Recognizing the importance and
uniqueness of the Sundarbans, the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
declared the Indian portion of the forest a World Heritage
Site in 1987, and the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Program
has included the Sundarbans Biosphere Reserve in the Global
Network of Island and Coastal Biosphere Reserves
Contributing to Action on Climate Change and Sustainable

Horizontal inequalities (HIs) within a
country, or inequalities among groups, have been shown to be
an important source of violent conflict. Relevant group
categorizations include religion, ethnicity, and region. HIs
can also be measured in different ways. Ethnicity, language,
religion, race, and region are examples of potentially
relevant and salient group categorizations. In this paper
the authors will review the prevailing HIs and their

In 2012 Papua New Guinea undertook a
national Service Delivery Assessment of rural water, rural
sanitation, urban water and urban sanitation services to
identify coverage and targets, how well services are being
delivered and the financing shortfalls in these subsectors.
Immediately following this assessment, stakeholders, through
a national policy task force, have developed a draft of the
country s first National Water, Sanitation and Hygiene

This forest policy note (FPN) offers
an outside view of the Moldovan forestry sector, provides
some strategic guidance to help define sector goals, and
identifies opportunities for consideration in the continued
development of the sector and for the implementation of the
Moldova and World Bank (WB) country partnership strategy
(CPS). This study is based on a number of short visits to
Moldova and on a number of background studies undertaken

As Vietnam enters a crucial period of
urbanization corresponding to its present stage of economic
development, the Government of Vietnam has placed strong
emphasis on developing its system of cities. In accordance
with this objective this Urbanization Review is dedicated to
understanding the key dimensions and aspects of
Vietnam's urbanization process and to identifying
trends, opportunities, challenges and core policy priorities

Previous research on sex-selective
abortions has ignored the interactions between fertility,
birth spacing, and sex selection, despite both fertility and
birth spacing being important considerations for parents
when deciding on the use of sex selection. This paper
presents a novel approach that jointly estimates the
determinants of sex-selective abortions, fertility, and
birth spacing, using data on Hindu women from India's

Regional trade in Africa can play a
vital role in diversifying economies and reducing dependence
on the export of a few mineral products, in delivering food
and energy security, in generating jobs for the increasing
numbers of young people, and in alleviating poverty and
promoting a shared prosperity. Women play a key role in
trade in Africa and will be essential to Africa's
success in exploiting its trade potential. In many countries

In this issue: Facilitating labor
migration from the Philippines; Incentives and teacher
effort; Electoral accountability and local public spending
in Indonesia; Why don't poor countries do R&D?; How
effective are efforts to raise voluntary enrollment in
health insurance?; How insecure property rights affect
migration in China; the challenges of public service
delivery in the Pacific Islands.

In declaring 2012 the international year
of sustainable energy for all, the United Nations (UN)
general assembly (2011) established at the personal
initiative of the UN secretary general- three global
objectives to be accomplished by 2030. Those goals are to
ensure universal access to modern energy services (including
electricity and clean, modern cooking solutions), to double
the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency, and to

Panama's economic growth has been at the
top of the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region in
recent years. The country s rapid growth has been largely
pro-poor and translated into significant poverty reduction.
The new Administration is well placed to tackle these
challenges, with its commitment to maintaining an open and
diversified economy and redressing social imbalances.
Looking ahead, the country s main challenges are to maintain

The purpose of this report is to assess
the climate change impacts on water resources in Romania
from an integrated, multi-sectoral perspective, and to
recommend priority actions for addressing the identified
risks and opportunities. The analysis is presented from an
integrated water resources perspective, thereby including
all pertinent water-related sectors, viz. municipal water
supply and sanitation, industrial water supply, agriculture,

With limited land, capital, and a fast
growing population, Burundi's main asset is its
youthful population. Its main challenge is also to create
good quality jobs for its youth. With low levels of
educational attainment and poor health status, the quality
of this young population is poor. After more than 13 years
of conflict ending in 2000, and a period of modest recovery,
Burundi has the opportunity to stimulate growth. Burundi is