"Many countries have been affected by food and oil price shocks. Rising energy costs have manifested themselves through higher prices of gas at the pump and through price increases for many other goods such as kerosene and transport. But in some countries there has also been some degree of...

The forestry sector in Moldova faces significant governance and sustainability challenges. The insufficient level of forest coverage in Moldova has a serious impact on environment and overall economic growth in the country. The situation is exacerbated by the reportedly intense pressure on...

The devolution of procurement responsibilities to local levels of government is increasingly occurring across South Asia. This trend is significant because increasingly localized decision-making better enables communities to hold government authorities accountable for the effectiveness of public...

Africa's rapidly increasing population, expanding economies, and changing climate are driving increased water demand, while outdated data systems hinder effective management. Remote sensing technology offers a solution by providing continuous, reliable data for water planning and monitoring. The...

"The authors examine the distributional implications of selective compliance in sample surveys, whereby households with different incomes are not equally likely to participate. They discuss poverty and inequality measurement implications for monotonically decreasing and inverted-U...

"Many developing countries assign local governments increasing responsibilities in fighting poverty. This requires local social policy to go beyond the execution of centrally designed and funded education and health programs. Hence, local governments and their partners have both an opportunity...

The World Bank is developing a project to develop the capacity of the Central Administration for Statistics (CAS) of Lebanon to produce demographic and social statistics. In the absence of population censuses, the census of buildings and dwelling is one of the few sources of comprehensive data...

"The increase in the international price of rice is likely to have substantial negative impacts on the poor in countries such as Mali which are net importers of rice. This paper relies on a dynamic CGE model to estimate the likely impact of the recent increase in rice prices on poverty with and...