Community driven development (CDD) is an approach that emphasizes community control over planning decisions and investment resources. A rigorous evaluation process helps determine CDDs effectiveness in various settings and highlights areas that need strengthening for second phase programs or new...

Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a culturally diverse, environmentally rich country with over five million inhabitants, the majority of whom live on the eastern half of the rugged and mountainous island of New Guinea, the rest scattered among tropical archipelagos in the Bismark and Solomon seas. PNG's...

Vietnam's economic emergence is perhaps best experienced along its rural roads: over 175,000 km of pavement, rubble and dirt track extend to two-thirds of the country's population and nearly all of the poorest people, who live among its productive farms, lush forests and meandering river...

On Boxing Day morning, 2004, a 9.3 magnitude earthquake struck the Indian Ocean. The quake unleashed a blast of energy and created a tsunami three stories high. The disaster claimed more than 228,000 lives, affected 2.5 million others and caused close to US $11.4 billion of damage in 14...

Women and men use rural and urban transport for different purposes based on their socially determined roles and responsibilities. Poor rural transport systems limit access to markets, education, and health services for all, but even more so for women and girls. Female mobility is often...

Approximately eighty percent of Cambodians live in rural areas with limited access to clean and affordable water and energy. Thirty-four percent of the rural population lives below the national poverty line on less than 2,367 riels ($0.60) per day. Even though Cambodia is a low income country,...

Gender-poverty-environment links: a focus on the links between gender disparity, poverty and environmental degradation is increasingly recognized as a key strategy for improving the lives of poor women and men. Acknowledging the ways in which relationships between the environment, society and...

Local governments need to be endowed with administrative autonomy to be able to respond to local needs effectively. The purpose of this note is to clarify components of a well-designed administrative decentralization system and to assist task teams and stakeholders to assess administrative...

The World Bank supported three phases Malawi Social Action Fund (MASAF) project was first approved in 1996. Malawi, with a population of 13 million, is a low income country with one of the lowest per capita incomes in Sub-Saharan Africa. Malawi continues to face a variety of social, economic,...

Poor urban populations in Southern cities are already experiencing the negative impacts of changing weather patterns associated with climate change and climate variability and future projections suggest that these impacts will get worse. Severe weather patterns, experienced as prolonged...