The development objectives of the Phase two of the Syr Darya Control and Northern Aral Sea Project for Kazakhstan are to improve flood management capacity and improve water provision for developing aquaculture and other socioeconomic activities in the project areas along the lower Syr Darya.
... See More + Some of the negative impacts and mitigation measures include: the lost irrigated lands are compensated by the identical agricultural lands, i.e identical soil fertility level and productivity. Compensation is meant to give the owners an opportunity to restore the pre-project level of livelihood. These procedures are related both to the legislation of RK and procedures of World bank; affected persons are entitled to be compensated at full replacement cost for their lost assets, incomes and businesses, including temporary losses or impacts, without adjustments for depreciation; compensation should enable affected persons to restore at least their pre-project incomes and standard of living by the end of the project; special attention should be given to households headed by women and other vulnerable persons and appropriate assistance provided to assure that their living standards are maintained or improved; land acquisition and resettlement are executed as part of the project and fully funded; and compensation will be fully provided before land can be entered for civil works or demolition.
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Cities in developing countries are experiencing unprecedented growth. But this is often accompanied by the negative impacts of car-dependent urbanization such as congestion, air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, inefficient use of energy and time, and social inequality of accessibility.
... See More + The World Bank's transforming cities with transit: transit and land-use integration for sustainable urban development (Suzuki, Cervero, and Iuchi 2013) concluded that compact, mixed-use; pedestrian-friendly development organized around a transit station is one of the most effective strategic initiatives to address the negative effects of motorization. Despite increasing recognition of transit-oriented development as an effective strategic approach for sustainable urban development, most cities, particularly those in developing countries, do not have the practical know-how and expertise to make transit-oriented development happen. Because these cities are almost always under a severe fiscal constraint, they face great challenges in financing capital-intensive mass transit systems to reverse car-dependent urbanization. Development-based land value capture (LVC) in Hong Kong SAR, China; Tokyo; New York; Washington, DC; and London allows these cities not only to generate funds for transit investment and operation and maintenance but also to promote sustainable urban development. If adapted well to local contexts, such schemes have great potential to become an effective finance and planning apparatus for cities in developing countries.
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Working Paper 92250 JAN 13, 2015
Hiroaki Suzuki; Jin Murakami; Yuhung Hong; Tamayose, Beth
Solomon Islands is at high risk to natural hazards. Located in the Pacific Ring of Fire and within the cyclone belt, it is one of the 20 countries in the world most vulnerable to economic risk exposure caused by geological, hydrological and climatic hazards.
... See More + This includes tropical cyclones, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides, floods and droughts. There have been seven major disasters triggered by natural hazards in the past 30 years, causing loss of life and having a severe and adverse impact on the economy each time. Modelling predicts natural hazards and climate change will lead to an average direct loss of US$20.5 million - or 3 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) - annually for the next 50 years. In April 2014, 23 people, predominantly women and children, lost their lives after a low depression caused flooding that swept through Honiara and the Guadalcanal Plains. Total damage and losses from the floods is estimated at US$108 million or 9.2 percent of GDP.
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Although there is fast-growing policy interest in offering financial products to help rural households manage risk, the literature is still scant as to which products are the most effective.
... See More + This paper uses a randomized field experiment in Senegal and Burkina Faso to compare male and female farmers who are offered index-based agricultural insurance with those who are offered a variety of savings instruments. The paper finds that female farm managers were less likely to purchase agricultural insurance and more likely to invest in savings for emergencies, even controlling for access to informal insurance and differences in crop choice. It is hypothesized that this finding results from the fact that, although men and women are equally exposed to yield risk, women face additional sources of lifecycle risk -- particularly health risks associated with fertility and childcare -- that men do not. In essence, the basis risk associated with agricultural insurance products is higher for women. Purchasing insurance increased input spending and use more than savings. Those who purchased more insurance realized higher average yields and were better able to manage food insecurity and shocks. This finding suggests that gender differences in demand for financial products can have an impact on productivity, resilience, and welfare.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7176 JAN 01, 2015
Delavallade, Clara; Dizon, Felipe; Hill, Ruth Vargas; Petraud, Jean Paul
This working paper summarizes the key findings of the African Transport Policy Performance Review, carried out by SSATP in selected Anglophone and Francophone countries in 2013.
... See More + It highlights the performance of transport policies focusing on the main transportation modes, excluding maritime and aviation, and is augmented by outcomes of related work carried out mainly by SSATP and the World Bank. The key objective is to convey the salient messages, and to point out the need for more transformational and pragmatic transport policy objectives and strategies, in an effort to enhance the efficiency and competitiveness of the sector. The paper addresses some fundamental policy issues, that affect transport performance in Sub-Saharan African countries and is intended for transport sector policy level decision-makers.
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Working Paper (Numbered Series) 93852 JAN 01, 2015
Urban leaders, policy makers, and researchers trying to understand or respond to urbanization have always been hampered by the lack of internationally comparable data.
... See More + Each country defines urban areas and populations differently, and international comparisons or global estimates of urban populations borrow these incompatible definitions. Therefore, studying urbanization across countries in any consistent way has been difficult. This study uses satellite imagery and other data to better understand urbanization by defining and measuring the physical extent of urban areas and their populations in a consistent manner, across the entire East Asia region, for 2000 and 20101. To create maps of built-up areas throughout the region, change-detection methods were applied to the analysis of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite data, using a geophysical definition of built-up areas (Mertes and others, forthcoming). These built-up areas were combined with the World Pop map, which modeled population distribution using census and other data as inputs. Using this combination of built-up areas and populations, 869 urban areas with more than 100,000 people were identified, and changes in their spatial area and populations were measured. This summary provides a brief overview of some of the findings, which are explored in more depth in the full report, East Asias changing urban landscape, measuring a decade of spatial growth (World Bank, forthcoming).
