The Little Green Data Book 2005 is based on the World Development Indicators 2005, and represents an abbreviated collection of information. Its production is a collaboration between the Development Economics Data Development Group, and the Environment Department of the World Bank.

This issue of Land Reform, Land Settlement and Cooperatives offers the reader a series of articles and information related to the discussions that will take place in March 2006 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, at the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (7–10 March).

Millennium Development Goal Number Seven is particularly concerned with the safeguarding and provision of freshwater resources to all human.beings; this is a major challenge – and perhaps even the main challenge – for all the world’s drylands.

Paul Wolfowitz, President of the World Bank, argued that the Doha Round presents an opportunity to rewrite the rules of an unfair trading system that holds back the potential of the poorest people.

In response to many requests for help in the application of both conventional cost benefit analysis in transport and addressing of the newer topics of interest, we have prepared a series of Economic Evaluation Notes that provide guidance on some of issues that have proven more difficult to deal w