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Assesses the impact of the strong economic growth on employment. This study addresses the question of what Nigeria could do to increase the availability of quality jobs and reduce rising youth unemployment, and proposes a strategy to sustain and further accelerate Nigeria's growth performance and enhance quality of employment.

Agriculture is one of the most climate-sensitive of all economic sectors. Georgia is one of the many countries where the majority of the rural population depends on agriculturedirectly or indirectlyfor their livelihood. Further, changes in climate and their impacts on agricultural systems and rural economies are already evident throughout Europe and Central Asia. The risks associated with climate change therefore pose an immediate and fundamental problem in the country.Adaptation measures now in use in Georgia, largely piecemeal efforts, will be insufficient to prevent impacts on agricultural production over the coming decades. As a result, there is growing interest at country and development partner levels to have a better understanding of the exposure, sensitivities, and impacts of climate change at the farm level, and to develop and prioritize adaptation measures to mitigate the adverse consequences. Beginning in 2009, the World Bank embarked on a program for selected Eastern Europe and Central Asian (ECA) client countries to enhance their ability to mainstream climate change adaptation into agricultural policies, programs, and investments. This multi-stage effort has included activities to raise awareness of the threat, analyze potential impacts and adaptation responses, and build capacity among client country stakeholders and ECA Bank staff with respect to climate change and the agricultural sector. This study, Reducing the Vulnerability of Georgias Agricultural Systems to Climate Change, is the culmination of efforts by the Georgian institutions and researchers, the World Bank, and a team of international experts jointly undertake an analytical study to address potential impacts climate change may have on Georgias agricultural sector, but, more importantly, to develop a list of prioritized measures to adapt to those impacts.Specifically, this study provides a menu of options for climate change adaptation in the agricultural and water resources sectors, along with specific recommended actions that are tailored to distinct agricultural regions within Georgia. These recommendations reflect the results of three inter-related activities, conducted jointly by the expert team and local partners: 1) quantitative economic modeling of baseline conditions and the effects of certain adaptation options; 2) qualitative analysis conducted by the expert team of agronomists, crop modelers, and water resource experts; and 3) input from a series of participatory workshops for farmers in each of the agricultural regions. Reducing the Vulnerability of Georgias Agricultural Systems to Climate Change is part of the World Bank Studies series. These papers are published to communicate the results of the Banks ongoing research and to stimulate public discussion. The study is one of three produced under the World Bank program Reducing Vulnerability to Climate Change in European and Central Asian Agricultural Systems. The other countries included in this series are Armenia and Azerbaijan. World Bank Studies are available individually or on standing order. This World Bank Studies series is also available online through the World Bank e-library (www.worldbank.org/elibrary).

Agriculture is one of the most climate-sensitive of all economic sectors. Armenia is one of the many countries where the majority of the rural population depends on agriculturedirectly or indirectlyfor their livelihood. Further, changes in climate and their impacts on agricultural systems and rural economies are already evident throughout Europe and Central Asia. The risks associated with climate change therefore pose an immediate and fundamental problem in the country.Adaptation measures now in use in Armenia, largely piecemeal efforts, will be insufficient to prevent impacts on agricultural production over the coming decades. As a result, there is growing interest at country and development partner levels to have a better understanding of the exposure, sensitivities, and impacts of climate change at the farm level, and to develop and prioritize adaptation measures to mitigate the adverse consequences. Beginning in 2009, the World Bank embarked on a program for selected Eastern Europe and Central Asian (ECA) client countries to enhance their ability to mainstream climate change adaptation into agricultural policies, programs, and investments. This multi-stage effort has included activities to raise awareness of the threat, analyze potential impacts and adaptation responses, and build capacity among client country stakeholders and ECA Bank staff with respect to climate change and the agricultural sector. This study, Reducing the Vulnerability of Armenias Agricultural Systems to Climate Change, is the culmination of efforts by the Armenian institutions and researchers, the World Bank, and a team of international experts to jointly undertake an analytical study to address potential impacts climate change may have on Armenias agricultural sector, but, more importantly, to develop a list of prioritized measures to adapt to those impacts.Specifically, this study provides a menu of options for climate change adaptation in the agricultural and water resources sectors, along with specific recommended actions that are tailored to distinct agricultural regions within Armenia. These recommendations reflect the results of three inter-related activities, conducted jointly by the expert team and local partners: 1) quantitative economic modeling of baseline conditions and the effects of certain adaptation options; 2) qualitative analysis conducted by the expert team of agronomists, crop modelers, and water resource experts; and 3) input from a series of participatory workshops for farmers in each of the agricultural regions.

