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The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is one of the most water-stressed parts of the world. In just over 25 years, between 1975 and 2001. Looking to the future, MENA's freshwater outlook is expected to worsen because of continued population growth and projected climate change impacts. The region's population is on the way to doubling to 700 million by 2050. Projections of climate change and variability impacts on the region's water availability are highly uncertain, but they are expected to be largely negative. To offer just one more example, rainfall and freshwater availability could decrease by up to 40 percent for some MENA countries by the end of this century. The urgent challenge is how to adapt to the future as illustrated by these numbers and how to turn the region's economy onto a sustainable path. This volume suggests new ways of thinking about the complex changes and planning needed to achieve this. New thinking will mean making better use of desert land, sun, and salt water the abundant riches of the region which can be harnessed to underpin sustainable growth. More mundane, but just as important, new thinking will also mean planning for dramatically better management of the water already available. Right now, water is very poorly managed in MENA. Inefficiencies are notorious in agriculture, where irrigation consumes up to 81 percent of extracted water. Similarly, municipal and industrial water supply systems have abnormally high losses, and most utilities are financially unsustainable. In addition, many MENA countries overexploit their fossil aquifers to meet growing water demand. None of this is sustainable while water resources decline. This volume hopes to add to the ongoing thinking and planning by presenting methodologies to address the water demand gap. It assesses the viability of desalination powered by renewable energy from economic, social, technical, and environmental viewpoints, and it reviews initiatives attempting to make renewable energy desalination a competitively viable option. The authors also highlight the change required in terms of policy, financing, and regional cooperation to make this alternative method of desalination a success. And as with any leading edge technology, the conversation here is of course about scale, cost, environmental impact, and where countries share water bodies plain good neighborly behavior.

Bangladesh is one of the world's poorest countries. Nearly 80 percent of the nation's 140 million people reside in rural areas; of these, 20 percent live in extreme poverty. Geographically, many low-lying areas are vulnerable to severe flooding, while other regions are prone to drought, erosion, and soil salinity. Such an unfavorable agricultural landscape, combined with mismanagement of natural resources and increasing population pressure, is pushing many of the rural poor to the brink. Because Bangladesh is such a poor country, it also is one of the world's lowest energy producers. Total annual energy supply is only about 150 liters of oil equivalent per capita (International Energy Agency, or IEA 2003); in rural areas, conditions are even worse. Compared to other developing countries, Bangladesh uses little modern energy. Despite its successful rural electrification program, close to two-thirds of households remain without electricity and, with the exception of kerosene, commercial fuels are beyond reach for many. Moreover, biomass fuels are becoming increasingly scarce. Collected mainly from the local environment as recently as two decades ago, bio-fuels are fast becoming a marketed commodity as access to local biomass continues to shrink. This study, the first to concentrate on Bangladesh's energy systems and their effects on the lives of rural people, drew on these background studies, as well as other World Bank-financed research on indoor air pollution (IAP) and rural infrastructure, to present a rural energy strategy for the country. Much of this study's analytical underpinning was based on several background studies. This study also reanalyzed data from earlier research to better understand the benefits of modern energy use for rural households, farm activities, and small businesses.

Nigeria's Vision 2020 has expressed a bold desire for the country to be among the world's top 20 economies by the year 2020. The economy has posted impressive growth figures since 2003, driven by higher oil revenues and a series of home-grown economic reforms. The country is now firmly on the road to middle-income status. But what else do government and the private sector need to do to create the jobs and growth that will underpin the national development strategy? What are the challenges that Nigeria's businesses face today? 'An Assessment of the Investment Climate in Nigeria' provides answers to these questions. Based on a survey of 2,300 companies, it provides evidence-based recommendations designed to support Vision 2020 and the president's seven-point agenda. The authors find that government must move quickly to create jobs and reduce poverty. Key challenges include a desperate shortage of energy and a poor transportation network, as well as low levels of education and continuing unrest in the Niger delta. In addition, Nigeria's workers need to become more productive in order to compete in a globalized economy. As a matter of fact, they are less productive than workers in more dynamic countries, such as Brazil, China, and Kenya. Improving productivity will require simultaneous efforts to foster competition, improve specific aspects of the business environment, and facilitate better management and training within individual firms. In addition to the issues of productivity, Nigeria's best firms have not been able to expand their market share. Consequently, policy makers need to address and elimate obstacles to competition, including barriers to entry, convoluted taxation, property registration, and licensing.

