According to the most recent UN World Urbanization Prospects around half of the world's population is living in urban areas in 2008, and the world will be increasingly urban from now on. The World Bank, in a recent piece on 'The Urbanisation of Global Poverty', noted a simultaneous trend towards the urbanisation of poverty, with the poor moving into towns and cities faster than the rest of the population. Are donor strategies, policies and programmes keeping up with the pace of change occurring in the least developed countries?...(read more)...
Reshaping Economic Geography, the World Development Report for 2009, is launched today. The World Bank’s flagship report puts place and space very firmly in the development spotlight, outlining how countries can speed up their own development by ‘reshaping economic geography’....(read more)...