Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to compare the stringency of different types of public financing institutions' safeguard mechanisms in the financing of large dams in developing countries. It seeks to do so by examining: the institutional strategies and policies currently in place in a...

Purpose – This paper seeks to examine ways in which political opposition to market‐oriented reforms in emerging markets can be challenged. Design/methodology/approach – An in‐depth study of two industrial sectors is undertaken – natural resource industries and infrastructure since both...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the relative uses of decision tools for secondary risks of capital projects. Design/methodology/approach – The approach is a comparison of traditional limited approaches (notably EIA) versus emerging more complex approaches at assessing...

This paper discusses the political and institutional feasibility of the idea of technology-based climate stabilisation wedges proposed by Stephen Pacala and Robert Socolow. To this end, the authors developed concrete policy ideas on how stabilisation wedges might be implemented. The authors then...

Limited capacity to pay, large infrastructure needs and a huge backlog in the construction of sanitation facilities make recourse to cross-subsidies and government-funded subsidies a necessity in Africa. * This Policy Insights introduces the African Economic Outlook 2007.

• Early climate-related actions should be those with a high local economic and/or environmental payoff per unit of impact on greenhouse gases. • Energy, transport and natural resource management policies can often be better designed to realise greenhouse gas reductions at little or no...

Rural areas of the developing world are the last frontier of the information technology revolution. Telephone and internet penetration there remains a small fraction of what it is in the developed world. Limited means of electronic communication with the outside world are just one source of...

This article aims to assess the likely competitiveness of different forms of renewable energy in Colombia over the next 25years. To this end, it compares the likely power production cost for a set of renewable energy sources, and compares them to the likely long-run cost of traditional energy....

This paper provides practical suggestions on how to integrate responses to global environmental threats into policies and projects in developing countries. It does so on the basis of an expert survey both among general development policy practitioners who have in the past been involved in...

• En matière de climat, les actions à réaliser en priorité devraient être celles qui offrent un rendement économique ou environnemental élevé par unité d’impact sur les gaz à effet de serre. • Souvent, une meilleure conception des politiques de l’énergie, des transports et de...