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Many developing countries face daunting water resources challenges as the needs for water supply, irrigation, and hydroelectricity grow; as water becomes more scarce, quality declines, and environmental and social concerns increase; and as the threats posed by goods and droughts are exacerbated by climate change. As a consequence, there is a high and increasing demand for World Bank engagement. Lending for water resources and development accounted for about 16 percent of all World Bank lending over the past decade. Within the World Bank, business strategies for specific water-using sectors, such as water and sanitation, irrigation and drainage, and hydropower, are determined primarily as part of the strategies for these sectors. Water Resources Sector Strategy: Strategic Directions for World Bank Engagement focuses on how to improve the development and management of water resources while providing the principles that link resource management to the specific water-using sectors. The Strategy emphasizes the difficult and contentious issues upon which World Bank practice needs to improve and suggests that the main management challenge is not a vision of integrated water resources management but a “pragmatic but principled” approach.

BRICs and Beyond is an international business executive text written especially for executive and MBA students. It is based on extensive consulting in emerging economies and several years of experience teaching executive MBA courses around the globe. The author has continually faced the problem that the available textbooks for teaching international business focused almost exclusively on examples of Western multinationals for case illustrations. In the process of preparing cases nearer to the emerging market she worked in, the author realized that the often fascinating, frequently insightful and always different approach to business illustrated by these cases should be required reading for MBA students in typical Western environments too. With its wide range of current case illustrations and concise summaries this is a new-generation text that will welcome today's MBA student to the wider world of 21st century international business. \". . . this book is needed not only because it looks at business from the BRICs points of view; it also looks at business from the point of view of tomorrow's business leaders and the challenges that they will have to cope with.\" --Professor Jonathan Gosling, Centre for Leadership Studies, and co-founder, The One-Planet MBA, the University of Exeter, UK \". . . Stephanie Jones advises Western businesses on doing business in emerging economies in a refreshingly straightforward manner, integrating in a novel way her three decades of global, practical experience with the daily barrage of reporting on the BRICs--distilling from these many lessons and principles. . .\" --Extracted from the Foreword, by Professor Wim Naudé, Director of Research, Maastricht School of Management

The Handbook of Business Practices and Growth in Emerging Markets consists of a collection of specially commissioned chapters that describe the current business environment, organizational culture, consumer behavior, financial investment climate, and examples of best prevailing practices in emerging markets. It covers all the major functional areas of business — marketing, strategy, operations and finance — in all continents. The focus of each chapter is on the identification of different business issues in different emerging markets (including Asia, Africa and South America) and on the implementation of a proposed set of recommendations, using both qualitative and quantitative techniques to assist in decision-making and in improving organizational efficiency and effectiveness. Readers will also appreciate the multidimensional view of financial and non-financial performance measurement of businesses.

As economic growth slows in the developed world, the base of the pyramid (BoP) represents perhaps the last great, untapped market. Of the world's 7 billion inhabitants, around 4 billion live in low-income markets in the developing world. These 4 billion people deserve—and, increasingly, are demanding—better lives. At the same time, the business community seeks new opportunities for growth, and the development community is striving to increase its impact. With these forces converging, the potential for mutual value creation is tremendous. This book provides a roadmap for realizing that potential. Drawing on over 25 years of experience across some eighty countries, Ted London offers concrete guidelines for how to build better enterprises while simultaneously alleviating poverty. He outlines three key components that must be integrated to achieve results: the lived experiences of enterprises to date—both successes and failures; the development of an ecosystem that is conducive to market creation; and the voices of the poor, so that entrants can truly understand what poverty alleviation is about. London provides aspiring market leaders and their stakeholders with the tools and techniques needed to succeed in the unique, opportunity-rich BoP.

Key Features:Reviews current business practices relevant to current challenges in emerging marketsCovers all the continents, and thus has global representation of emerging marketsCovers all the major functional areas of business: marketing, strategy, operations and financeIncludes case studies and sections on implications for managers/policymakers in addition to empirical articles, for a balance of academic rigor and managerial implications.

