urban development and discusses its approaches to current urban issues. It is intended for specialists and individuals interested in getting acquainted with the evolution of the Bank portfolio.

This paper (ENV-126) was originally presented at a National Science Foundation Workshop on Alternatives to Traditional Contingent Valuation Methods in Environmental Valuation, held at Vanderbilt University, Nashville Tennessee, on October 15-16, 1998. This paper reviews the past ten years of the...

El presente documento informa sobre la creación de la Facilidad Sectorial para la Prevención de Desastres que se presenta a consideración en el marco de las facilidades sectoriales aprobado por el Directorio el 22 de marzo de 2000 (GN-2085-2). Los aspectos operativos, regulaciones y...

The objective of this Health Strategy (GN-2321) is to help Latin American and the Caribbean countries improve the health of their populations, attaining national health objectives and tailoring Millennium Development Goals to conditions in each country. The priorities areas of Bank Actions...

The Bank expanded its housing finance activities in the 1990s, shifting its support toward sector reforms that increase the capacity of housing finance and delivery mechanisms to cater to the needs of low-income households. The present publication examines Bank experience in housing, draws...

This study is a first attempt to develop a new orientation on environmental management in the Latin America and Caribbean. The development towards a more strategic environmental management entails an evolution from a centralized management structure into a more decentralized system in which...

This working paper contains a review and analysis of environmental policy tools in Latin America. It contains a review of the instruments themselves and their properties are discussed in both static and dynamic contexts. The report brings together the institutional and more narrowly economic...

This study challenges the current design of forest resource use contracts in Latin America. Radical rethinking of forest resource contracts is imperative, due to the constraints that now face the successful achievement of forest policy objectives of economic development and conservation of...

The intended goal of this paper is to expand the IDB's current disaster policy in the area of human-driven disasters. This paper explores and expands on the definition and scope of "human-driven" disasters in order to strengthen the policy in its present area of "unexpected" disasters. This...