Suchergebnisse

This is a handbook designed to guide governments, public authorities and other interested stakeholders in the process of designing and tendering sustainable Public-Private Partnership (PPP) arrangements in the irrigation sector. It takes a practical, step-by-step approach in describing what a government needs to do in preparing and implementing a PPP irrigation scheme from inception. The handbook takes account of the various stages of the irrigation value chain and how to handle private sector participation in irrigation schemes of different sizes and types. It assumes that governments have already made the underlying policy decision to embark on a PPP in irrigation, and therefore does not dwell on the rationale for undertaking a PPP. The handbook's practical aspects are contained in four, stand-alone chapters that follow an over-arching Executive Summary and an Introduction. The chapters are deliberately numbered to coincide with the four steps that a government should take in establishing an irrigation PPP: Preparation, Structuring, Procurement Management, and Implementation. In addition, each chapter concludes with a practical Checklist to help executives keep track of the necessary tasks in each step on the way to establishing a sustainable PPP operation. The chapters are designed to be read as stand-alone guides, out of an understanding that institutions using the book may already have completed prior steps. Nevertheless, it would be prudent for users to acquaint themselves with the entire handbook so as to develop a holistic view of the requirements for a full PPP project. Chapter One: Preparation is divided into two parts, A and B (each with its own concluding Checklist). Part A reviews the scope for introducing PPPs into the irrigation sector, identifying the issues that policymakers should consider from the outset in order to make the private sector's involvement feasible with a specific irrigation project.Part B discusses the irrigation as a business. It contains a variety of case studies—the first time such studies have been documented—with discussion of lessons learned, PPP types, transfer of investment functions in developing countries, competitive bidding, and third party involvement among the subjects covered. Chapter Two: Structuring a PPP sets out the various tasks that must be completed to structure a sustainable PPP contract. Chapter Three: Managing Procurement examines how to select a private contractor, which involves such factors as the fiscal commitments to the PPP, to what extent the process should be competitive and how that might be conducted and managed, and what issues are peculiar to PPPs in irrigation.Chapter Four: Implementation highlights management of the contract and establishment of those management structures, monitoring, penalties and grantor's rights, use of performance bonds, enforcement of customer payments, dealing with changes to the contract, and contract expiry and asset handover. The overall structure of the handbook is illustrated below. The handbook is supported by three annexes: Annex 1 explains how to use the Excel Options Assessment Tool, , and Annex 2 provides case studies of 29 existing or emerging irrigation PPPs.

The Country Partnership Framework (CPF) for Montene gro covers the period from July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2020 (fiscal years 2016-2020). This CPF builds on the results and lessons of the previous World Bank Group (WBG) Country Partnership Strategy (CPS), which originally covered the period July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2014, and was subsequently extended to June 30, 2015.The one-year CPS) extension was intended to provide greater clarity on the country's medium-term macro-fiscal framework as a basis for the new CPF, and to give additional time to make progress on improving environmental management, a key pillar of the CPS. The new CPF seeks to address the top priorities identified by the recently completed Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) as those that Montenegro needs to most urgently tackle to advance in its path towards shared prosperity and sustainable development. The CPF will selectively support Montenegro's development agenda outlined in the Montenegro Development Directions (MDD) 2015-2018, Economic Reform program (ERP) 2015-2017 and the Montenegro European Union (EU) Accession Program 2014-17. The WBG strategy will continue to support, and be aligned with, Montenegro's EU accession and integration process. The formulation of the new CPF benefitted from extensive consultations held in October 2015 and in January and March 2016, and involving several line ministries, municipalities, civil society, academia, and private sector across various regions of the country, as well as representatives of the international development community. The resulting proposal for engagement under the FY16-20 CPF reflects a broad consensus of a wide range of stakeholders and a shared understanding of development priorities and challenges facing the country.

