Renewable energy and energy efficiency projects continue to perform strongly in the World Bank Group (WBG) energy portfolio and are increasingly being mainstreamed in the WBG's energy lending. In fiscal 2007 a total of US$1,433 million supported 63 renewable energy and energy efficiency projects...

This policy note is a summary of the findings of a joint study of the Energy Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission, and the World Bank. The policy note is organized as follows: the next section, 'in the shadow of king coal,' provides a brief history of the...

The challenge for the development community is to exploit the links between energy and poverty to combat global poverty. The human scale of this challenge is huge. Today, 1.6 billion people lack access to electricity and 2.4 billion rely on traditional biomass for cooking and heating. Indoor air...

"How rich would resource-abundant countries be if they had actually followed the Hartwick Rule (invest resource rents in other assets) over the past 30 years? Hamilton, Ruta, and Tajibaeva use time series data on investments and rents on exhaustible resource extraction for 70 countries to answer...

"The authors examine how well several institutional and firm-level factors and their interactions explain firms' perceptions of property rights protection. Their sample includes private and public firms that vary in size from very small to large in 62 countries. Together, the institutional...

To implement the vision of fostering economic development, social equity, and a transparent and effective government, the Government of Liberia has outlined key transitions that need to be accomplished. These include the development of infrastructure (roads, electricity), schools, job creation...

This Review attempts to be a timely input into the legal and policy reform agenda and the implementation process on which the Government has embarked. The report has been elaborated in close partnership with the National Land Tenure Reform Program (Programme National Foncier). It has been...

This report centers on the problems stemming from land issues in Nicaragua. The report's main recommendations deal with four priority actions: institutional reform; adjustments to the legal framework; systematic regularization of land rights; and, firmly addressing previous land invasions, and...