Financial services are important for women who are starting and growing a business, but in Pakistan microfinance providers (MFPs) are not reaching Pakistans businesswomen. Only 59 percent of microfinance clients are women, yet the majority of these loans are passed on the male members of the household husbands, fathers, and sons. The practice of passing on loans to male household members is quite widespread; women may be bearing all the transaction costs and risks of accessing loans, but are not the final beneficiaries. Second, a very low proportion of female microfinance clients are entrepreneurs. The report explores why businesswomen in Pakistan may not be using microfinance products to meet their start-up and working capital requirements, in spite of identifying access to finance as a key constraint to their business operations. Against this backdrop, access to finance remains the biggest challenge for a woman who wants to start or grow a business. Yet less than a quarter of the entrepreneurs identified through business development service providers were currently borrowing from microfinance lenders. Even among those entrepreneurs that borrow, dissatisfaction is high. Why?Women borrower-entrepreneurs are not able to access individual loan products, but instead are consistently relegated to group lending. But group loans are very costly for a woman who is running a business, and the loans are too small to fulfill working capital needs. Businesswomen are rarely given the opportunity to access individual loan products, which are usually offered exclusively to male borrowers, and women are not given opportunities to graduate from group loans to individual loans over time. Lending practices often are discriminatory, requiring husbands permission, male guarantors, and unmarried women are rarely considered as potential clients. Although MFIs understand that womens inclusion is integral to the objectives of microfinance, the practice of passing on loans raises serious issues about consumer protection for women clients, and the best and most effective solutions to these challenges could and should come from the sector itself. Designing better products that reach the needs of emerging women entrepreneurs could prove to be good business, achieving double bottom-line objectives. Investing in financial literacy and education of both men and women borrowers can help curb the demand for pass-through loans and help lower risks associated with deceptive practices.

Given the chronic power shortages faced by numerous developing countries, and the need everywhere to keep pace with demand, understanding the drivers of public private partnerships (PPPs) in energy is critical. While many private electricity projects have been delayed and financing costs have increased, the impact of the global financial crisis was less severe than that of previous crises that originated in developing countries. This resilience stems from developing countries need to expand generation capacity, electricity sector reforms and better regulatory frameworks, and short-term solutions (such as rental power plants). The study reports the evidence from statistical analysis and a sample of case studies selected based. It proposes a novel analytical approach to model PPPs, using a two-stage procedure based on Heckmans sample selection distinguishing between those factors that determine whether private investment in energy takes place, and those that influence the volume of investment. The results of the analysis provide the following conclusions: Both general governance and regulatory instrument primarily affect investors decisions to enter the various power sector markets, not the subsequent level of investment indicating that investors seem to be adequately protected against risks. Support mechanisms, like feed-in tariffs, are crucial for attracting investors in renewable generation, but they do not succeed in displacing fossil fuel investment and they could play a bigger role in affecting the level of investment in renewables. There is a significant trade-off between effectiveness and efficiency of alternative instruments for deploying renewables. Feed-in tariffs tended to be quite effective but to be set on the high side, reducing incentives to cut costs and posing significant strains on already stripped national budgets. Competitive auctions, on the other hand have tended to be efficient but initially low and not always the most effective instrument. Countries can scale up renewables following different paths. For Brazil, the move from feed-in tariffs to auctions enabled it to both reduce costs and deploy additional capacity. Peru followed in Brazils path, opting for auctions instead of introducing feed-in tariffs. On the other hand, Chinas move from competitive tenders to feed-in tariffs allowed for discovery effects to determine the right level of prices to attract private investment in renewables.

