The country's approach to poverty reduction is outlined in the 2003 Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, and draws on a development approach in which growth and poverty reduction are mutually reinforcing. Three areas of focus are identified in the PRSP: (1) restoration of law and improvements in governance; (2) promotion of broad-based growth; and (3) promotion of systems for establishing human and material security. The DPR presents Madagascar's development policy agenda in an integrated framework within which issues of policy consistency, priorities, and sequencing could be addressed.

This study provides a review of the food
and agricultural sector in Ukraine. It assesses the current
status of the food and agricultural sector with special
reference to the agricultural policy regime and the form and
level of government support to the sector. The paper reviews
the sector's readiness to compete on open global
markets for food and agricultural products. Given the
importance and sensitivity of the food and agriculture

The proliferation of urban slums is due
in large part to obsolete regulatory, legal and
institutional frameworks at the local level governing land
use, development standards, land registration and titling.
These regulations are often exclusionary, insisting on
development norms and standards that are outside the realm
of the poor to pay and subdivision procedures are often over
burdensome, leading to informal land subdivision, thus

China has an ancient tradition of
hydraulic engineering but in the past half century the
intensity of exploitation of water resources has accelerated
as a result of population and economic growth. The three
major issues for Chinese water management are water
shortages, flood control and pollution. The World Commission
on Dams noted that since 1949 the number of large dams in
China had increased from 22 to 22,000, almost half the

This report examines poverty issues in the Kyrgyz Republic, focusing on three areas. First, it provides a summary of the trends in poverty over the period 2000-2003 by drawing upon comparable data from the Household Budget Surveys from those years. Second, based upon the Kyrgyz Integrated Household Survey (KIHS ) it presents the new estimates of absolute and extreme poverty by applying updated poverty analysis methodology.

Timor-Leste has achieved enormous
progress in rehabilitating its economy, reconstructing its
infrastructure, reintegrating its refugees and building the
key elements of a sustainable political process in an
environment of internal peace. It now faces many challenges
of nation-building and of overcoming the deprivation
affecting the lives of the poor. This report written in two
volumes lays out the challenge of poverty reduction in

This report discusses the affects of
rapid economic growth and increased urbanization on the
environmental quality of the Dominican Republic's
natural resource base (e.g., water resources
management--water quality, quantity and watershed management
and solid waste collection and disposal have become major
environmental concerns). It notes that the lack of
systematic data limits an accurate and detailed assessment

Tanzania's National Strategy for
Growth and Reduction of Poverty (NSGRP) sets an ambitious
target of 6 to 8 percent annual economic growth to achieve
rapid reduction in poverty. This report focuses on three
issues that are central to the success of Tanzania's
poverty reduction efforts: 0 what factors explain
Tanzania's recent acceleration in economic growth; has
the accelerated economic growth translated into reduced

The report provides a synthesis of the
main results obtained on the evolution of poverty, and other
indicators of well being over the 1990s, and is intended to
facilitate debate on strategy options for poverty reduction
in Madagascar. Section I provides the setting for study, and
presents a synthesis of macroeconomic trends in the country
during the last decade. Section II looks at the evolution of
poverty, inequality, and other indicators over the 1993-1999

The Africa Gas Initiative (AGI) has been
established by the Oil and Gas Division of the World Bank,
to promote the utilization of natural gas in Sub-Saharan
Africa. The study focuses on coastal countries - Angola,
Cameroon, Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, and Gabon - along the
West African coastline, and the Gulf of Guinea, where most
of the region's gas reserves are located, and where
significant proportions of the gas produced, is being wasted

In conformity with its objective of
functioning as a local Government, Kathmandu Metropolitan
City (KMC) sought the assistance of the World Bank for the
preparation of a City Development Strategy (CDS) for
Kathmandu. The various sectoral as well as integrated
strategies presented in this document seem to be an
overwhelming demand on KMC with its limited manpower and
money. However, a CDS is essential if KMC is to focus its

This report provides public policy
makers with the information necessary to develop a rural
infrastructure strategy, it was not intended to represent a
strategy per se, merely to highlight the issues that need
greater consideration in the definition of a strategy. It
starts with an inventory of existing rural infrastructure
assets and a description of current institutional
arrangements. It follows with a snapshot of local