Behavioral economics recognizes that mental models-intuitive sets of ideas about how things work-can bias an individual's perceptions of himself and the world. By representing an ascriptive category of people as unworthy, a mental model can foster unjust social exclusion of, for example, a race,...

The Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) is increasingly recognizing that adequate valuation of ecosystem services is a key input to improved decision-making on protected areas, forest and natural resources more generally; but the lack of data, accepted methodologies and technical capacity have...

Biologically diverse ecosystems in countries served by the World Bank provide an array of valuable economic services. While the benefits of conserving ecosystems frequently outweigh the costs, conversion of these ecosystems to other uses occurs anyway, because many ecosystem benefits are of a...

In 2005, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA, 2005) provided the first comprehensive report on global ecosystems, the dependence of human societies on the services provided, current state, and likely future trajectory. The MA identified the failure to value ecosystem services as a major...

Africa is urbanizing late but fast. This brings many benefits but, as this report shows: thus far, urbanization in Africa, unique in a number of respects, is having deleterious and largely unchecked impacts on the natural environment; the degradation of natural assets and ecosystems within...

The Democratic Republic of Congo has the third largest urban population in Sub-Saharan Africa (estimated at 43% in 2016) after South Africa and Nigeria. It is expected to grow at a rate of 4.1% per year, which corresponds to an additional 1 million residents moving to cities every year. If this...

With a population of 16 million, Karachi is the largest megacity in Pakistan. Despite being a large city that is home to many, it has seen a substantial decline in quality of life and economic competitiveness in recent decades. Basic service delivery is very poor, with very low indicators for...

For African cities to grow economically as they have grown in size, they must create productive environments to attract investments, increase economic efficiency, and create livable environments that prevent urban costs from rising with increased population densification. What are the central...