Transforming Cities with Transit' explores the complex process of transit and land-use integration in rapidly growing cities in developing countries. As one of the most promising strategies for advancing environmental sustainability, economic competitiveness, and socially inclusive development in fast-growing cities, transit and land-use integration is increasingly being embraced by policy-makers at all levels of government. This book focuses on identifying barriers to and opportunities for effective coordination of transport infrastructure and urban development. Global best-case practices of transit-oriented metropolises that have direct relevance to cities in developing countries are first introduced. Key institutional, regulatory, and financial constraints that hamper integration and opportunities to utilize transit to guide sustainable urban development are examined in selected cities in developing countries. For this, the book analyzes their Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems and their impact on land development. The book formulates recommendations and implementation strategies to overcome barriers and take advantage of opportunities. It asserts that unprecedented opportunities have and will continue to arise for the successful integration of transit and land development in much of the developing world. Many cities in developing countries currently exhibit the pre-requisites - e.g., rapid growth, rising real incomes, and increased motorization and congestion levels - for BRT and railway investments to trigger meaningful land-use changes in economically and financially viable ways. Recommendations for creating more sustainable cities of the future range from macro-level strategies that influence land development and governance at the metropolitan scale to micro-level initiatives, like Transit Oriented Development (TOD), that can radically transform development patterns at the neighborhood level. The book will be of interest to a wide and diverse audience, including mayors, council members and other national and local policy makers, urban and transportation planners, transit-agency officials, and developers and staff of development financial institutions and others involved with TOD projects in rapidly growing and motorizing cities of the developing world.

This publication is part of the Banks multiyear program to enhance its knowledge of HRH policies. The programs ultimate objective is to strengthen knowledge and capacity to collect evidence, analyze, and evaluate the effectiveness of HRH interventions in the context of a countrys health system strengthening strategy. It specifically addresses the theoretical and empirical evidence on health labor markets in low- and middle-income countries. Health labor market analysis has much to contribute to resolving globally widespread HRH problems, and their continuing neglect provides some explanation for their persistence. Policy makers in countries promulgating or refining strategies for achieving universal health coverage will find it important to understand how key elements in their health labor market are likely to interact and how these interactions could helpor hinderprogress toward universal health coverage. These interactions are complex and multidimensional, and this publication highlights some areas where forces in the health labor market matter most.The purpose of this publication is to provide an overview of the key issues when attempting to apply economics to the analysis of health workers labor markets. Though much has been written and planned about health human resources, a major weakness with most of this analysis is that it does not use an economic perspective. The use of an explicit economic framework applied by trained economists moves the focus away from simplistic but costly policy responses such as training more doctors and nurses, toward understanding more carefully the role of incentives, productivity, and the distribution of health workers. The health workforce is but one part of the health system and a focus of analysis on only the health workforce is insufficient to be able to determine the optimal number of health workers. Market forces cannot be relied upon to solve health worker shortages or mal-distribution, due to well recognized market failures in health care. This also has implications for how labor economics and labor market analysis can be applied and used successfully in the health care sector.

Entrepreneurship has attracted global interest for its potential to catalyze economic and social development. Research suggesting that certain entrepreneurial mindsets and skills can be learned has given rise to the field of entrepreneurship education and training (EET). Despite the growth of EET, global knowledge about these programs and their impact remains thin. In response, this study surveys the available literature and program evaluations to propose a Conceptual Framework for understanding the EET program landscape. The study finds that EET today consists of a heterogeneous mix of programs that can be broken into two groups: entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurship training. These programs target a range of participants: secondary and post-secondary education students, as well as potential and practicing entrepreneurs. The outcomes measured by program evaluations are equally diverse but generally fall under the domains of entrepreneurial mindsets and capabilities, entrepreneurial status, and entrepreneurial performance. The dimensions of EET programs vary according the particular target group. Programs targeting secondary education students focus on the development of foundational skills linked to entrepreneurship, while post-secondary education programs emphasize skills related to strategic business planning. Programs targeting potential entrepreneurs generally are embedded within broader support programs and tend to target vulnerable populations for whom employment alternatives may be limited. While programs serving practicing entrepreneurs focus on strengthening entrepreneurs knowledge, skills and business practices, which while unlikely to transform an enterprise in the near term, may accrue benefits to entrepreneurs over time. The study also offers implications for policy and program implementation, emphasizing the importance of clarity about target groups and desired outcomes when making program choices, and sound understanding of extent to which publicly-supported programs offer a broader public good, and compare favorably to policy alternatives for supporting the targeted individuals as well as the overall economic and social objectives.