How can property rights be protected and contracts be enforced in countries where the rule of law is ineffective or absent? How can firms from advanced market economies do business in such circumstances? InLawlessness and Economics, Avinash Dixit examines the theory of private institutions that transcend or supplement weak economic governance from the state. In much of the world and through much of history, private mechanisms--such as long-term relationships, arbitration, social networks to disseminate information and norms to impose sanctions, and for-profit enforcement services--have grown up in place of formal, state-governed institutions. Even in countries with strong legal systems, many of these mechanisms continue under the shadow of the law. Numerous case studies and empirical investigations have demonstrated the variety, importance, and merits, and drawbacks of such institutions. This book builds on these studies and constructs a toolkit of theoretical models to analyze them. The models shed new conceptual light on the different modes of governance, and deepen our understanding of the interaction of the alternative institutions with each other and with the government's law. For example, one model explains the limit on the size of social networks and illuminates problems in the transition to more formal legal systems as economies grow beyond this limit. Other models explain why for-profit enforcement is inefficient. The models also help us understand why state law dovetails with some non-state institutions and collides with others. This can help less-developed countries and transition economies devise better processes for the introduction or reform of their formal legal systems.

Good Jobs, Bad Jobs provides an insightful analysis of how and why precarious employment is gaining ground in the labor market and the role these developments have played in the decline of the middle class. Kalleberg shows that by the 1970s, government deregulation, global competition, and the rise of the service sector gained traction, while institutional protections for workers—such as unions and minimum-wage legislation—weakened. Together, these forces marked the end of postwar security for American workers. The composition of the labor force also changed significantly; the number of dual-earner families increased, as did the share of the workforce comprised of women, non-white, and immigrant workers. Of these groups, blacks, Latinos, and immigrants remain concentrated in the most precarious and low-quality jobs, with educational attainment being the leading indicator of who will earn the highest wages and experience the most job security and highest levels of autonomy and control over their jobs and schedules. Kalleberg demonstrates, however, that building a better safety net—increasing government responsibility for worker health care and retirement, as well as strengthening unions—can go a long way toward redressing the effects of today’s volatile labor market. There is every reason to expect that the growth of precarious jobs—which already make up a significant share of the American job market—will continue. Good Jobs, Bad Jobs deftly shows that the decline in U.S. job quality is not the result of fluctuations in the business cycle, but rather the result of economic restructuring and the disappearance of institutional protections for workers. Only government, employers and labor working together on long-term strategies—including an expanded safety net, strengthened legal protections, and better training opportunities—can help reverse this trend.

Hidden behind a number of economic crises in the mid- to late 1990s-including Argentina's headline-grabbing monetary and political upheaval-is that fact that Latin American economies have, generally speaking, improved dramatically in recent years. Their success has been due, in large part, to macroeconomic reforms, and this book brings together prominent economists and policymakers to assess a decade of such policy shifts, highlighting both the many success stories and the areas in which further work is needed. Contributors offer both case studies of individual countries and regional overviews, covering monetary, financial, and fiscal policy. Contributors also work to identify future concerns and erect clear signposts for future reforms. For instance, now that inflation rates have been stabilized, one suggested \"second stage\" monetary reform would be to focus on reducing rates from high to low single digits. Financial sector reforms, it is suggested, should center on improving regulation and supervision. And, contributors argue, since fiscal stability has already been achieved in most countries, new fiscal reforms need to concentrate on institutionalizing fiscal discipline, improving the efficiency and equity of tax collection, and modifying institutional arrangements to deal with increasingly decentralized federal systems. The analysis and commentary in this volume-authored not only by academic observers but by key Latin American policymakers with decades of firsthand experience-will prove important to anyone with an interest in the future of Latin American's continuing economic development and reform.

Landfilling is one of the most common waste management methods employed in all countries alike, irrespective of their developmental status. The most commonly used types of landfills are (a) municipal solid waste landfill, (b) industrial waste landfill, and (c) hazardous waste landfill. There is, also, an emerging landfill type called “green waste landfill” that is, occasionally, being used. Most landfills, including those discussed in this review article, are controlled and engineered establishments, wherein the waste ought to abide with certain regulations regarding their quality and quantity. However, illegal and uncontrolled “landfills” (mostly known as open dumpsites) are, unfortunately, prevalent in many developing countries. Due to the widespread use of landfilling, even as of today, it is imperative to examine any environmental- and/or health-related issues that have emerged. The present study seeks to determine the environmental pollution and health effects associated with waste landfilling by adopting a desk review design. It is revealed that landfilling is associated with various environmental pollution problems, namely, (a) underground water pollution due to the leaching of organic, inorganic, and various other substances of concern (SoC) contained in the waste, (b) air pollution due to suspension of particles, (c) odor pollution from the deposition of municipal solid waste (MSW), and (d) even marine pollution from any potential run-offs. Furthermore, health impacts may occur through the pollution of the underground water and the emissions of gases, leading to carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic effects of the exposed population living in their vicinity. Graphical abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.]