Accelerating inclusive growth - the type
that creates more and better jobs and reduces poverty - is a
key challenge for the Philippines. Instead of rising
agricultural productivity paving the way for the development
of a vibrant labor-intensive manufacturing sector and
subsequently of a high-skill services sector, the converse
has taken place in the Philippines. Agricultural
productivity has remained depressed, manufacturing has

This issue includes the following
headings: donors: aid versus trade; investment: seeking
strong partners; power: hydro heats up; water: sanitation
solutions; and first person: African Development Bank President

Across the developing world, public
goods exert significant impacts on the local rural economy
in general and agricultural productivity and welfare
outcomes in particular. Economic and social-cultural
heterogeneity have, however, long been documented as
detrimental to collective capacity to provide public goods.
In particular, women are often under-represented in local
leadership and decision-making processes, as are young

This paper explains the major issues and
lessons derived from the national forest management program
and REDD+ initiatives in Tanzania. It finds that addressing
the most important drivers of forest degradation and
deforestation, in particular the country energy needs and
landownership, is essential for success in reducing
emissions regardless of the type of program implemented. It
also finds that, through the national program, forest users

Since 2006, there has been an explosion
of Payments for Environmental Services (PES) projects in
Brazil, as well as efforts to pass PES laws at federal,
state, and municipal levels. Even in this short period, an
extraordinarily rich range of experiences has developed,
with examples of the application of PES at a variety of
scales, ranging from microwatersheds to entire states; in a
variety of contexts, from remote forest frontier areas to

This book rental housing lessons from
international experience and policies for emerging market
is an effort to bring rental housing to the forefront of the
housing agenda of countries around the world and to provide
general guidance for policy makers whose actions can have an
effect on where and how people live. It warns of the
challenges they face and provides guidelines on how to
develop or redevelop a sound rental sector. it can enable

This paper revisits the identification
of the binding constraints to investment and growth in
Pakistan by rigorously applying the growth diagnostic
framework. It has a central finding: Pakistan's
economy faces two major groups of constraints emerging and
structural. The emerging constraints include infrastructure
(energy) deficit, high macro-fiscal risks, and inadequate
international financing (high country risks and low FDI

Mexico needs to broaden and deepen its
financial system without compromising the financial
stability gains of the last decade. Much more private
investment is needed to transform the economy to boost
productivity, and despite improvements in recent years, many
households and firms still lack adequate access to financial
services. Strengthening competition and streamlining key
regulations for firms are key to increasing Mexico's

Since 2004, Sri Lanka has pursued inward
looking policies that have encouraged import substitution,
especially with respect to agricultural commodities. This
report provides empirical evidence to inform the policy
dialogue over the impact of current trade and price policies
on the incentive framework for agriculture in Sri Lanka.
This analysis provides a quantitative assessments of: (1)
the level of support to farmers producing import-competing

The Government of Indonesia (GOI) is in
the process of designing a national REDD+ mechanism to allow
it to access donor funding in the medium term, and funding
from a potential performance based mechanism in the long
term. This policy brief is focused on the broad question of
how REDD+ can address underlying community issues such as
lack of access to forest land, and does not deal with the
more specific questions of legal and institutional

After decades of turmoil and
instability, a period of calm and progress evolved in
Guinea-Bissau in 2009. A military coup in April 2012
interrupted it. A fresh start is needed to alter the
dynamics that kept Guinea-Bissau poor. In 2013, Gross
National Income per capita was US$590. Average economic
growth barely kept pace with population growth. In 2010,
poverty at the national poverty line of US$2 a day was 70

The importance of agriculture in the
economies of sub-Saharan African countries cannot be
overemphasized. With agriculture accounting for about 65
percent of the region's employment and 75 percent of
its domestic trade, significant progress in reducing hunger
and poverty across the region depends on the development and
transformation of the agricultural sector. Transforming
agriculture from largely a subsistence enterprise to a