The Government of Indonesia (GOI) is in
the process of designing a national REDD+ mechanism to allow
it to access donor funding in the medium term, and funding
from a potential performance based mechanism in the long
term. This policy brief is focused on the broad question of
how REDD+ can address underlying community issues such as
lack of access to forest land, and does not deal with the
more specific questions of legal and institutional

The importance of agriculture in the
economies of sub-Saharan African countries cannot be
overemphasized. With agriculture accounting for about 65
percent of the region's employment and 75 percent of
its domestic trade, significant progress in reducing hunger
and poverty across the region depends on the development and
transformation of the agricultural sector. Transforming
agriculture from largely a subsistence enterprise to a

Mexico needs to broaden and deepen its
financial system without compromising the financial
stability gains of the last decade. Much more private
investment is needed to transform the economy to boost
productivity, and despite improvements in recent years, many
households and firms still lack adequate access to financial
services. Strengthening competition and streamlining key
regulations for firms are key to increasing Mexico's

This note focuses on the regulatory and
market environment relevant to the emergence and adoption of
innovative delivery channels to promote greater financial
inclusion in Malaysia. Financial inclusion is defined here
not only as providing access to financial services, but also
as enabling and promoting increased usage of those services.
Achieving higher levels of access and usage requires an
extensive and efficient retail payments infrastructure,

Kazakhstan aspires to become one of the
world s 30 most developed economies by 2050. The focus is on
laying the basis for the accelerated diversification of the
economy through industrialization and infrastructure
development, including enhancing human capital to drive
innovation and economic efficiency. This country economic
memorandum report adopts an analytical framework that looks
into options that will be explored to help authorities think

Since 2006, there has been an explosion
of Payments for Environmental Services (PES) projects in
Brazil, as well as efforts to pass PES laws at federal,
state, and municipal levels. Even in this short period, an
extraordinarily rich range of experiences has developed,
with examples of the application of PES at a variety of
scales, ranging from microwatersheds to entire states; in a
variety of contexts, from remote forest frontier areas to

This paper revisits the identification
of the binding constraints to investment and growth in
Pakistan by rigorously applying the growth diagnostic
framework. It has a central finding: Pakistan's
economy faces two major groups of constraints emerging and
structural. The emerging constraints include infrastructure
(energy) deficit, high macro-fiscal risks, and inadequate
international financing (high country risks and low FDI

Since 2004, Sri Lanka has pursued inward
looking policies that have encouraged import substitution,
especially with respect to agricultural commodities. This
report provides empirical evidence to inform the policy
dialogue over the impact of current trade and price policies
on the incentive framework for agriculture in Sri Lanka.
This analysis provides a quantitative assessments of: (1)
the level of support to farmers producing import-competing

The World Bank's strategy for
Africa's future recognizes the central importance of
industrialization in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the consequent
creation of productive jobs for Africans, which have long
been a preoccupation of African leaders and policy makers.
This book represents an attempt to address these issues. The
book stresses that, while the recent turnaround in
Africa's economic growth is encouraging, this growth

After decades of turmoil and
instability, a period of calm and progress evolved in
Guinea-Bissau in 2009. A military coup in April 2012
interrupted it. A fresh start is needed to alter the
dynamics that kept Guinea-Bissau poor. In 2013, Gross
National Income per capita was US$590. Average economic
growth barely kept pace with population growth. In 2010,
poverty at the national poverty line of US$2 a day was 70

This issue of the Handshake, IFCs
quarterly journal on public-private partnerships, contains
the following topics of interest: weighing the options: burn
or bury?; waste and climate: supporting governments;
community engagement: integrating Indias informal sector; an
interview with the director of the documentary Trashed; and
bonus: podcast with 2013 CNN hero on community cleanups.

What is the relationship between
employment and conflict in fragile states? Although this
question cannot be definitively answered, a large body of
research suggests that in countries emerging from conflict,
peace is likelier to endure if growth can be rapidly
restored and translated into economic opportunities for
large segments of the population. With a focus on
Sub-Saharan Africa, this report attempts to address the