Lasting poverty reduction requires sustainable natural resource management. The Planet Research Program in the World Bank's Development Research Group is developing new policy insights on issues related to the environment, land, agriculture, water, climate change, and biodiversity. Using rigorous empirical methods, the program addresses questions on the burden of climate change and air pollution, effective approaches to building resilience, and policies that protect ecosystems while supporting livelihoods. It also studies how land and property institutions such as land titling and registry reform shape investment, productivity, and equitable development.
Key questions addressed by this research program include:
What is the burden of climate change and air pollution in developing countries?
What are the best ways to build resilience?
How can we best value, protect, and benefit from natural resource wealth?
The World Bank’s Research Department invites submission of papers featuring academic research on all aspects of land governance and institutions and their impact on shared economic growth, resilience, private investment, job creation, and poverty reduction. The research conference will be held from April 29 to May 1, 2026 at World Bank Headquarters in Washington, DC, USA.
Biodiversity conservation is critical for sustainable development, poverty reduction, and climate stability. However, biodiversity is in crisis, with nearly one million species at risk and a 68% decline in global biodiversity since 1970. Limited access to up-to-date data, particularly in developing regions, has hindered conservation efforts. Traditional metrics focus mainly on vertebrates and overlook broader aspects of biodiversity, while emerging threats outpace slow data updates. To address this, the World Bank has developed extensive open-access datasets, covering nearly 600,000 species across terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems. This effort has expanded habitat data by fivefold for plants and tenfold for invertebrates and other phyla, complementing the traditional focus on vertebrates.
African countries are urbanizing at faster rates than any other region in history. This offers an important opportunity for growth and development. The 9th Urbanization and Development Conference on "Urban Economics in Action: Addressing African Cities' Challenges" will bring together academics, policy makers, and development practitioners to discuss how economics research can help inform urban policy decisions and the allocation of scarce resources to build productive, livable, and sustainable cities in Africa.
Wild animals, plants, and other living organisms make Earth habitable, and their existence holds intrinsic value. In this Policy Research Talk, World Bank economist Gabriel Englander presented insights on current and emerging trends in African conservation policies, and challenged pessimism regarding African conservation effectiveness while also identifying opportunities for improvements.
For over two decades, the World Bank Land Conference catalyzed the global land community. The Conference is the premier forum for the land sector, bringing together participants from governments, development partners, civil society, academia, and the private sector to showcase research, discuss issues and good practice, and inform policy dialogue.
African countries are urbanizing at faster rates than any other region in history. This offers an important opportunity for growth and development. The 9th Urbanization and Development Conference on "Urban Economics in Action: Addressing African Cities' Challenges" will bring together academics, policy makers, and development practitioners to discuss how economics research can help inform urban policy decisions and the allocation of scarce resources to build productive, livable, and sustainable cities in Africa.
Reducing greenhouse gases (GHGs) is urgently required to mitigate climate change. Steep emissions reductions will be needed to keep global warming below 1.5°C. While countries around the world have pledged to curb both carbon and methane emissions—two of the most significant GHGs—many nations do not have the infrastructure to adequately track their emissions. To fill this gap, the World Bank has rolled out major new datasets, tools, and research using satellite data to make frequently updated GHG emission data easily accessible to the general public.
Families in coastal Bangladesh are already on the “front line” of climate change. Their experience gives a preview of the kinds of future decisions faced by hundreds of millions of families worldwide that will be confronted by similar threats well before 2100. In this presentation delivered at Harvard Graduate School in December 2023, Susmita Dasgupta discussed the multifaceted threats from sea-level rise in the Ganges Delta, as well as policy and adaptation measures to respond to these threats.
Approximately 56 percent of the world’s population—or 4.4 billion individuals—lives in a city. The growth of cities is expected to continue, with the urban population more than doubling its current size by 2050. Following a three-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Urbanization and Poverty Reduction Research Conference series returned earlier this year for its 7th iteration.
Across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, land is a scarce and valuable resource. The projected increase in land demand due to demographic trends, coupled with decreasing land supply due to climatic and governance factors, indicate a looming crisis happening at a time when the region is also facing dramatic social and political transformation. This report identifies and analyzes the economic, environmental, and social challenges associated with land in MENA countries, shedding light on policy options to address them.
Changing River Salinity and Adaptive Responses in Fish Catch: Evidence from Coastal Bangladesh Brian Blankespoor, Susmita Dasguta, Mainul Huq, Zahirul Huque Khan, Md. Golam Mustafa, and David Wheeler Journal of Management and Sustainability, vol. 16, June 2026
How Energy and Chemistry Converge for a Fossil-Free Future Jan Mertens, Christian Breyer, Ronnie Belmans, Corinne Gendron, Patrice Geoffron, Carolyn Fischer, Elodie Du Fornel, Olivier Ledent, Richard Lester, Kimberly A. Nicholas, Laura Megrelis, Paulo Emilio Valadão de Miranda, Celine Paton, Alice Prudhomme, Peter Verwee, Olivier Sala, Michael Webber, and Koenraad Debackere iScience, vol. 28, November 2025
Carbon Pricing Around the World Joseph Pryor, Paolo Agnolucci, Carolyn Fischer, Dirk Heine, Mariza Montes de Oca Leon, April 2023
This book chapter provides an overview of approaches for measuring carbon pricing. It summarizes World Bank indicators for tracking direct carbon pricing, including recent trends, as well as outlining the methodologies and limitations (https://carbonpricingdashboard.worldbank.org/). This chapter appears in the book Data for a Greener World: A Guide for Practitioners and Policymakers.
The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the vulnerabilities of socio-economic systems globally and exposed the risks that natural capital degradation imposes on human health, economy, and society. This book studies the environmental challenges faced by developing economies in a post-COVID-19 world. This chapter appears in the book Environmental Economics in Developing Countries: Issues and Challenges.
This chapter appears in the book Oxford Encyclopedia of Environmental Economics. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Environmental Economics focuses on the most important research topics in environmental and natural resource economics, with a treatment of close to 100 different research areas.
Social mobility is the hope of economic development and the mantra of a good society. There are disagreements about what constitutes social mobility, but there is broad agreement that people should have roughly equal chances of success regardless of their economic status at birth. Concerns about rising inequality have engendered a renewed interest in social mobility—especially in the developing world. This book chapter provides a critical survey and synthesis of the recent economic literature on intergenerational mobility in developing countries, with a focus on data and methodological challenges.
This report seeks to understand the size, impacts, and potential for energy subsidy reform in the Russian Federation to inform policymakers as they explore approaches to reducing such subsidies.
Climate change is a major threat to the Sundarbans — the world’s largest remaining contiguous mangrove forest — wetland of international importance, and the surrounding poor communities whose livelihoods depend on its natural resources. This book synthesizes multiyear, multidisciplinary studies that assess the vulnerability of this ecosystem and its neighboring coastal communities and recommend “resilient-smart” adaptation measures. The methods and findings will be of interest to development practitioners, policy makers, and researchers focused on island nations and countries worldwide that feature high density populations and economic activity in low-lying coastal regions vulnerable to sea-level rise.
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