South Sudan's extensive renewable natural resources are critically important to its predominantly rural population, which relies on largely subsistence livelihoods and has limited access to the market economy. Until recently, almost all South Sudanese lived directly off the land, while colonial...

Coastal areas are essential to Sri Lanka's economic development, accounting for the highest concentration of population and economic activity. Sandy beaches, dunes, lagoons, estuaries, fresh water marshes, minerals, mangroves and reefs enrich some 1,600 km of coastline that surrounds the "pearl...

Climate and greenhouse gas (GHG) scenarios have typically paid scant attention to the metal implications necessary to realize a low/zero carbon future. The 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change indicates a global resolve to embark on development patterns that would significantly be less GHG...

This report examines perceived and actual gender differences in the use and management of natural resources and the challenges of integrating women into activities related to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) or other natural resource management projects in...

Natural capital is the largest form of wealth in the Lao People's Democratic Republic. Yet, natural capital is being depleted, posing a significant challenge to achieving poverty reduction and sustainable development objectives. The World Bank has long promoted natural capital accounting (NCA)...

Somalia's natural capital is under substantial pressure from inappropriate land uses, conflict, and climate change. In its Ninth National Development Plan (Somalia NDP-9), the government of Somalia has identified vulnerability to environmental shocks as one of the six major causes of poverty....

Unlocking Nature-Smart Development: An Approach Paper on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services is part of a series of papers by the World Bank Group that outlines the development challenges and opportunities associated with blue and green biodiversity and ecosystem services. The paper makes the...

While a range of public programs in Mexico exist to incentivize communities to conserve and manage forest natural resources, a gender gap persists in the use of these initiatives. The experiment discussed in this report was commissioned by the climate investment funds' (CIF) evaluation and...