In this comprehensive review of India's social welfare & anti-poverty initiatives, the World Bank says that the spending to eradicate poverty had not reached their full potential & recommends replacing PDS with a system of direct cash transfer.

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This report's objective is to develop the evidence base for policy making in relation to poverty reduction. It produces a diagnosis of the broad nature of the poverty problem and its trends in India, focusing on both consumption poverty and human development outcomes.

Scaling-up adoption of renewable energy technology—such as solar home systems (SHS)—to expand electricity access in developing countries can accelerate the transition to low-carbon economic development. Using a national household survey, this study quantifies the carbon and distributional benefits of SHS programs in Bangladesh. Three key findings are generated from

This book released recently by the Wotld Bank contends that most countries are relatively highly dependent on natural capital initially, and the ones that progress most successfully are those that manage their assets for the long term and reinvest in human and social capital as well as in building strong institutions and systems of governance.

This report presents the findings and recommendations of the evaluation of the World Bank's Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Pilot Program. It shows that SEA can contribute to improving development policy and sector reform by calling attention to environmental and social priorities, strengthening constituencies, enhancing policy capacities, and improving social accountability.

This paper provides evidence from eight developing countries of an inverse relationship between poverty and city size. Poverty is both more widespread and deeper in very small and small towns than in large or very large cities. This basic pattern is generally robust to choice of poverty line.

The aim of this paper is to provide a strategic overview of a decade of experience in supporting public administrations in their efforts to confront excessive groundwater resource exploitation for agricultural irrigation.

This report outlines how residents of cities are responsible for as much as 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions while at the same time facing significant impacts from climate change. It says that up to 80 percent of the expected $80 billion to $100 billion per year in climate change adaptation costs will likely be borne by urban areas.



While the global financial crisis appears to have had little impact on the flow of funds to South Asia’s power sector, the sector still needs up to $150 billion in additional investments to meet its growing electricity demand by 2015 says this report by World Bank’s Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP).

This paper examines the policy options for India as it seeks to improve living conditions of the poor on a large scale and reduce the population in slums. Addressing the problem requires first a diagnosis of the market at the city level and a recognition that government interventions, rather than thwarting the operations of the market, should seek to make it operate better. This can

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