"While decentralization of education in DMCs has largely been driven by fiscal constraints, it has also been motivated by concerns about the effectiveness of a centralized system in delivering education services. The statistics are revealing: while virtually all DMCs have made impressive gains...

"Among developing member countries (DMCs), Indonesia and the Philippines rank fairly high in the distribution of real GDP per capita in PPP dollars while Bangladesh ranks much lower. In terms of aggregate schooling, the Philippines has secondary and tertiary enrollment rates that are...

In 2000, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) launched a Regional Technical Assistance (RETA 5860) entitled Institutional Strengthening and Collection of Environment Statistics in Selected Developing Member Countries (DMCs), covering five Central Asian countries namely Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic,...

C. Peter Timmer writes about the causes of high food prices, focusing on staple grains - rice in particular - and edible oils. He shows that although food prices have come down from the spikes of early 2008, they are likely to remain higher than they were in early 2007 for years to come. The...