How many and which firms issue equity and bonds in domestic and international markets, how do these firms grow relative to non-issuing firms, and how does firm performance vary along the firm size distribution? To evaluate these questions, a new data set is constructed by matching data on firm-level capital raising activity with balance sheet data for 45,527 listed firms in 51 countries. Three main patterns emerge from the analysis. (1) Only a few large firms issue equity or bonds, and among them a small subset has raised a large proportion of the funds raised during the 1990s and 2000s. (2) Issuers grow faster than non-issuers in assets, sales, and employment, that is, firms do not simply use securities markets to adjust their financial accounts. (3) The firm size distribution of issuers evolves differently from that of non-issuers, tightening among issuers and widening among non-issuers.

Women comprise a large proportion of the agricultural labor force in Sub-Saharan Africa, ranging from 30 to 80 percent (FAO 2011). Yet women farmers are consistently found to be less productive than male farmers. The gender gap in agricultural productivity—measured by the value of agricultural produce per unit of cultivated land—ranges from 4 to 25 percent, depending on the country and the crop (World Bank and ONE 2014). This gap exists because women frequently have unequal access to key agricultural inputs such as land, labor, knowledge, fertilizer, and improved seeds. This report estimates the monetary value of the gender gap in agricultural productivity in Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda.

The focus of the paper is on how public spending volume, composition (current versus capital), and quality are linked to the per capita growth rates of the West Africa economic and monetary union (WAEMU) countries, which have been fluctuating and remain relatively low compared to other parts of the world. The empirical analysis covers the period 2000-2013. The results indicate that total public spending has a significant impact on growth. While the impact of the capital component is positive and statistically significant, the effect of the current component is consistently negative, but not significant. When the capital component is further split into two: public fixed capital investment and public other capital expenditures, defined as total public capital expenditure minus public fixed capital investment, the results show that not only physical capital formation but also human capital spending is important for growth in the WAEMU group. While the volatility measure for public investment has a clear negative and statistically significant impact on growth, the quality of public fixed investment has a positive impact. The findings also indicate that fiscal deficits have not been an important constraint to the effectiveness of government spending on growth, reflecting the fiscal discipline achieved in the union. On the other hand, the debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio clearly shows a significant negative impact on growth, indicating the risk associated with debt distress. Total fiscal revenue has a significant and positive effect on growth, most likely indicating relatively low levels of fiscal revenues to GDP ratios, partially boosted by natural resources, coupled with grants. In each regression specification, it is observed that the contributions of both trade openness and private investment on growth are positive and significant. The results also indicate that the quality of institutions, measured by an index of bureaucracy quality, is critical to enhancing the positive effect of public spending on growth. The results with country effects indicate that, at the individual country level, capital public expenditures are clearly much more relevant in explaining growth changes than current expenditures. The findings are robust to different regression methodologies, as well as the inclusion of short- and medium-term data.

Experience shows that there is often ample room for more effective and efficient use of investment tax incentives in low-income countries. Tax incentives generally rank low in investment climate surveys in low-income countries, and there are many examples in which they are reported to be redundant, that is, investment will have been undertaken even without them. And their fiscal cost can be high, reducing opportunities for much-needed public spending on infrastructure, public services or social support, or requiring higher taxes on other activities. This paper responds to a request of the G20 Development Working Group for an exploration of options for low-income countries' effective and efficient use of tax incentives for investment. To that end, it develops principles for the design and governance of tax incentives and provides guidance on good practices in these areas. Since much of the pressure to offer incentives stems from an awareness of those offered by other countries, the paper also discusses options for international coordination to address the risk of mutually damaging spillovers from such tax competition. Finally, a separate background document develops practical tools and models that can help assess the costs and benefits of tax incentives, which is essential for informed decision making. The aim is thus to assist low-income countries (LICs) in reviewing and reforming their tax incentives, so as to better align them with their developmental objectives. This paper relates to other global initiatives aimed at strengthening domestic revenue mobilization in LICs.

