This background paper attempts to expand our understanding of the gender-differentiated impact of shocks on assets through a literature review on shocks and gendered asset dynamics and an analysis of new panel data (2007 and 2009) from Uganda and Bangladesh looking at the impact of negative shocks and positive events on men's and women's assets. We take advantage of detailed assets and shocks modules to disaggregate the type of shock between covariate and idiosyncratic shocks and types of assets according to ownership (joint, husband's, and wife's assets).

Multi-taxon surveys were conducted in species-rich, lowland palaeotropical and neotropical forested landscapes in Sumatra, Indonesia and Mato Grosso, Brazil. Gradient-directed transects (gradsects) were sampled across a range of forested land use mosaics, using a uniform protocol to simultaneously record vegetation (vascular plant species, plant functional types (PFTs) and vegetation structure), vertebrates (birds, mammals) and invertebrates (termites), in addition to measuring site and soil properties, including carbon stocks.

MENA felt the impact of the financial
and economic crisis to a much lesser extent than developed
economies and emerging markets outside Asia, however, the
economic recovery in MENA has also lacked vigor. Before the
recent uprisings, MENA was expected to return to pre-crisis
growth rates of 4.8 percent by 2011-12, but growth rates in
this range are not high enough to address the key challenges
facing the region, including high unemployment rates -

GFDRR was established in September 2006
as a global partnership of the World Bank, UN agencies and
bilateral donors, located in World Bank headquarters in
Washington, DC. Its missions are (a) to mainstream disaster
reduction and climate change adaptation (CCA) in country
development strategies, and (b) to foster and strengthen
global and regional cooperation among various stakeholders
under the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction

The forces unleashed by the Arab
political awakening have the power to be transformational.
One critical parameter of success will be whether the Arab
political awakening is accompanied by a concurrent economic
awakening. Economic integration through increased trade and
foreign direct investment (FDI) is one key means available
in the short to medium term to policy makers to put the
Partnership countries on a higher path of sustainable

The railways of South East Europe and
Turkey experienced significant declines in traffic volumes
in 2009. This reflected the impact of the international
financial crisis unleashed in the last quarter of 2008 and
its contractionary impact on the economies of the region and
elsewhere. Lower traffic volumes translated in most cases
into a serious deterioration of the financial performance of
the state-owned railways. This brought home the costs of

Sound infrastructure is critical for
growth in East Africa. During 1995-2005, improvements in
infrastructure boosted growth by one percentage point per
year, due largely to wider access to information and
communication technologies (ICTs). Although power
infrastructure sapped growth in other regions of Africa, it
contributed 0.2 percentage points per year growth in East
Africa. If East Africa's infrastructure could be

Infrastructure improvements boosted
growth in the Southern African Development Community (SADC)
by 1.2 percentage points per capita per year during
1995-2005, mainly from access to mobile telephony. Road
network improvements made small growth contributions, while
power sector inadequacy had a negative impact.
Infrastructure improvements that matched those of Mauritius,
the regional leader, could boost regional growth performance

'Access' is primarily a gendered phenomenon in the developing countries, pertaining to all the subsets of access, i.e. access to information, rights, land, money, education, skills, political participation and voice. It thus becomes incumbent upon the policy makers and development practitioners to shred down the details of these 'constrained accesses' to truly empower women. This study highlights the ways in which constrained (daily) mobility i.e. the element of physical access to different facilities bears upon the issue of women empowerment.

The response to the global reporting
initiative (GRI) indicators provides a brief introduction to
the World Bank’s (WB’s) complex suite of activities. The WB
consists of the International Bank of Reconstruction and
Development (IBRD) and the International Development
Association (IDA). Materiality is determined through an
assessment carried out based on GRI guidance. The assessment
evaluates the risks to the organization, the importance to

The events of the last few weeks are a
watershed for Tunisia, Egypt, and other Middle East and
North Africa (MENA) countries. The ongoing political events
will resonate regionally and globally and, if followed by
sound transitions to better governance structures, these
events provide a unique opportunity to change MENA's
political and social landscape. The root cause of the
political turmoil in MENA is fatigue with longstanding

This report provides technical
assistance and capacity building on the poverty measurement
methodology of the Paraguayan government. The report makes
several policy recommendations concerning urban labor market
trends and opportunities for employment, rural factor
markets and poverty, and ex-ante evaluation of the expansion
of cash transfer programs in Paraguay. The report concludes
that in order to increase productivity it is important to