This report analyzes land issues in Sri
Lanka, which cannot be seen in isolation from the ethnic and
political conflict and, at the same time, even though land
conflict is often linked with the ethnic conflict in Sri
Lanka, a large number of land conflicts in the North and
East can be resolved prior to a full and national political
solution to the ethnic situation. This report analyzes
constraints and opportunities for an effective governance

Bleak short-term economic outlook raises the risk that social and environmental
achievements may not be sustained. The changed economic circumstances have exposed shortcomings in Brazil’s development model, epitomized by the struggle to achieve a sustainable fiscal policy. Against this background, some Brazilians are now asking whether the gains of the past decade might have been an illusion, created by the commodity boom, but unsustainable in today’s less forgiving international environment. Brazil thus finds itself at an important juncture and, to a certain extent, the policy

There is enough land in the Amazon
region to satisfy Brazilian society's demands for
economic development, environmental management of a resource
base of global importance and the challenges of agrarian
reform. Yet Brazil has been unable to create a fully
coherent and manageable land policy and administration
system for the region which permits sustainable development
goals to be achieved while reconciling special interests and

The first paper of this section
(Durand-Laserve) documents how increasing pressures on urban
land and the 'commodification' of shelter and
settlement has increased 'market evictions' of
families holding intermediate tide to property, although
international declarations and pressures have contributed to
reducing 'forced evictions.' The second paper
(Mooya and Cloete) uses the tools of the New Institutional

The author examine this relationship in
the context of agriculture in Ghana's Eastern Region.
Our work traces the connection from a set of complex and
explicitly negotiable property rights over land to
agricultural investment and, in turn, to agricultural
productivity. Using survey and focus group data, we find
that while the land tenure institutions may have some
benefits, they result in drastically lower productivity for

A synchronous growth slowdown has been
underway in emerging markets (EM) since 2010. Growth in
these countries is now markedly slower than, not just the
pre‐crisis average, but also the long‐term average. As a
group, EM growth eased from 7.6 percent in 2010 to 4.5
percent in 2014, and is projected to slow further to below 4
percent in 2015. This moderation has affected all regions
(except South Asia) and is the most severe in Latin America

The Indonesia Economic Quarterly (IEQ)
has two main aims. First, it reports on the key developments
over the past three months in Indonesia’s economy, and
places these in a longerterm and global context. Based on
these developments, and on policy changes over the period,
the IEQ regularly updates the outlook for Indonesia’s
economy and social welfare. Second, the IEQ provides a more
in-depth examination of selected economic and policy issues,

Well-managed urbanization can accelerate
Cote d’Ivoire’s ascendance to middle incomes. Such a large
gap in gross national income (GNI) per capita means that the
underlining economic drivers of urbanization are not being
fully harnessed in Cote d’Ivoire. Small cities at low
urbanization level facilitate internal scale economies, such
as hosting a large firm transforming local agricultural
products. Secondary cities at intermediate urbanization

Afghanistan is a deeply fragile and
conflict affected state. It has been in almost constant
conflict for over 35 years since the Soviet invasion of
1979. Today the country is at a crossroads in its
development with economic growth down sharply and poverty
incidence stubbornly high. Afghanistan faces tremendous
development challenges. Gross domestic product (GDP)
per-capita is among the lowest in the world, poverty is deep

This report centers on the problems
stemming from land issues in Nicaragua. The report's
main recommendations deal with four priority actions:
institutional reform; adjustments to the legal framework;
systematic regularization of land rights; and, firmly
addressing previous land invasions, and preventing future
invasions. The issue of land distribution, and ownership is
especially critical in Nicaragua; indeed, the country

This paper estimates slum residents
willingness to pay for formalized land tenure in Pune,
India. In so doing, it offers evidence that the legal
assurance of slum residents occupancy of their lands could
benefit them. Previous studies have discussed legal and
non-legal factors that substantially influence the tenure
security of residents in informal settlements. However, it
remains unclear to what extent, and how, the assignment of

This Systematic County Diagnostics is
organized into six parts. The first part presents a brief
overview of the country’s recent socio-political and
economic context. The second part examines the links between
poverty, income distribution and economic growth, through
the labor market, against the background of large changes in
international capital flows and the unfinished structural
reform agenda. The third part, examines the sustainability