The West Bank and Gaza suffer from severe environmental degradation, including deterioration of groundwater and uncontrolled dumping of solid waste. These problems have been addressed in Gaza with the assistance of bilateral donors, but until the design of the Solid Waste and Environment...

Poverty-related infectious diseases constitute the main causes of death. Gender differentials in health persist, as indicated by high maternal mortality. About 70 percent of mothers suffer from iron deficiency anemia, and 75 percent of pregnant women do not have access to a trained attendant at...

Over the past five years, the World Bank has developed useful post-conflict strategies that better meet the unique needs of war-torn countries. The Local Initiatives Project (LIP) in Bosnia presents a new standard of responsive social development in the Bank. While it demonstrates the need to...

The Rural Poverty Alleviation Program in Northeast Brazil uses an integrated approach to social and economic analysis in tackling poverty at the community level. Key to the success of this program is the use of economic and social indicators to monitor changes in the community. The reform...

Resolving the pension crisis in Brazil has been neither straightforward nor technically easy. The World Bank provided technical assistance via diagnostic tools that assessed the impacts of current pensions at the state level. The analysis identified likely impacts various pension reform models...

The past 20 years have witnessed a growing disparity in health status indicators between urban and rural populations in China. The economic and social reforms that have accelerated the growth in GDP and personal income levels of the urban population have not trickled down to the rural areas....

The Gabon Urban Development Project is being conducted through a series of pilot projects in the poorest, most densely populated neighborhoods in three cities. Reducing poverty hinges on increasing the access of the poor to employment opportunities. This requires improving infrastructure, which...

The Uttar Pradesh (UP) Basic Education Pilot Project and the national India District Primary Education Project exemplify good social development practices. The pilot project in UP to assist girls to achieve better education proved so successful that it was scaled up to a national project. The...

The Indonesia Coral Reef Rehabilitation and Management Project (COREMAP) is the first operation supported by the World Bank to focus exclusively on coral reef ecosystems. COREMAP is being implemented in 10 provinces over 15 years, during which period the communities are given incentives,...

India's Uttar Pradesh Sodic Lands Reclamation Project has two objectives. First, it seeks to reverse the decline of productivity through sustainable reclamation of sodic lands. Second, it is intended to prevent additional increases in sodicity through strengthening local institutions and...