The current distribution of power markets around intermediate structures between full integration and unbundling suggests that there has not been a linear path to reform in practice. Instead, many developing countries may retain intermediate structures in the foreseeable future. This possibility exposes a large gap in understanding about power market structures, since most theoretical work has focused on the two extreme structures and there is limited evidence on the impact of unbundling for developing countries.The study reports the evidence from statistical analysis and a representative sample of twenty case studies selected based on the initial conditions, such as income and power system size. It proposes a novel analytical approach to model market structure, together with ownership and regulation, controlling for several variables, as a key determinant of performance across several indicators, including access, operational and financial performance and environmental sustainability. The results of the analysis provide the following conclusions for policy guidance on power market restructuring for developing countries: There seems to be credible empirical basis for selecting a threshold power system size and per capita income level below which unbundling of the power supply chain is not expected to be worthwhile. Indeed a dichotomy emerges between high income countries characterized by a large system size for which unbundling and other reforms are significantly linked to better performance and low income countries characterized by small system power size for which there is no strong evidence that unbundling and other reforms delivered improvements in performance. Unbundling deliver consistently superior results across the board of performance indicators when used as an entry point to implement broader reforms, particularly introducing a sound regulatory framework, reducing the degree of concentration of the generation and distribution segments of the market by attracting additional number of both public and private players and encouraging private sector participation. Partial forms of vertical unbundling do not appear to drive improvements, probably because the owner was able to continue exercising control over the affairs of the sector and hinder the development of competitive pressure within the power market.

The presence of turbulence in multiple areas of our society--food, fuel, and finances-being but three critical areas presently being impacted means that long-held assumptions are no longer true, that the past is not prologue, and that the future is not clear. And enter into this unstable present the discipline of evaluation-a discipline formed and shaped in the past fifty years of stability, little turbulence, and strong assumptions that everything will go according to plan. If things do not go well, it is because of either a poor theory of change on how to bring about positive outcomes, or weak efforts at implementation. It is not because of the stormy present upsetting our quiet past. As it is, conventional evaluation behavior and beliefs are ill suited for these times. The transformational nature of the 'Arab Spring' is just one arena in which it is clear that a business as usual approach to evaluation is entirely inappropriate.The papers in this volume are from the 2011 Global Assembly of the International Development Evaluation Association (IDEAS). Nearly 350 development evaluators from eighty-five countries came together in Amman, Jordan to discuss and analyze the consequences of turbulence on evaluation. The intent of these papers is to systematically assess what changes have come during this time of turbulence and how these changes are impacting the craft of development evaluation. To be clear: this book is not about how to assess the impacts of crises on development and on people's lives. It is about the meaning of a changed world and changed assumptions on the concepts and methods used in evaluation.

Tunisia in a Changing Climate: Assessment and Actions for Increased Resilience and Development ispart of the World Bank Studies series. These papers are published to communicate the resultsof the Banks ongoing research and to stimulate public discussion.This book provides an assessment of climate risks, as well as opportunities and possibleactions for addressing climate change, in Tunisia. It recognizes that the Tunisian revolution ofJanuary 14th, 2011, created significant change in the country, resulting in new challenges andopportunities for addressing further change. Following the revolution, improvements in access toinformation, institutional capacity, and accountability have enhanced the governance and transparencythat are essential for effective climate change responses. However, political uncertaintyhas affected both foreign direct investment and tourism, which have further impacted already highrates of poverty and unemployment.

Ghana is one of only several African countries to enact legislation and earmark financing for universal health insurance coverage for its entire population. Seven years into its implementation the Ghana National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) has made significant progress in transitioning to universal coverage, but faces significant fiscal and coverage challenges. This study reviews Ghana's health financing system with a special emphasis on its National Health Insurance Scheme. Such an assessment is important because Ghana is often considered a global 'good practice' in terms of earmarking significant amounts of its general revenues for health insurance coverage, providing formal coverage to its vulnerable population groups, and extending coverage by transitioning its existing community health insurance schemes into a national health insurance program. In addition to the global interest in the Ghana 'model', this review is timely in view of recent critiques of the system and questions about its financial sustainability. The study is also unique in terms of evaluating Ghana's NHIS in terms of basic health system goals of health outcomes, financial protection, consumer satisfaction, equity, efficiency, and financial sustainability. The strengths and weaknesses of Ghana's health financing system are assessed on the basis of these performance goals to provide the current health policy reform baseline. The assessment is also based on several new and updated sources of information on: total health spending, inputs, outcomes, household spending, and the macro economy. It also undertakes for the first time an extensive international benchmarking analysis; assesses the financial protection/equity of the system at both macro and micro levels; and, contains an extensive fiscal space analysis based on Ghana's new macroeconomic realities (i.e., the revaluation of Ghana's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) upward by some 60 percent in November 2010, making Ghana a lower middle income country). The study concludes with an assessment of potential structural and operational reform options to assure NHISs long-term efficacy and sustainability in the context of its future available fiscal space.

