After years of isolation, Turkmenistan has been host to hundreds of official delegations from the world’s great powers, as Europe, Russia, China, and India pursue energy security with an eye toward the country's gas deposits. President Berdymukhamedov has forsaken at least some of his predecessor’s inward focus, in favor of a “multi-vector” natural resource strategy. The strategy relies on multiple hydrocarbon export routes, and the various gas importers each have a route in mind. Key pi more...

Tokyo, 17 January 2008: A record number of deficit budgets among Japanese municipalities has led the government to relax controls on the issuing of rescue bonds, for only the third time in 60 years. Municipalities have informed the central government that the 2007/08 fiscal year is likely to see a massive drop in local tax revenues, prompting the Japanese parliament to issue emergency legislation aimed at permitting municipalities to issue bonds to cover their deficits. The bond issue is thought more...

Delhi, 21 January 2008: In a press interview India’s urban development minister M Ramachandran said that following a credit rating process 19 Indian cities received high enough scores to enable them to float municipal bonds. While none of the cities under scrutiny obtained triple-A ratings, four cities were given AAs, four others As and eleven received BBBs. A triple B is considered good enough to issue bonds. While the minister declined to name the cities until after a ministerial consultatio more...

Urbanization has already started to neutralize the impact of previous investments and efforts to meet the MDGs. Urban areas in developing countries will house 87% of population growth by 2015 and 95% by 2030. Urbanization in developing countries is increasingly dominated by settlements of less than 500,000 people and in non-regional/district capitals. Less than 15% live in cities over 5 million. The rate of slum formation is almost the same as the rate of urban growth ...

The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are international targets to halve world poverty by 2015, agreed upon by all 189 United Nations member states at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000. WaterAid believes water, sanitation and hygiene education are crucial for poverty reduction and form the bedrock of a healthy, productive society. Our work makes a significant contribution to reaching the goals especially through actions to halve the proportion of people without access to safe water and sa more...

The overall objective of the International Year of Sanitation (IYS) is to accelerate progress towards providing adequate basic sanitation for the 2.6 billion people worldwide who lack access to this fundamental human right.
Access to sanitation is vital to ensuring health, dignity and sustainable social and economic development for the world’s poorest citizens. The United Nations Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target for sanitation is 'to halve, by 2015, the proportion of the world’ more...

Diarrhoea claims the lives of 5000 children a day. These children are dying because they do not have access to adequate sanitation or safe water. Their deaths, from common diseases, are preventable. Where there is nowhere safe and clean to go to the toilet, people are exposed to disease, lack of privacy, and indignity. Bad health caused by poor sanitation has a knock-on effect on the family economy and nutrition. In many cultures women who have no access to a latrine must wait until it is dark t more...

WaterAid is an international non government organization dedicated exclusively to the provision of safe domestic water, sanitation and hygiene education to the world's poorest people. WaterAid has been working in Bangladesh since 1986 through local partner organizations (NGOs) to improve hygiene behavior and access to water and sanitation services for poor communities giving
emphasis on demonstration of innovative approaches, participatory methods, gender and vulnerable groups, hygiene promotio more...

Author - Judy L. Baker, Senior Economist, Finance Economics & Urban Department, World Bank. Dhaka is the fastest growing mega-city in the world. Annually, the city draws an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 mostly poor migrants who provide critical employment for the city’s industries and services. Urgent measures are required to address the vital needs of the rapidly growing urban poor. Poverty affects a third of Dhaka's residents mostly living in slums; Adequate access to shelter, basic servic more...

The development objective of the Urban Management Programme is to strengthen the contribution that cities and towns in developing countries make towards human development, including participatory governance, economic efficiency, social equity, poverty reduction, and environmental improvement. This is to be achieved through more efficient and equitable use and distribution of resources, including the harnessing of skills and initiatives of individuals, communities, private and voluntary organizat more...