World Bank

Today's enormous development challenges are complicated by the reality of climate change the two are inextricably linked and together demand immediate attention. Climate change threatens all countries, but particularly developing ones. Understanding what climate change means for development policy is the central aim of the World Development Report 2010.

Based on contributions from academics and development practitioners, this book suggests various approaches and techniques for successfully implementing governance reforms.

There is an increasing consensus in the scientific community that climate change is a real and present threat. Despite the large uncertainty on the timing, magnitude and even the direction of some of the physical and economic effects of this phenomenon, it is widely accepted that they will be regionally differentiated and that developing countries and lower income populations will tend to suffer the most.

Infrastructure plays a key role in fostering growth and productivity and has been linked to improved earnings, health, and education levels for the poor. Yet Latin America is currently faced with a dangerous combination of relatively low public and private infrastructure investment. Those investment levels must increase, and it can be done. If LAC governments are to increase infrastructure investment in politically feasible ways, it is critical that they learn from experience and have an accurate idea of future impacts.

Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs are one of the most popular interventions in the social sectors in developing countries. While the details of program design vary, all of these programs transfer resources to poor households conditional on them taking active measures to build up the human capital of their children (enrolling their children in school, taking them for regular health care visits). In almost every instance, transfers are made to women. CCT programs have two clear objectives. First, they seek to provide poor households with a minimum consumption floor.

Economic losses in marine fisheries resulting from poor management, inefficiencies, and overfishing add up to US$50 billion per year. Taken over the last three decades, these losses total over US$2 trillion, a figure roughly equivalent to the GDP of Italy. The Sunken Billions: The Economic Justification for Fisheries Reform argues that well-managed marine fisheries could turn most of these losses into sustainable economic benefits for millions of fishers and coastal communities.

This book is a fascinating study of economic history and history of economic thought. It narrates the history of the World Bank and the establishment of its role as leading development institution. The end of WWII was a crucial time: the reconstruction of Europe and the birth of the 'third world' following decolonization, with the Cold War as a background, created a new need for development interventions and policies.

Since the 1950s when countries became concerned that specialization in primary products would lead to steady falls in the purchasing power of primary exports and slow growth, diversifying out of primary products into manufactures has been a major policy objective of developing countries. Indeed, since that time, developing countries generally have become more diversified, but many low income countries remain dependent on a narrow range of primary products.

Software comes from India, hardware comes from China. Why is that? Why did China and India take such different paths to global dominance in new high-tech industries? Will their paths continue to diverge or converge? How can other countries learn from their successes and failures in reaching global scale in new industries? To answer these questions, this book presents the first rigorous comparison of the growth of the IT industries in China and India, based on interviews with over 300 companies.

A practice-based guide of 36 key concepts - legal, operational, and practical - that countries can use to develop non-conviction based (NCB) forfeiture legislation that helps in combating the development problem of corruption and recovering stolen assets.