Union Budget policies in Myanmar have undergone fundamental shifts since 2011 to accelerate delivery of essential public services. This first ever Public Expenditure Review (PER) for Myanmar tries to better understand these shifts and recommend ways to further align budget policies to development priorities. The Myanmar PER 2015 is divided into five parts: (i) sustainability of aggregate fiscal policy; (ii) rebalancing the composition of the Union Budget; (iii) improving coverage, quality and equity of education services; (iv) going from more to better government spending on health; and (v) a sound fiscal framework for sub-national service delivery. The book is arranged as follws: (i) chapter one starts with introduction; (ii) chapter two deals with sustainability of aggregate fiscal policy; (iii) chapter three focuses on rebalancing the composition of the union budget; (iv) chapter four deals with improving the coverage, quality and equity of education; (v) chapter five suggests from more to better government spending on health; and (vi) chapter six talks about fiscal framework for sub-national service delivery.

Access to finance, particularly credit, is widely recognized as problematic for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), hampering their growth and development. To address this challenge, many governments around the world intervene in SME credit markets through credit guarantee schemes (CGSs). A CGS offers risk mitigation to lenders by taking a share of the lenders' losses on SME loans in case of default. CGSs can contribute to expand access to finance for SMEs. Yet they may bring limited value added and prove costly if they are not designed and implemented well. There have been efforts in recent years to identify good practices for CGSs, but the international community still lacks a common set of principles or standards that can help governments establish, operate, and evaluate CGSs for SMEs. The Principles for Public Credit Guarantees for SMEs are filling this gap. The Principles provide a generally accepted set of good practices, which can serve as a global reference for the design, execution, and evaluation of public CGSs around the world. The Principles propose appropriate governance and risk management arrangements, as well as operational conduct rules for CGSs, which can lead to improved outreach and additionality along with financial sustainability. Developed through extensive consultations with stakeholders, the Principles draw from both the literature on good practices for CGSs and sound practices implemented by a number of successful CGSs around the world.

With this Cameroon economic update, the World Bank is pursuing a program of short, crisp and frequent country economic reports. These economic updates provide an analysis of the trends and constraints in Cameroon's economic development. Each issue, produced bi-annually, provides an update of recent economic developments as well as a special focus on a topical issue. The economic updates aim to share knowledge and stimulate debate among those interested in improving the economic management of Cameroon and unleashing its enormous potential. The notes thereby offer another voice on economic issues in Cameroon, and an additional platform for engagement, learning and change.

Extreme fragile situations are now home to at least a quarter of the worlds people. In the worst cases, where fragility has given way to open violence - people are more than twice as likely to be malnourished, more than three times as likely to be unable to send their children to school, twice as likely to see their children die before age five, and more than twice as likely to lack clean water. It is unsurprising that not a single low-income country in these circumstances has been able to achieve even one Millennium Development Goal (World Bank 2011). In addition, many fragile situations generate spillover effects such as trafficking in illegal goods and persons, and corruption, which threaten the stability of neighboring countries (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD 2005, 2010). This study views fragility as not only a problem of state capacity, but also of relationships in society. That is, while some elements of fragility emanate from the state, others are deeply rooted in societal dynamics, the way individuals and groups interact and the relationships that form out of these interactions.

The outlook for FY2011 has changed since the last macroeconomic update in October 2010.1 While gross development product (GDP) growths is still projected to be around 6.2 percent in FY11, inflationary pressures have strengthened and the external position has weakened. Rising energy and food subsidies are placing a strain on the budget, but higher-than-anticipated revenues and lower-than-budgeted Annual Development Program expenditures leave sufficient fiscal space for the government to react to these pressures. Progress on reforms is mixed, with advances made on Value Added Tax reforms, efforts to tighten liquidity and setting up a framework for public-private partnership projects. Developments on telecommunication policy, the Anticorruption Commission, and policy responses to stock market volatility are a cause for concern. The growth outlook for FY12 remains good but there are risks that need to be contained. Short-term risks include rising food and fuel prices, deteriorating remittances, an increased reserve drawdown, a growing quasi-fiscal deficit, stock market volatility and its potential impact on the banking sector. Long-term risks include the inability to sufficiently alleviate power shortages, raise public investment, and remove bottlenecks for private investment.

