The carbon market is the most visible result of early regulatory efforts to mitigate climate change. Regulation constraining carbon emissions has spawned an emerging carbon market that was valued at US$64 billion (Euro 47 billion) in 2007. Its biggest success so far has been to send market signals for the price of mitigating carbon emissions. This, in turn, has stimulated innovation and carbon abatement worldwide, as motivated individuals, communities, companies and governments have cooperated to reduce emissions.

The present study examines the
challenges facing municipal governments in FYR Macedonia.
The introductory chapter provides some further context for
these developments, in terms of the challenges they pose
for urban areas and their governments. Chapter Two examines
issues for financial management of municipalities under the
decentralized regime, and the attendant need for improving
local government capacity. The third chapter highlights

This report deals with medium and
long-term growth issues rather than the challenges posed by
the world financial crisis, the structural policy options
presented in the report become even more important in that
context, and can help to partially mitigate the impact of
the crisis on Macedonia. Section B looks at poverty and
inequality issues. Section C examines Macedonia's past
growth in terms of total factor productivity analysis,

The Lao PDR economy continues to grow, but at a relatively slower pace as the impacts of the global financial turmoil are starting to be felt. Real gross domestic product (GDP) growth is expected to slow in 2008 to about 7 percent as result of the impacts of the global financial crisis. GDP growth is also projected to slow to between 5 and 6 percent in 2009. However, growth remains fairly strong and still driven by the ongoing hydropower projects as well as agro processing industries, construction and other services.

The study on the sources of rural growth
in Burundi results from a meticulous work carried out by
eminent experts of the World Bank in response to a request
of the Government of Burundi. It describes the global
environment, which explains poverty aggravation and builds
proposals to overcome most binding constraints to growth in
Burundi. This study is an important contribution in the
fight against poverty, as it identifies ways to resume

The private enterprise sector in Bosnia
and Herzegovina (BiH) has been expanding steadily, and
estimates are that it presently contributes close to 50
percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The BiH private
enterprise sector initially developed following the
privatization program starting in 1999. Under that program,
the majority of state owned enterprises (SOEs) that were
privatized were done so using the voucher privatization

A joint team from the International
Monetary Fund's (IMF's) Monetary and Financial
Systems Department (MFD) and the World Bank visited Egypt
between May 6 and May 21, 2007 to update the assessment of
the Egyptian Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) that
had been conducted in June 2002 and completed in September
2002. The work under the FSAP update aimed to assess
progress in reforming the financial sector and strengthening

Albania has undertaken major reforms in
its system of local government finance since 2000. What had
been a system in which local functions were ambiguous and
financing was largely provided through tightly controlled
earmarked grants is now one in which functions are
relatively clear and local governments have more autonomy
over the allocation of funds. A new system of competitive
grants for infrastructure investment has been introduced.

The aim of this report is to identify a set of concrete steps that the government of Mongolia might take to promote private-sector activity and greater integration with the global economy in a way that leads to job creation, broad-based growth and most importantly, poverty reduction. It does this by combining an assessment of the investment climate faced by firms (through analyses of firm and household surveys and supply chains in selected sectors) with a diagnostic trade integration study. The report is structured as follows.

Many developing countries and countries
with transitional economies are considering whether and how
to regulate microfinance. These guiding principles are
formulated for the regulation and supervision of
microfinance. This document is divided into five sections.
The first section of the paper discusses terminology and
preliminary issues. The second section outlines areas of
regulatory concern that do not call for

Russia and other countries in the
commonwealth of independent states that have implemented
voucher privatization programs have to account for the
puzzling behavior of insiders manager-owners-who, in
stripping assets from the firms they own, appear to be
stealing from one pocket to fill the other. This article
suggests that asset stripping and the absence of
restructuring result from interactions between insiders and

Resolving systemic banking and corporate
distress is not easy. The large scale of the East Asian
financial crisis has made the task even more daunting in
Indonesia, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand.
Two years into the process, bank and corporate restructuring
is still a work in progress. Governments should act to
accelerate it. Besides adopting common policy prescriptions
- improving financial regulation, corporate governance, and