It has been over twenty years since the Brazilian Sistema Unico de Saude (Unified Health System or SUS) was formally established by the 1988 Constitution. The impetus for the SUS came in part from rising costs and a crisis in the social security system that preceded the reforms, but also from a broad-based political movement calling for democratization and improved social rights. Building on reforms that started in the 1980s, the SUS was based on three overarching principles: (i) universal access to health services, with health defined as a citizens right and an obligation of the state; (ii) equality of access to health care; and (iii) integrality (comprehensiveness) and continuity of care; along with several other guiding ideas, including decentralization, increased participation, and evidence-based prioritization. The SUS reform established health a fundamental right and duty of the state, and started a process of fundamentally transforming Brazils health system to achieve this goal. So, what has been achieved since the SUS was established? And what challenges remain in achieving the goals that were established in 1988? These questions are the focus of this report. Specifically, it seeks to assess whether the SUS reforms have managed to transform the health system as envisaged more than 20 years ago, and whether the reforms have led to improved outcomes in terms of access to services, financial protection, and health status.Any effort to assess the performance of a health system runs into a host of challenges concerning the definition of boundaries of the health system, the outcomes that the assessment should focus on, data sources and quality, and the role of policies and reforms in understanding how the performance of the health system has changed over time. Building on an extensive literature on health system assessment, this report is based on a simple framework that specifies a set of health system building blocks, which affect a number of intermediate outcomes such as access, quality and efficiency, which, in turn, contribute to final outcomes, including health status, financial protection, and satisfaction. Based on this framework, the report starts by looking at how key building blocks of Brazils health system have changed over time and then moves on to review performance in terms of intermediate and final outcomes."

Skills development in Ghana encompasses foundational skills, transferable/soft-skills, and technical and vocational skills. This report focuses on one segment of this skills development system: formal and informal technical and vocational education and training (TVET) at the pre-tertiary level. TVET represents a major intersection between education, youth and the labor market. The government has long promised to the population that increasing technical and vocational skills training opportunities will help solve youth unemployment. However, market distortions and inefficiencies have led to an adverse cycle of high costs, inadequate quality of supply and low demand, leading to further pressures on the effectiveness and efficiency of TVET services. This adverse cycle means that the political and policy promise of skills development helping to ease the unemployment problem is at risk of remaining unfulfilled. The report focuses on social and economic demand for (pre-tertiary) technical and vocational skills and maps out the supply of these skills from formal and informal, private and public sectors. The dual purpose has been to both carry out an institutional and policy analysis and also to establish a platform for monitoring sector performance and assisting policy and Development Partner harmonization. The report analyzes the economic and social demand for technical and vocational skills and the suitability of the current supply as well as the effectiveness of policy, coordination and financing of technical and vocational skills development. The report annex provides the summary of economic demand analyses from the key sectors reviewed and provides a full mapping of all technical and vocational programs in Ghana. The study offers a comprehensive set of policy recommendations for improving Ghanas pre-tertiary technical and vocational skills development sector, which will be of interest to policy makers and development partners in Ghana.

Indonesia has begun to emerge into middle-income status, yet persistent poverty and stark inequalities continue to affect young childrens development. This book tells the story of Indonesias efforts to change the trajectory of development for poor children. Many countries have similar aims, but several aspects of what is reported here are especially valuable and perhaps unique.The study offers data on all aspects of health and development in a sample of rural young children, collected with internationally-validated measures, as well as household information, information about parenting practices including feeding patterns, parent questionnaires, and data on the prevalence and distribution of ECED services. The data reported in this book is based on a sample of more than 6,000 Indonesian children living in 310 poor villages, including two age cohorts (aged 1 and 4 years old when data were first collected on their development in 2009). From the start, the project aimed not only to support service provision but also to support the development of national standards, build national and district capacity, and encourage the establishment of a system of ECED quality assurance, efforts that are still in process. Few such analyses have been done with such a large sample and with multiple measures. These design features allow a high level of confidence in the results that are reported. The lessons from this book will help to inform not only this projects further implementation but ECED initiatives in Indonesia and around the world. Thus, the results presented in this book are of significance for researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners within and beyond Indonesia. The experiences and research results discussed here are especially relevant for: Researchers in early childhood development and program evaluation; Policymakers within and beyond Indonesia; Providers of early childhood services; Professional development providers; and Advocates for quality early childhood services.

