Income and asset disclosure systems (IAD) are gaining prominence as a tool in the fight against corruption, and have the potential to support efforts in both prevention and enforcement. They are intended to prevent and help detect the use of public office for private gain, and to help build a climate of integrity in public administration by detecting and helping officials avoid potential conflicts of interest. The potential for IAD systems to contribute to broader anticorruption efforts--such as national and international financial investigations and prosecutions, international asset recovery...

The Congo Basin forests have been mainly "passively" protected by chronic political instability and conflict, poor infrastructure, and poor governance. Congo Basin countries thus still fit the profile of high forest cover/ low deforestation (HFLD) countries. However, there are signs that Congo Basin forests are under increasing pressure from a variety of sources, including mineral extraction, road development, agribusiness, and biofuels, in addition to subsistence agricultural expansion and charcoal collection. Congo Basin countries are now at a crossroad - they are not yet locked into a...

Agriculture is one of the most climate-sensitive of all economic sectors. In many countries, such as the four examined in Looking Beyond the Horizon, the risks of climate change are an immediate and fundamental problem because the majority of the rural population depends either directly or indirectly on agriculture for its livelihood. The risks of climate change to agriculture cannot be eff ectively dealt with--and the opportunities cannot be eff ectively exploited--without a clear plan for aligning agricultural policies with climate change, developing the capabilities of key agricultural...

Les forets du bassin du Congo ont ete protegees de maniere largement passive du fait de l'instabilite politique et des conflits chroniques, des infrastructures insuffisantes et de la faible gouvernance qui ont caracterise la region. Les pays du bassin presentent ainsi toujours un profil caracterise par une large couverture forestiere et des taux de deforestation faible. Toutefois, il existe des signaux qui semblent indiquer que la pression sur les forets du bassin augmente sous l'influence de facteurs varies incluant l'extraction miniere, le developpement des infrastructures routieres,...

Nowhere is the need to generate employment more urgent than in the fragile states of Sub-Saharan Africa. In this region, where the majority of the labor force still works in agriculture, the potential of agricultural value chain development has been underexploited. Because value chain development lends itself to a flexible and incremental approach, it appears to be feasible in the absence of well-functioning government institutions. As value chain development involves building and strengthening relationships along the chain of productive and value-adding activities, it also has the potential...

Disaster risk management is essential in the fight against poverty. Disasters can, in an instant, wipe out decades of hard-fought poverty reduction and development gains and push countless households into poverty. Disasters disproportionally affect the poor: Vulnerable and marginalized groups, including women, children, the elderly, and people with disabilities, are at particular risk. East Asia and the Pacific is the most disaster-stricken region in the world, suffering from small recurrent as well as rare high-impact events. East Asia is rapidly urbanizing, and cities are becoming disaster...

One of the noteworthy global achievements of the past two decades has been the remarkable increase in thenumber of children attending school and the number of children completing the primary cycle. As more children start school, the focus has shifted toward the quality of their education--on true learning, not just schooling. The critical role played by teachers to enhance the quality of education is especially salient in a populous, geographically dispersed, and culturally diverse country such as Indonesia. With close to three million teachers, Indonesia has one of the largest and most...

Fostering the entrepreneurship of women is important for Pakistan's economic growth and inclusion agenda, and access to financial services is an important component of starting and growing a business for women entrepreneurs. The original purpose of Are Pakistan's Women Entrepreneurs Being Served by the Microfinance Sector? was to determine whether women entrepreneurs have access to, and are using, microfinance loans as a source of finance for their businesses. However, the findings of the book go beyond the narrow objective of understanding whether microfinance providers are reaching...

'Connecting the Disconnected' presents the findings of the field research designed to evaluate financial practices and strategies among urban and rural Bhutanese households. The study was commissioned in 2012 by the Royal Monetary Authority of Bhutan and the World Bank to provide qualitative evidence to the country's Financial Inclusion Policy. The book explores where, how, and why diff erent demographic groups save, borrow, send remittances, and insure themselves; it also evaluates the potential for innovations to extend fi nancial inclusion. Analysis of results from focus group discussions...

A diferencia de lo que ha ocurrido en otros sectores, el reconocimiento de las consecuencias del cambio climatico en el transporte ha sido lento. Las politicas dirigidas a orientar la demanda hacia modalidades y tecnologias con bajas emisiones deben formar parte de los programas y proyectos de inversion. Dichas politicas pueden reducir la demanda de transporte en el largo plazo al modificar la geografia economica de las ciudades y los paises. Pero para que esto ocurra, se requiere una estrecha coordinacion de las politicas de transporte, medio ambiente y salud. En este informe se pone de...