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Policymakers and development groups are interested in innovative ways to deliver cash transfer programs and make an impact where its needed most.
... See More + In Bangladesh, World Bank researchers worked with the government to evaluate a pilot social protection program that conditioned transfers on primary school attendance, monthly growth monitoring for young children and monthly nutrition sessions for mothers. Payments were made to mothers via electronic cash cards. While the program had no effect on school attendance, it significantly boosted consumption of protein and other nutrition- rich foods, and reduced wasting. Based on the results, the nutrition-related part of the program is being scaled up with World Bank assistance to reach 600,000 of the poorest households across Bangladesh, potentially benefitting 2.7 million people. Bangladesh reduced the percentage of families living in poverty by almost a third over the past decade to 30 percent, but the country hasnt been as successful at cutting the rate of wasting and stunting among children. Bangladesh has one of the highest rates of malnutrition in the world and 41 percent of children below the age of 5 are stunted. About five million children are also out of school.
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Ratings for the Land Administration and Management Project for Albania were as follows: outcomes were moderately satisfactory, the risk to development outcome was moderate, the Bank performance was moderately satisfactory, and the Borrower performance was also moderately satisfactory.
... See More + Some lessons learned included: the original scope of the project was too diverse and ambitious and it was therefore very problematic to manage all components effectively across so many different sectoral areas. Component A alone will have been a significantly challenging project to manage in the context of Albanias development cycle. Project restructuring and a dedicated team leader for component A were helpful in resolving these issues. The majority of the significant delays in project components were directly related to procurement activities. A key weakness in all the procurement approaches was the corresponding project governance arrangements and the voluntary attitude to membership of evaluation committees. Many procurements involved multiple ministries and authorities and there was no single responsible officer (SRO) appointed to take sole charge of the procurement process. This led to delays in forming and sustaining evaluation committees, interference and significant delays in the decision making process.
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Implementation Completion and Results Report ICR3049 DEC 15, 2014
The objective of the Pap-Angren Railway Project is to reduce costs and provide connectivity between the Uzbek part of the Ferghana Valley and the rest of Uzbekistan thereby improving access and closing economic gap with the rest of Uzbekistan and international markets.
... See More + Some of the negative impacts and mitigation measures include: it is necessary to minimize performance of works on railway construction which may cause the necessity of involuntary resettlement; when carrying out construction and rehabilitation works damage to houses and objects of infrastructure should be minimized; due to careful selection of necessary plots all the best should be done to minimize acquisition of productive and private lands and to avoid acquisition of lands where people live and carry out business activity; during designing acquisition of lands on permanent basis should be minimized; temporary negative impact on lands should be minimized by accurate implementation of construction/rehabilitation works; it is necessary to take additional measures on informing of households to minimize damage to available crops and fruits; it is necessary to make all efforts to use more public lands for construction of new railway Angren-Pap, and also to the most limit construction and repair works in irrigated plots. In case it appears impossible to avoid works in the territory of irrigated plots outside the settlements, damage to fields, crops and plantings should be compensated; the amount of compensations to households for the damage caused to crops and trees, will be determined basing on retail market prices; and households should have opportunity to declare their claims and to undertake actions directed on receiving of compensations.
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The objective of the Pap-Angren Railway Project is to reduce costs and provide connectivity between the Uzbek part of the Ferghana Valley and the rest of Uzbekistan thereby improving access and closing economic gap with the rest of Uzbekistan and international markets.
... See More + Some of the negative impacts and mitigation measures include: it is necessary to minimize performance of works on railway construction which may cause the necessity of involuntary resettlement; when carrying out construction and rehabilitation works damage to houses and objects of infrastructure should be minimized; due to careful selection of necessary plots all the best should be done to minimize acquisition of productive and private lands and to avoid acquisition of lands where people live and carry out business activity; during designing acquisition of lands on permanent basis should be minimized; temporary negative impact on lands should be minimized by accurate implementation of construction/rehabilitation works; it is necessary to take additional measures on informing of households to minimize damage to available crops and fruits; it is necessary to make all efforts to use more public lands for construction of new railway Angren-Pap, and also to the most limit construction and repair works in irrigated plots. In case it appears impossible to avoid works in the territory of irrigated plots outside the settlements, damage to fields, crops and plantings should be compensated; the amount of compensations to households for the damage caused to crops and trees, will be determined basing on retail market prices; and households should have opportunity to declare their claims and to undertake actions directed on receiving of compensations.
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The outcome rating for Taiyuan Urban Transport Project for China is not applicable making the risk to development outcome also not applicable. The Banks performance in the project was moderately unsatisfactory while the borrowers performance was unsatisfactory.
... See More + The project was canceled for the following reasons: Project implementation was significantly and consistently behind schedule since the Bank loan became effective. After more than three years of implementation, no contracts had been awarded under the project and no disbursement made from the loan except for the front-end fee. Project implementation had been adversely affected by a series of events mentioned above. The problems encountered made it hard to achieve the original project development objectives and there were no readily available components for replacement of the original activities through restructuring. After internal consultation, the Borrower determined that it would be difficult for Taiyuan to continue with the project and achieve a satisfactory result, and proposed to cancel the project and fully repay the disbursed amount of the loan.
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