Central America is undergoing an
important transition, with urban populations increasingat
accelerated speeds, bringing pressing challenges as well as
opportunities to boost sustained,inclusive and resilient
growth. Today, 59 percent of Central America's
population lives in urban areas, but it is expected that
within the next generation 7 out of 10 people will live in
cities, equivalent to adding 700,000 new urban residents

The country’s forest areas occupy 21.7
million ha (approximately 27.6 percent of its total surface
area), and are inhabited by close to 10 percent of its total
population. The forest sector generates a variety of timber
and non-timber products and eco-services. The Turkish
government has put great effort into reforestation and
forest management, increasing the total area of forests. In
their tenth national development plan (2014-2018), the

Prior to the political and security
crisis of 2012, Mali, a large landlocked country in West
Africa already ranked among the poorest countries in the
world. In early 2012, the vast northern regions fell under
the control of extremist forces, while a coup d’état in
Bamako threw the country into political instability and
turmoil. A strong international military response in early
2013 prevented further destabilization, though part of the

During the past decade, Georgia’s
pursuit of economic reforms led to impressive economic
growth, capital inflow, and investments. It helped improve
the business environment and infrastructure, strengthened
public finances, and liberalized trade. Georgia achieved
most of the human development targets of the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs). This progress did not result,
however, in improved environmental governance or better

Climate change is a core development
challenge in Tanzania, and the potential costs of inaction
are significant. Current climate variability (including
extreme events such as droughts and floods), already leads
to major economic costs in mainland Tanzania and in
Zanzibar. Individual annual events have economic costs in
excess of 1 percent of GDP, and occur regularly, reducing
long-term growth and affecting millions of people and

This report was prepared as part of the
World Bank engagement in the Philippines to support Islamic
Finance and Financial Inclusion. It provides an overview on
the context for the development of Islamic finance in the
Philippines and is accompanied by two focused reports
providing further detail and suggestions on enhancing
financial inclusion in the Philippines through Islamic
microfinance and assessment of the status of financial

In July 2013, the World Bank Group
launched its Strategy, outlining how it will partner more
effectively with clients to help them achieve the ambitious
goals of eradicating extreme poverty and boosting shared
prosperity through economic growth, inclusion,
sustainability and resilience. In April 2014, the World Bank
Group Corporate Scorecard was launched for the first time
and the World Bank Scorecard revised to monitor the

The November 8, 2015 elections in
Myanmar marked a historic milestone in the country’s
political and economic transition that began in 2011.
Incoming policy makers are preparing to pick up the baton
and deliver on the people’s strong aspirations for a
harmonious and prosperous Myanmar. In this series of policy
notes, the World Bank Group seeks to promote dialogue on
critical development challenges and on options for policies

Migration is transforming rural
economies, landscapes, and potentially, gender relations.
Migration is one of the drivers of the so-called
feminization of agriculture in Latin America. This
feminization has relevance for everyone given agriculture’s
role in regional food security, national shared prosperity,
and household resilience to shocks. The objective of this
study is to investigate the feminization of agriculture as

The Government of Punjab, through
Government of India’s (GoI) Department of Economic Affairs
(DEA) had requested the World Bank to provide non-lending
technical assistance (NLTA) to provide high quality basic
urban civic amenities to the residents of cities of Ludhiana
and Amritsar in the areas of: water supply, sewerage, storm
water drainage, solid waste management, and modern urban
transport system. The study is expected to recommend

The Country Opinion Survey in Bolivia
assists the World Bank Group (WBG) in gaining a better
understanding of how stakeholders in Bolivia perceive the
WBG. It provides the WBG with systematic feedback from
national and local governments, multilateral/bilateral
agencies, media, academia, the private sector, and civil
society in Bolivia on 1) their views regarding the general
environment in Bolivia; 2) their overall attitudes toward

The report Africa Can Help Feed Africa
(World Bank 2012) showed that increasing food staples1
supply can be met by better connecting African markets to
each other. That report called for a stronger focus on
removing trade barriers and building on the forces of
regional integration. This report builds on the lessons of
Africa Can Help Feed Africa by looking into the specific
circum¬stances met in West Africa, home to one-third of the