This study analyzes the extent to which the India program is meeting the World Bank's objective of mainstreaming participatory approaches in project preparation and design. It includes ten projects in which participation was an overall project objective. These projects provided "good practice" lessons from a variety of social and natural resource management sectors.

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are important to the Bank because of the skills and resources they bring to emergency relief and development activities. In addition, they foster participation in the development process. The strength of the World Bank's collaboration with NGOs has grown since the late 1980s. In recognition of the added value that NGOs bring to Bank-supported projects, there have been intense efforts to include them. However, this report identifies a gap between promise and performance. The report concludes that the Bank's guidelines on working with NGOs are sound but that existing guidelines need to be used more effectively. The report makes recommendations to improve these partnerships and increase their benefit to development projects. It is written in English, French, and Spanish.

The open source phenomenon has attracted an increased interest among commercial firms and governments. It is becoming one of the most influential paradigm shifts not only in software development but in social and economic value creation as well. While software development is perhaps the most prominent example of open source, its principles have now been applied across a wide range of product classes, industries and even scientific disciplines. Decision makers at different levels and in a variety of fields need to improve their understanding of the factors that contribute to the Open Source Software (OSS) effectiveness: approaches, tools, social designs, reward structures and metrics. Successful OSS Project Design and Implementation provides a state-of-the-art analysis of OSS design principles, their emergence and success and how they are extending well beyond the domain of software.

This volume focuses on the latest findings concerning financial environment research and the effects on business. Major topics addressed range from finance-driven globalization, contagion risk transmission, financial sustainability, and bank efficiency, to oil price shocks and spot prices research. Further topics include family business, business valuation, public sector development and business organization in the globalized environment. This book features selected peer-reviewed articles from the 16th EBES conference in Istanbul, where over 270 papers were presented by 478 researchers from 56 countries.

Participatory development is an end and a means. It is an end because participation builds skills and enhances people's capacity for action and for enriching their lives. It is a means because participation contributes to better development policies and projects. As a development agency, the World Bank is primarily concerned with exploring how individuals, communities and public and private institutions can contribute to making development prospects better and more lasting. This report reflects the outcome of a workshop intended to explore some difficult issues, such as whether the Bank is approaching the idea of participation in the right way; how and to what extent external agencies can encourage participatory development. This book is a guide to the learning process. The main messages of the introductory chapter reflect further thinking of the learning groups since the workshop.