The International Monetary Fund (IMF)
and the World Bank introduced the Poverty Reduction Strategy
Paper (PRSP) process in 1999 to strengthen the poverty
alleviation focus of their assistance to low-income
countries. This report reviews Nicaragua s experience with
the PRSP process, focusing on the effectiveness of IMF and
World Bank support to the process and the extent to which
the two institutions lending and non-lending activities in

Nontraditional infrastructure service
providers supply many low-income consumers in slums and
urban peripheries in developing countries. And technological
change has eased entry by new providers. But the current
approach to private participation in infrastructure
typically gives exclusivity to a local monopoly for a long
period. In return, the monopoly utility is obligated to
provide service to all in the area at a certain standard,

This Country Economic Memorandum reviews
the significant changes Mozambique underwent in the last
five years, specifying that to continue its rapid growth,
and reduce its high levels of poverty, the country will need
to adopt a new set of reforms. Such reforms, focused on
increasing the profitability of agriculture, and promoting
labor-intensive manufacturing activities, hold the best hope
to move poverty into prosperity. Three factors - increased

The study reviews the challenges water
resources management faces, and the opportunities for policy
formulation towards sustainable development in Argentina,
where regardless of prudent public finances management,
water resources management remain disproportionately
backward compared to regional, and international best
practices. Hence, within a frame of reference on the
country's population, institutions, and legal

Economic development has brought about,
the decline in contribution of the agricultural sector to
the economy of Sri Lanka, and, consistent with this economic
transformation, the structure of employment also changed.
Thus, as labor migrates away from agriculture, the
productivity, for those who remain in the land, needs to
increase significantly. This report examines the constraints
to promoting more rapid agricultural, and rural non-farm

The performance of the East Asian
transition economies in export and income growth has been
strikingly better than that of countries in Eastern Europe
and the former Soviet Union. The East Asian economies have
achieved remarkably high growth rates in outputs and exports
without the often large declines in output and exports
observed in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. East
Asian reformers have successfully made many of the parallel

This case study is one of six
evaluations of the implementation of the World Bank's
1991 Forest Strategy. This and the other cases (Brazil,
Cameroon, China, Costa Rica, and India) complement a review
of the entire set of lending and nonlending activities of
the World Bank Group and the Global Environment Facility. A
review of World Bank assistance to Indonesia in the forest
sector since 1991 faces two challenges. The first is

The people of Swaziland are its greatest
resource. Yet, social and economic indicators of household
welfare converge to confirm fundamental inequalities in
access to incomes and assets, and the existence of
significant poverty and deprivation. Furthermore, as the
regional economic and social climate is transformed, the
fragile gains of the past are being fast eroded. At this
historic juncture, the Swazi poor need to come to the fore

The literature argues that the presence
of multiple veto players (government decisionmakers) with
polarized interests increases the credibility of sovereign
commitments, but reduces the ability of governments to
adjust policies in the event of exogenous shocks that
jeopardize their ability to honor their commitments. In the
case of sovereign lending, if the first effect prevails,
countries would be regarded as more creditworthy; if the

Law is society's institution which
articulates rules to govern legal and non-legal
institutions. Rules of legal institutions aim to protect the
citizen against discretionary and arbitrary power, ensure
equality with others and guarantee procedural fairness.
Impartial administration of the law through independent
accessible courts and a democratic process of law-making,
defines and enforces the limits and powers of state

Most efforts to trace the effects of
income inequality on growth have focused on redistribution.
However, empirical investigation has not substantiated
either the positive association of income inequality with
redistribution or the negative association of redistribution
with economic growth. The authors analyze the effects of
inequality in the broader context of social polarization.
They argue that social polarization, whether rooted in

The Niger Delta is one of the
world's largest wetlands and includes by far the
largest mangrove forest in Africa. Within this extremely
valuable ecosystem, oil activities are widespread - Rivers
State and Delta State produce 75 percent of Nigeria's
petroleum, which represents over 50 percent of national
government revenues. However, despite its vast oil reserves,
the region remains poor. Gross National product (GNP) per