In 2006-07, the Water and Sanitation Program-South Asia (WSP-SA) initiated a research toidentify barriers to service delivery for the urban poor. The research included a review ofvarious initiatives from across the globe that have resulted in improved service delivery for theurban poor and...

Habitat II, the second United Nations conference on human settlements, also known as the "City Summit," concluded its work on June 14, 1996, in Istanbul. Habitat II indelibly marked the increasingly urban nature of the world and the urgency, extent, and increasing size of problems facing people...

The coexistence of urban and rural poverty and migration to cities is studied in a dual economy model where the acquisition of skills is costly and involves migration to urban areas. In this model, both the distribution of innate abilities and the distribution of wealth matter for the migration...

International policies to reduce carbon emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD+) envisage the creation of financial incentive mechanisms that reward forest protection efforts and adequately compensate those actors that face new costs. In order for REDD+ to achieve these objectives,...

The external debt burden of many low-income developing countries has increased significantly since the 1970s. Developments in a sample of ten countries show that the main factors behind the buildup of debt were (1) exogenous (adverse terms of trade shocks or weather), (2) a lack of sustained...

The IMF Working Papers series is designed to make IMF staff research available to a wide audience. Almost 300 Working Papers are released each year, covering a wide range of theoretical and analytical topics, including balance of payments, monetary and fiscal issues, global liquidity, and...