Despite recognition of the ill effects of pollution and the enactment of environmental regulations, pollution monitoring and compliance in developing countries continue to lag. 'Local Approaches to Environmental Compliance' demonstrates how community and local government initiatives played a key role in arresting pollution during Japan's industrialization in the 1960s and 1970s. The approaches described are relevant to current pollution problems and are reviewed from the perspective of developing countries.

In a world where students will have to co-exist with people different from themselves, sensitivity and openness to diversity ethnic, religious, linguistic, and ability-related is a core part of any good education. 'Social Cohesion through Education' provides case studies and tools to help educators, policymakers, and the development community improve the ways in which education systems can promote tolerance and respect for diversity through improved management of existing inputs such as curriculum and textbook reform. The book address different issues in different countries and regions, but...

'Cities in a Globalizing World' stresses that quality of governance can determine whether the burgeoning cities of the developing world can become global centers of opportunity or urban examples of over crowding and underachievement.The book examines cases where the forces of globalization, urbanizations, and governance come together most successfully. It demonstrates that services tend to be better where citizens have access to information on the budget (a measure of transparency and accountability) or where information was available on how to start a business (a measure of transparency and...

This book addresses a variety of issues relating to intergovernmental finance and the provision and financing of local services including budgeting and financial management, the institutional framework for the conduct of intergovernmental relations, appropriate methods of service delivery in metropolitan agglomerations and remote rural areas, local government enterprises, user charges, property taxes, income and value-added taxes, natural resource taxes, and local business taxes. Throughout, the authors draw on experience both in Canada and in other decentralized ountries and consider to...

The exposition is basedon an analytical framework covering all building blocks of fiscal federalism: size and structure of jurisdictions, expenditures, revenues, transfers, and borrowing. The application of this framework to Russian settings results in a comprehensive assessment of the state of intergovernmental fiscal relations in Russia.

This book's prime audience is government policy-makers. It provides a policy framework for governments to increase micro, small and medium enterprises' access to financial services one which is based on empirical evidence from around the world. Financial sector policies in many developing countries often work against the ability of commercial financial institutions to serve this market segment, albeit, often unintentionally. The framework guides governments on how to best focus scarce resources on three things: developing an inclusive financial sector policy; building healthy financial...

This multimedia sourcebook on CD-ROM synthesizes an extensive body of knowledge and experience in managing urban slums accumulated over the last 30 years. The key lessons learned and their implications for future work serve as a useful tool for capacity building and knowledge sharing for policy makers, practitioners, planning institutions, community groups, NGOs, and university students. Approaches to Urban Slums includes 14 audiovisual presentations (photographs, illustrations, maps, graphic animations, and aerial imagery, along with voice-over narration) and 18 video interviews.

A strong investment climate is a platform for economic success. By creating opportunities and setting incentives for firms to invest and productively employ inputs, the investment climate is critical to economic growth and prosperity. Analyzing and comparing the investment climate of Brazil, India, and South Africa, three of today's largest emerging economies, this book presents policy makers with the scope of investment climate reforms in these countries. Inter- and intra-country benchmarking can be a starting point for dialogue between the government and private sector on reform priorities...