This report demonstrates that a \"climate-smart\" energy strategy is possible for countries in the East Asia region, with support from the international community. In the past three decades, the East Asia region has experienced the fastest economic growth in the world, accompanied by rapid urbanization. As a consequence, energy consumption has more than tripled and is expected to further double over the next two decades. This remarkable growth and rapid urbanization have led to twin energy challenges in the region: improving environmental sustainability and enhancing energy security. The region has many of the world's most polluted cities, resulting from fossil fuel combustion. The region also contains some of the largest greenhouse gas emitters in the world, although their per capita and historical emissions are much below the levels of industrialized countries. Concerns with energy security have grown because of increased risks of price volatility and possible disruptions in supplies for oil and gas. To move the region to a sustainable energy path, the commitment of the respective governments and communities is essential. The governments will need energy-pricing reforms that no longer encourage the use of fossil fuels, and put in place regulations and incentives that improve energy efficiency and support low-carbon technologies. The governments also will need to ramp up research and development for new technologies to leapfrog to the clean energy revolution. The countries cannot move to a sustainable energy path alone. They will need the support of the international community. Substantial concessional financing is essential to motivate energy efficiency and low-carbon technology investments. Transfer of low-carbon technologies and institutional strengthening also will be needed.

The U.S. Geological Survey National Minerals Information Center (NMIC) is the U.S. Government agency tasked with the collection, analysis, and dissemination of information on the production, consumption, import, export, and other measures of the flows of non-fuel mineral commodities of importance to the U.S. economy and national security. The NMIC and its agency predecessors have maintained a database of this information, collected and published annually, dating back to the beginning of the twentieth century. Time series analysis of annual information from the NMIC provides the opportunity to identify trends in the supply chains of the minerals and metals which are increasingly in demand for advanced technologies. The identification of trends in data for net import reliance, country concentration of production, global demand, price volatility, and other measures, when combined with world governance indicators, can be used to focus attention on individual mineral commodities where supply chain restrictions may develop. Specific examples for U.S. net import reliance, global tantalum primary mining, and mineral criticality screening are presented to illustrate the utility of time series analysis of trends in mineral commodity supply and demand, the types of data required, and the limitations of currently available information.

Given a potential increase in low-carbon power generation, assessing the criticality of metals used for its technologies is of significant importance. While several studies analyzed the metal criticality of an individual technology, the national metal criticality for a wide range of low-carbon power generation technologies and the comparison of overall criticality of each technology have yet to be fully evaluated. Therefore, this study firstly evaluates the criticality of 29 metals used in facilities for renewable energy and highly efficient thermal power generation in Japan and then compares the overall criticality for each technology to identify metals that might impose limitations on these technologies and to discuss measures for removal of factors hindering the spread of low-carbon power generation technologies. It was discovered that solar power generation technology is the most critical technology from the perspective of supply risk due to the use of indium, cadmium and selenium, while wind power generation is the most critical technology from the perspective of vulnerability to supply restriction because of the use of neodymium and dysprosium. A developed approach would have a significant potential to contributing to energy-mineral nexus, which may assist in providing policy implications from the perspectives of both specific metals and technologies.

The Cultural Revolution severely shook the organizational structure of China. In its aftermath came a general weakening of the administration and a loosening of control. As a result the country has experienced an intensification of the tendencies towards a cellular economy. The forces, already strong, which encouraged individual localities and enterprises to develop on self-sufficient autonomous lines, have received a new accession of strength. At present the country seems composed of a myriad of small discrete units, although there are at work technical forces which, it would seem, ought to be breaking down this cellular arrangement. This article looks at the emphasis on self-reliance and self-sufficiency, enquires into certain consequences of these trends and hexamines and speculates on the manner in which the separate units of the Chinese economy relate to each other economically.

This article discusses the strategy of self-reliance found in Albania. Albania is known as one of the most extreme cases of self-reliance, and the author analyses information on the Albanian economic development in the post-war period in order to examine whether this reputation is a fact or a myth. The conclusion is that self-reliance in the full sense of the word has not been the road to development in Albania due to aid and assistance from other socialist countries, especially China. Nevertheless, Albania today provides a unique example in achieving to a great extent its goal of self-reliance.