Recurring environmental incidents have
led to increased public awareness of the threats of
environmental pollution to public health and rapid
urbanization is driving up land prices in Chinese cities. As
a result of these developments, industrial plant relocations
are numerous, particularly of heavily polluting industrial
plants, such as pesticide, coke, steel plants, and chemical
industry plants. These relocations are leaving behind many

The purpose of this report is to provide
an overview of the current situation of brownfield
management in China for World Bank staff and relevant
government officials in order to help raise awareness of
land contamination and help develop remediation activities.
After the introductory section, section two explores the
environmental and development pressures of land. Section
three reviews government plans, targets and actions. Section

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

As donors pledge growing support for
protecting and managing forests to address climate change,
the question of how to pay tropical countries to reduce
their emissions from deforestation and forest degradation
assumes greater urgency. Depending on the detailed
implementation of REDD plus at a national and international
level, forest nations may be able to secure funding from a
range of sources, including donors and multilateral funds (a

In the past decade, the Palestinian
Authority (PA) has worked to strengthen economic governance
and combat corruption, both essential to sustained economic
growth and improved delivery of public services. This report
finds the PA has made significant progress in its public
institutions, establishing a strong governance environment
in many critical areas. But it also identifies areas where
reforms are underway but incomplete or, in some areas, not

This note builds on the proactive
measures taken by the Government of China as announced in:
(i) the Decree of the state council of the people's
Republic of China, issued on 9 June 2008, providing
regulations on post-Wenchuan earthquake reconstruction; (ii)
the Directive on Counterpart Assistance (Directive) of 11
June 2008; and (iii) the land policies to support the
reconstruction of Wenchuan (land policies) of 11 June 2008

In Japan, the sustainable development of
cities and provinces has been vigorously pursued since the
late 1990s under various programs through the initiative of
the central government and local authorities. In 2009, the
World Bank launched an urban development initiative called
Eco2 Cities: Ecological Cities as Economic Cities (Eco2
Cities Initiative) to help cities in developing countries
achieve greater synergistic ecological and economic

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 country note briefly summarizes
information relevant to both climate change and agriculture
in Costa Rica, with focus on policy developments (including
action plans and programs) and institutional make-up. Like
most countries in Latin America, Costa Rica has submitted
one national communication to the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) with a second one
under preparation. Land use change and forestry are the

This case study is one of six
evaluations of the implementation of the World Bank's
1991 Forest Strategy. This and the other cases (Cameroon,
China, Costa Rica, India, and Indonesia) complement a review
of the entire set of lending and nonlending activities of
the World Bank Group and the Global Environment Facility.
The World Bank has clearly diminished its lending presence
in the Amazon in the past decade. It has moved from the

This country note briefly summarizes
information relevant to both climate change and agriculture
in Nicaragua, with focus on policy developments (including
action plans and programs) and institutional make-up. Like
most countries in Latin America, Nicaragua has submitted one
national communication to the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) with a second one
under preparation. Land use change and forestry are by far

In 1994, the Government of Cameroon
introduced an array of forest policy reforms, both
regulatory and market-based, to support a more organized,
transparent, and sustainable system for accessing and using
forest resources. This report describes how these reforms
played out in the rainforests of Cameroon. The intention is
to provide a brief account of a complex process and identify
what worked, what did not, and what can be improved. The