This book suggests how that exploration
should be undertaken, and how a monitoring system that has a
solid conceptual basis and is both easy to operate and
reasonable in cost can then be put into practice. Long the
ideal of many scholars and observers of urban problems, such
a system may now be close to realization. In this book,
examples of Latin American cities are used as case studies.
As argued in the first chapter, there are good reasons to

This report investigates Egypt's
regional economic growth, explores the causes for
geographically unbalanced development, and proposes policy
options to make unbalanced growth compatible with inclusive
development. Regional disparities in income and consumption
may be attributed to differences in natural endowments and
geographical location, but unbalanced growth is mostly due
to economies of scale, spillover effects, and the lower

The objective of conducting this case
study on Mozambique is to uncover the pattern of municipal
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) impact that
may exist in other low-capacity countries with analogous
political economy structures in relation to leveraging ICT
in public sectors. The study concludes by suggesting
measures to link the continent's ICT boom in
citizen-based mobile telephony and internet usage with the

This paper describes stylized facts
about internal migration and the labor force in Egypt, and
shows how internal migration in the country is low compared
with international standards. Using aggregate labor force
survey data, the paper shows how individuals migrate to
governorates with higher wages. With a Mincerian equation,
the analysis finds that migrants earn premiums with respect
to non-migrants, except for those migrants with low

At an average above 6.0 percent per year
over the past two decades, Uganda' s growth rate was
impressive by all standards. In parallel, poverty declined
significantly, not only in urban areas, but also to some
extent within the rural areas. This combination was possible
because the key drivers of growth were labor-intensive
services sectors, some of which are agriculture based. In
fact, Uganda's growth process has reduced overall

This paper explores the reduction of
food insecurity in Bolivia, adopting a supply side approach
that analyzes the role of agricultural spending on
vulnerability. Vulnerability to food insecurity is captured
by a municipal level composite -- developed locally within
the framework of World Food Program food security analysis
-- that combines welfare outcomes, weather conditions and
agricultural potential for all 327 municipalities in 2003,

Approaches to urban slums are a
multimedia sourcebook that comprises 14 self-running
audiovisual presentations and 18 video interviews. It is
organized into four broad sections: adaptive approaches,
proactive approaches, case profiles, and thematic
interviews. The sourcebook itself, which contains more than
nine viewing hours of content on CD-ROM, does not exist in
printed format. This guide provides an overview of the

This policy note analyzes the
composition of public expenditures that support devolved
services (including the resource allocation decisions that
support these expenditures), an assessment of the quality of
local service delivery based on available local data, and an
evaluation of the interactions between various public
entities that finance and provide local services. The report
includes reviews of local capital investments, local road

This report undertakes a comprehensive
assessment of Ukraine's growth experience over the past
decade. It shows how vulnerabilities were allowed to
accumulate during the economic boom. And how growth,
averaging seven percent annually between 2000 and 2008, was
achieved without tackling Ukraine's well known
weaknesses in the investment climate and public sector
governance. The report also traces the emergence of large

Cambodia's growth over 1998-2008
has been remarkable (almost 10 percent per annum for a
decade). This paper applies a "growth diagnostic"
approach to understand how this happened and how it can be
sustained. Past growth has been driven by the coincidence of
a set of historical and geographic factors (including
opportunistic policy responses), together with the use of
natural assets (although in a non sustainable way) and the

Pakistan has faced a seismic shift in
its global and domestic economic landscape which until
recently limited policy options to address investment
climate concerns. External shocks, internal policy inaction
and political turmoil placed the country in a precarious
economic condition, calling on the authorities to take a
hard look at the policy choices ahead. Macroeconomic
instability resulting in inflation, exchange rate

This study examines the constraints on
the housing sector in Afghanistan. It evaluates government
policy on housing, looks at the state of housing finance,
and examines legal and regulatory barriers with a bearing on
the housing market. The report provides policy
recommendations aimed at helping to develop a private-sector
led housing market. To assist in formulating policies and
implementing actions, the study recommends forming a housing