Located in the Yangtze River hinterlands, landlocked Anhui in central People’s Republic of China (PRC) is one of the country’s least developed provinces.
Rising from the tremendous physical damage and human losses wrought by a prolonged civil war that followed the disintegration of the former Soviet Union, Tajikistan more than halved the poverty incidence from 83% in 1999 to 41% in 2007. Its economy had grown substantially, with real gross domestic product expanding at an annual average of 7.5% in 2006−2008.
Shanxi province is situated in the middle reaches of the Yellow River and the eastern part of the Loess Plateau in northern People’s Republic of China (PRC). At project appraisal, it had only about 3.8 million hectares of dependable arable land, of modest quality and productivity, for its 23 million rural population.
Over 90% of the terrain of the state of Uttarakhand in northern India is hilly and minimally connected through rail and air, making roads the lifeline of its transport system. But at project appraisal in 2006, about 30% of the state highways and major district roads and more than 70% of the other district and village roads needed repair or rehabilitation.
For nearly 3 decades, Sri Lanka had been severely affected by an internal armed conflict. The entire country suffered but the Northern Province bore the brunt of the conflict. The conflict intensified from February 2007 and government forces gained full control in May 2009.
