The Dominican Republic-Central American
Free Trade Agreement with the United States aims to create a
free trade zone for economic development. The Agreement is
expected to intensify commerce and investment among the
participating countries. This paper analyzes the changes in
the production and trading patterns in 2-digit manufacturing
sectors with the goal of understanding the short-term
environmental implications of the Dominican Republic-Central

The purpose of this paper is to provide
information on how to transform and strengthen pluralistic
agricultural extension and advisory systems in moving toward
the broader goal of increasing farm income and improving
rural livelihoods. The focus of this book is primarily on
the technical knowledge, management skills, and information
services that small-scale farm households will need to
improve their livelihoods in the rapidly changing global

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

The expanding coverage of social
assistance in Vietnam raises a question of whether relevant
arrangements at all levels are sufficiently robust to handle
a larger program. This note explores institutional and
delivery aspects of formal and informal social assistance in
metropolitan cities. It is a result of a rapid assessment of
governance and administration of social assistance in
metropolitan cities, including interviews with related

This Country Economic Memorandum (CEM)
is the first for Burundi since the 1980s. It has been
developed in collaboration with the government of Burundi.
The CEM has been prepared in cooperation with the African
development bank and the U.K. department for international
development. Burundi is one of the poorest countries in the
world, and has suffered from many years of civil conflict
and its consequences. In the last years, peace has been

This paper reviews the literature on tax
assignment in decentralized countries. Ideally, own-source
revenues should be sufficient to enable at least the richest
subnational governments to finance from their own resources
all locally-provided services that primarily benefit local
residents. Subnational taxes should also not unduly distort
the allocation of resources. Most importantly, to the extent
possible subnational governments should be accountable at

The past decade has witnessed major
shift thinking about water, including how water
infrastructure development strategies can help advance
sustainable development and the global fight against
poverty. This reflects, in part, greater attention now being
paid to governance reforms promoting integrated water
resource management (IWRM), the efficient and wise use of
water, and expanding access to water and energy services. In

Sri Lanka's country vision is to
become a global hub between the East and the West and an
upper middle-income country by 2016. Sri Lanka's urban
vision, as defined in the government's development
policy framework is to develop a system of competitive,
environmentally sustainable, well-linked cities clustered in
five metro regions and nine metro cities and to provide
every family with affordable and adequate urban shelter by

There have been important changes in the
budgeting process in Vietnam since 2006 when the government
of Vietnam instituted a revolutionary reform in the
management and allocation of the state budget. For the
period of 2007-2010, the norms include ethnic minority
population data, and poverty rates. The purpose of this
research assignment is to describe the evolution of
budgeting mechanisms in recent years, in association with

This study aims to provide the guiding
principles to the government of Mongolia (GOM) towards
creating comprehensive ex-ante risk management strategy
based on the assessment of the pros and cons of historical
approach of livestock risk management as well as best
practices around the world. For instance, it proposes an
option for the National Disaster Indemnification Program
(NDIP) that acts as a state insurance enterprise and

In May 2008, the commission on growth
and development (the growth commission) issued its report
entitled 'the growth report'. In it the commission
attempted to distill what had been learned in the past two
decades, from experience and academic and policy research,
about strategies and policies that produced sustained high
growth in developing countries. It became clear in the
course of the work that politics, leadership, and political

This report proposes a growth strategy
for Sudan that reduces its dependence on oil, while building
an economic foundation for a diversified, inclusive and
sustainable growth path. Specifically, Sudan's near
term strategy should focus on: a) developing and maintaining
the necessary enabling environment for growth, specifically
macroeconomic stability and effective fiscal management
(chapter one); b) implementing policies aimed at improving