The countries in Mesoamerica have achieved major advances in the field of environmental management over the last ten years. Both Mexico and the Central American nations have put a whole series of legal, institutional, and operating changes in place with regard to environmental management, both...

The use of economic instruments has drawn increased attention as a tool for both lessening the size of the solid waste management problem and improving upon the delivery of solid waste collection and disposal services.

The Environment and Safeguards Group (ESG) of the IDB has examined how potential environmental and social risks of major Bank-supported road improvement investments in natural resource rich and socio-culturally diverse "frontier" regions have been identified and addressed in various parts of...

One of the first questions that has to be answered in the survey design process is "How many subjects should be interviewed?" The answer can have significant implications for the cost of project preparation, since in Latin America and the Caribbean costs per interview can range from US$20 to...

This presentation was commissioned by the Environment Network of the Regional Policy Dialogue for the III Hemispheric Meeting celebrated on March 9th and 10th, 2004. Latin American cities have high rates of air pollution, mainly particulate matter. There is no doubt that air pollution produces...

This report summarizes the discussions and presents working group reports and papers presented at the Seminar/Workshop on Integrated Water resources Management: Institutional and Policy Reform held on June 24th-27th, 1997 in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. Based on progress to date, the...

This report describes the application in 12 countries of a system of four indicators that measure the potential impact of natural hazards, the key element of those countries' vulnerability, and their capacity to manage risks. The development of this set of indicators relies on two decades of...

This paper explores options to minimize threats posed to IDB-financed physical investments by the impacts of climate change. A large proportion of projects are implemented in climate-sensitive sectors (e.g., agriculture, water resources, and transport). In these cases, the norm is to consider...

This document was commissioned by the Environment Network of the Regional Policy Dialogue for the V Hemispheric Meeting celebrated on November 30th, 2006. This consulting service attempts to set forth the principal opportunities available to the countries of the region of Latin America and the...

To choose better water investments we need to have a better appreciation of what is possible with improved governance, of how to identify improved governance, how to design institutions for it, and how to incorporate it into planning and investments. This paper reviews the theoretical and...