The Policy Research Report Localizing Development: Does Participation Work? brings analytical rigor to a field that has been the subject of intense debate and advocacy, and billions of dollars in development aid. It briefly reviews the history of participatory development and argues that its two modalities, community-based development and local decentralization, should be treated under the broader unifying umbrella of local development. It suggests that a distinction between organic participation (endogenous efforts by civic activists to bring about change) and induced participation (large-scale efforts to engineer participation at the local level via projects) is key, and focuses on the challenges of inducing participation.The report provides a conceptual framework for thinking about participatory development and then uses this framework to conduct a comprehensive review of the literature. The framework develops the concept of OC civil society failureOCO and explains its interaction with government and market failures. It argues that participatory development, which is often viewed as a mechanism for bypassing market and government failures by OCOharnessingOCO civic capacity, ought to be seen instead as a mechanism that, if done right, could help to repair important civil society failures. It distills literature from anthropology, economics, sociology, and political science to outline the challenges for effective policy in this area, looking at issues such as the uncertainty of trajectories of change, the importance of context, the role of elite capture and control, the challenge of collective action, and the role of the state. The review of the evidence looks at a variety of issues: the impact of participatory projects on inclusion, civic capacity, and social cohesion; on key development outcomes, such as income, poverty, and inequality; on public service delivery; and on the quality of local public goods. It draws on the evidence to suggest several recommendations for policy, emphasizing the key role of learning-by-doing. It then reviews participatory projects funded by the World Bank and finds the majority lacking in several arenas OCo particularly in paying attention to context and in creating effective monitoring and evaluation systems that allow for learning.

H.M. Queen Maxima of the Netherlands, United Nations Secretary-Generals Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development stated that the impact of helping migrants and their families will be lasting and global if we link remittances to other financial services and make them more affordable and more relevant to their needs. Remittances are a critical source of financing for most developing countries. The importance of remittances goes beyond numbers. For many households in developing countries, they are probably the most stable source of primary or additional income. At the same time, the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks exposed the use and abuse of remittance channels for financing terrorism. In response to this threat, the international community issued new international anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) standards on remittance transfers and their service providers. For the first time, remittance service providers were required to be brought under the government oversight and either registered with or licensed by a competent authority, and to be subject to AML/CFT obligations.While the FATF Recommendations appear straightforward on paper, regulating and supervising in practice the money transfer business has proved to be a very challenging task in both developed and developing countries. This book assists policy makers, regulators, and supervisors of money transfer businesses to craft effective regulatory and supervisory frameworks governing remittances that meet international AML/CFT standards, while at the same time ensuring that the neediest have access to these crucial services."

Poorly implemented energy subsidies are economically costly to taxpayers and damage the environment. This report aims at providing the emerging lessons form a representative sample of case studies in 20 developing countries that could help policy makers to address implementation challenges, including overcoming political economy and affordability constraints. The sample has selected on the basis of a number of criteria, including the countryOCOs level of development (and consumption), developing country region, energy security and the fuel it subsidies (petroleum fuel, electricity, natural gas). The case studies were supported by data collection related to direct budgetary subsidies, fuel and electricity tariffs, and household survey data.The analysis provides strong evidence of the success of reforms in reducing the associated fiscal burden. For the sample of countries, the average energy subsidy recorded in the budget was reduced from 1.8% in 2004 to 1.3%GDP in 2010. The reduction of subsidies is particularly remarkable for net energy importers. Pass-through of international fuel prices was also notable in the case of electricity generated by fossil fuel. For the sample of countries, the average end-user electricity tariff increased by 50%, from USD 6 cents in 2002 to USD 9 cents per kWh in 2010.In spite of the relatively price inelastic demand for gasoline and diesel, fossil fuel consumption in the road sector (per unit of GDP) declined in the 20 countries examined from 53 (44) in 2002 to about 23 kt oil equivalent per million of GDP in 2008 in the case of gasoline (Diesel). The most notable decline in consumption was recorded in the low and lower middle income countries. This reflects the much higher rate of growth in GDP in this group of countries and underlines the opportunities to influence future consumption behavior rather than modifying the existing consumption patterns, overcoming inertia and vested interests. Similar trends are recorded for power consumption.While there is no one-size-fits-all model for subsidy reform, implementation of compensatory social policies and an effective communication strategy, before the changes are introduced, reduces helped with the implementation of reforms."

