This global report examines the opportunity for special economic zones to promote women's economic empowerment and boost zone and enterprise competitiveness in developing countries. The research covers Bangladesh, China, Costa Rica, Egypt, El Salvador, Jordan, Kenya, and the Philippines.

There is broad recognition, across the political spectrum and in both 'northern' and 'southern' countries, that justice reform, and more generally the promotion of the 'rule of law', are central to development policy, particularly in conflict-affected, fragile and violent contexts.

Poverty in Turkey has declined significantly between 2003 and 2006, as a result of rapid poverty reduction in urban areas. In the same time period, the reduction in poverty in rural areas has been slow or non-existent.

The point of departure of this paper is that in the absence of effectively functioning asset markets the distribution of wealth matters for efficiency.

The paper focuses its analysis on the last three decades of the twentieth century. The basic assumption is that Egypt's economic performance during this period was less than satisfactory compared with the most successful examples in the far East and elsewhere.