In the context of Romania’s push toward
sustainable and inclusive development, the government has
asked the World Bank to support the harmonization of public
investments financed by the European Union and the state
budget. The current report describes the national program
for local development (PNDL’s) framework and project cycle
and provides an overview of the program’s project portfolio
in 2014. It also draws a number of preliminary observations

This paper is one of a series aimed at
deepening the World Bank’s capacity to follow through on
commitments made in response to the World Development Report
(WDR) 2011, which gave renewed prominence to the nexus
between conflict, security, and development. Nigeria is a
remarkable illustration of how deeply intractable the cycle
of poverty, conflict, and fragility can become when tied to
the ferocious battles associated with the political economy

Situated in a fertile low-lying river
delta, Bangladesh combines high vulnerability to floods,
tropical cyclones, earthquakes, and climate change with one
of the world’s highest population densities, with around 159
million people living in less than 150,000 sq. km. With the
world’s second lowest per capita income in 1975, it was
labeled ‘the test case for development’ in view of the
formidable development challenges it faced. Nevertheless,

This Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD)
covers eight small Pacific island countries (PIC8):
Kiribati, Marshall Islands, the Federated States of
Micronesia, Palau, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. The
objective of the SCD is to identify the most critical
constraints and opportunities facing the PIC8 to meet the
global goals of ending absolute poverty and boosting shared
prosperity in a sustainable manner. The report is intended

At the core of the very rapid growth in the number of urban dwellers living in illegal settlements is the gap between the cost or availability of legal land sites on which housing can be built and what most individuals or households can afford to pay for accommodation. For most cities, the problems are further exacerbated by the high spatial concentration of economic activities (and thus employment opportunities). This paper looks at the many ways in which governments can increase the supply and lower the cost of land for housing.

This module provides guidance and a
comprehensive menu of practical tools for integrating gender
in the planning, design, implementation, and evaluation of
projects and investments in climate-smart agriculture (CSA).
The module emphasizes the importance and ultimate goal of
integrating gender in CSA practices, which is to reduce
gender inequalities and ensure that men and women can
equally benefit from any intervention in the agricultural

Since the industrial revolution, the
economic development of Western Europe and North America was
characterized by continuous urbanization accompanied by a
gradual phasing-in of urban land property rights over time.
Today, however, the evidence in many fast urbanizing
low-income countries points towards a different trend of
“urbanization without formalization”, with potentially
adverse effects on long-term economic growth. This paper

The 2014-2015 Romania Regional
Development 2 Program is the continuation of the World
Bank’s technical assistance to the Ministry of Regional
Development and Public Administration (MRDPA). Building on
the previous engagement, the current work addresses a
fundamental question: given Romania’s persistent development
challenges, how can the country do more with less when it
comes to the public infrastructure it needs? The key is to

The Country Policy and Institutional
Assessment (CPIA) Africa report describes the progress
African countries are making on strengthening the quality of
their policies and institutions. Some of the results from
this report include: The overall quality of policies and
institutions in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa was
unchanged in 2014, but there was much variation in
performance across countries. More than half the countries

Maldives is an island nation scattered
in the Indian Ocean comprising 1,190 small coral islands of
which 190 are inhabited by a local population of 341,000.
Maldives’ unique archipelagic coral island provides the
country with an extremely rich and diverse marine ecological
system. With more territorial sea than land, marine
resources have played a vital role shaping the contours of
economic development, with nature-based tourism being the

This report is on possible improvements
on management of revenues from auctioning of European Union
Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) allowances and use of
flexibility mechanisms in Romania. The principal objective
of this report is to propose improvements on management of
revenue from the auctioning of EU ETS allowances, as well as
describe possible use of flexibility mechanisms in Romania,
in order to mobilize and enable both public and private

This paper is intended to provide a
brief overview of the different SEZ experiences in China and
Africa, the key lessons that Africa can learn from China, as
well as the recent Chinese zones in Africa. For this
purpose, the paper is structured in the following way:
section 1 starts with definition of SEZs, then followed with
the Chinese experiences (section 2), African experiences
(section 3), the lessons that Africa can learn from China