Richard Damania

Land, air, and water have long supported human progress. But today these essential resources are under growing pressure, putting development and well-being at risk. This report shares new data and practical solutions to help countries grow in ways that protect nature and build a healthier, more secure, and more livable future.

Nature's Paradox is about the intersection of two major crises of the 21st century; the sustainability crisis and the social exclusion and inequality crisis. It explores the disproportionate impact that environmental decline is having on excluded populations, and presents solutions for bringing environmental justice to underrepresented communities.

This report examines the impacts of subsidies on the world's stock of foundational natural capital: clean air, land, and oceans. It presents new research on the magnitude and impact of these subsidies, and presents solutions to reform them in efficient and equitable ways.

This report examines the use of natural capital (natural resources and services) around the world. It finds that most countries are using these resources inefficiently, and closing these efficiency gaps can address many of the world's pressing economic and environmental problems.

The 21st century will witness the collision of two powerful forces - burgeoning population growth, together with a changing climate. With population growth, water scarcity will proliferate to new areas across the globe. And with climate change, rainfall will become more fickle, with longer and deeper periods of droughts and deluges. This report presents new evidence to advance understanding on how rainfall shocks coupled with water scarcity, impacts farms, firms, and families. On farms, the largest consumers of water in the world, impacts are channeled from declining yields to changing landscapes. In cities, water extremes especially when combined with unreliable infrastructure can stall firm production, sales, and revenue. At the center of this are families, who feel the impacts of this uncertainty on their incomes, jobs, and long-term health and welfare. Although a rainfall shock may be fleeting, its consequences can become permanent and shape the destiny of those who experience it.Pursuing business as usual will lead many countries down a 'parched path' where droughts shape destinies. Avoiding this misery in slow motion will call for fundamental changes to water policy around the globe. Building resilience to rainfall variability will require using different policy instruments to address the multifaceted nature of water. A key message of this report is that water has multiple economic attributes, each of which entail distinct policy responses. If water is not managed more prudently--from source, to tap, and back to source--the crises observed today will become the catastrophes of tomorrow.

The natural endowment of the Democrat Republic of Congo is unparalleled. However, lack of transport infrastructure is a significant constraint to growth. This report presents new data and techniques that can be used to identify areas where new or improve transport infrastructure can have the largest impact on local economies.

Roads are the arteries through which the economy pulses. They connect sellers to markets, workers to jobs, students to education, and the sick to hospitals. Hence financing and investing in transportation infrastructure remains a cornerstone of the global development agenda.