The importance of property rights in providing the incentive to invest, work hard, and innovate has been recognized for centuries. Yet, many women in Africa do not have the same property rights or formal legal capacity enjoyed by men. Empowering Women: Legal Rights and Economic Opportunities in Africa documents the extent to which the legal capacity and property rights vary for women and men, and analyzes the impact this has on womenOCOs economic opportunities. The book introduces the OC WomenOCOs Legal Economic Empowerment Database OCo Africa (Women LEED Africa).OCO This database covers all 47 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, providing indicators and links to constitutions, ratified international conventions, and domestic statutes where there are gender gaps in legal capacity and property rights. It shows how and where, despite universal constitutional recognition of non-discrimination, many countries have exceptions in areas of marriage, ownership, and control over property and inheritance. With less secure property rights, women in these countries do not have the same ability OCo or incentive OCo to accumulate and control assets and thus to access finance or to grow their businesses. After laying out the various gender gaps in legal capacity and property rights, the book addresses the additional challenges stemming from legal systems with a multiplicity of sources of law. Overlapping legal systems themselves add uncertainty to defining womenOCOs economic rights. The authors use case law to trace out the implications for womenOCOs rights and to provide examples of effective reforms.The book recognizes that beyond de jure differences, women may face greater practical constraints in having their rights protected. This book spells out specific steps that can be taken to address gender gaps both in formal property rights and in practical constraints in accessing justice."

Preventing Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing, Second Edition

How can countries develop their ports to become gateways for economic prosperity? Despite being endowed with natural coastlines, many countries in Africa and Asia have struggled to translate this competitive advantage into vehicles for economic transformation. What China achieved can be informative.

This book analyzes the vulnerabilities and inefficiencies associated with international labor migration from the Kyrgyz Republic brought to light by the COVID-19 pandemic and proposes policy options to address them.

Countries in East Asia and the Pacific were already experiencing a learning crisis when the COVID-19 pandemic made things worse. This report examines key factors affecting learning outcomes in the region, including teaching, the use of educational technologies (EdTech), and public spending on education.

Chad's economy has contracted since 2015, preventing poverty reduction and the improvement of development outcomes. This Systematic Country Diagnostic identifies key constraints on poverty reduction and recommends solutions.

A decade since the spark of the Arab Spring, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region continues to suffer from limited creation of more and better jobs. Youth face idleness and unemployment. For those who find jobs, informality awaits. Few women attempt to enter the world of work at all. Meanwhile, the available jobs are not those of the future. These labor market outcomes are being worsened by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Jobs Undone: Reshaping the Role of Governments toward Markets and Workers in the Middle East and North Africa explores ways to break these impasses, drawing on original research, survey data, wide-ranging literature, and young entrepreneurial voices from the region. The report finds that a prominent reason behind MENA's unmet jobs challenge is a lack of market contestability in the formal private sector. Few firms in the region enter the market, few grow, and those that exit are not necessarily less productive. Moreover, firms in the region invest little in physical capital, human capital, or research and development, and they tend to be politically connected. At the macro level, economic growth has been mediocre, labor productivity is not being driven by structural change, and the growth of the stock of capital per capita has declined. New evidence generated for this report shows that the lack of dynamism is due to the prevalence of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). They operate in sectors where there is little economic rationale for public activity and they enjoy favorable treatment--flouting the principles of competitive neutrality. Meanwhile, labor regulations add to market rigidity, while gendered laws restrict women's potential. To change this reality, the state must reshape its relationship toward markets, toward workers, and toward women. The region must create a level playing field between SOEs and the private sector, replace labor rigidities with appropriate social protection and labor market programs, and remove barriers to women's economic participation. Governments can also foster new sectors and occupations, gradually propelling market contestability and job creation. All reforms will have to rely on improved data capacity and transparency to create a new social contract between governments and the people of the region.

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered the most pronounced setback in the fight against global poverty since World War II.This report provides new data on the stark reversal of progress in the fight against global poverty. It explores how to optimize fiscal policy and identifies policies that can help correct course.

Over the past 40 years, the number of people in China with incomes below US$ 1.90 per day has fallen by close to 800 million. The report explores the key drivers for China's achievements in poverty, considers lessons for other developing countries, and puts forward suggestions for China's future policies.