This report provides a gender review of a decade and a half of World Bank infrastructure lending for 1,246 projects. The objective of this review is to assess the status of and trends in gender integration in the World Bank infrastructure portfolio, and to establish a baseline for monitoring and enhancing gender integration in line with commitments made for the 2006 gender action plan. The portfolio review reveals important progress on gender integration in infrastructure operations. While an average of 14 percent of infrastructure projects in 1995 applied some attention to gender concerns in 1995, this climbed to 36 percent by 2009. The global average, moreover, hides large strides made over time in four regions. In 2009, East Asia and the Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, and Africa all included gender concerns in the design of at least 50 percent of their infrastructure projects. Hard work remains in consolidating and extending the gains in gender coverage across the infrastructure portfolio. This will require stronger management commitment, concerted efforts, a plan with targets to achieve sustainable results, resources, specialist staffing, and capacity enhancement of staff. The portfolio review repeatedly found that supporting gender equality and women's empowerment in infrastructure operations have large benefits for the communities; the actions not only increased women's opportunities but also enhanced project effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability.

Using data from Vietnam, this article describes several types of analysis that can be conducted before launching a major downsizing operation to identify possible gender effects. It draws several conclusions about Vietnam s downsizing reforms. First, although women s prospects of obtaining salaried jobs following displacement from state-owned enterprise worsened as a result of recent reforms, they are likely to improve in the near future. Second, reforms are associated with a sharp decline in the gender gap in earnings, both in and outside the state sector. Third, overstaffing is greatest in sectors in which most employees are men, such as construction, mining, and transportation; it is much less prevalent in sectors in which women dominate the work force, such as footwear, textiles, and garments. Fourth, training, and assistance programs to help redundant workers reveal no evidence of strong gender bias. Fifth, severance packages based on a multiple of earnings are more favorable to men, whereas lump sum packages favor women.

The process by which different ecological conditions and historical trajectories interacted to create different social and cultural systems resulted in major differences in economic development performance within Southeast Asia. In the late 19th century, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand commonly experienced vent-for-surplus development through exploitation of unused lands. Nevertheless, different agrarian structures were created. Indonesia s development was mainly based on the exploitation of tropical rain forest under Dutch colonialism. It resulted in the bifurcation of the rural sector between rice-farming peasant proprietors and large plantations for tropical export crops based on hired labor. In the Philippines, exploitation of the same resource base under Spanish rule resulted in pervasive landlessness among the rural population. Relatively homogeneous landowning peasants continued to dominate in Thailand, where delta plains that were suitable only for rice production formed the resource base for development. These different agrarian structures associated with different social value systems have accounted for differential development performance across the three economies in the recent three decades.

Despite a trend toward more flexible rates, more than half the world's countries maintain fixed or managed exchange rates. In the 1980s and 1990s, developing countries as a group progressively liberalized their trade regimes, but some governments defend their exchange rate in actions that run counter to long-run plans for liberalization. Without discussing the relative merits of fixed and flexible exchange rate systems, the authors note that exchange rate management in many countries has resulted in overvaluation of the real exchange rate. Roughly twenty five percent of the countries for which data are available have overvalued exchange rates, with black market premiums from 10 percent to more than 100 percent. After surveying the literature, the authors present lessons from experience about what has worked (or not) in response to crises involving external shocks and external trade deficits - and why. Trying to defend an overvalued exchange rate with protectionist trade policies is a classic pattern, but experience shows such protection does significantly retard the country's growth, and delay its integration into the world trading community. In fact, and overvalued exchange rate is often the root cause of protection, preventing the country from returning to more liberal trade policies that allow growth and integration into the world community without exchange rate adjustment. Most developing countries have downward price and wage rigidities and, with an external trade deficit, require some form of nominal exchange rate adjustment to restore external equilibrium. The authors present cross-country econometric and case study evidence - citing examples from Argentina, Chile, Ghana, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Turkey, Uruguay, and Sub-Saharan Africa (including the CFA zone) - that overvalued exchange rates reduce economic growth. Defending the exchange rate, they show, has nor no medium-term benefits, since falling reserves will eventually force devaluation. Better to have devaluation occur without further debilitating losses in reserves and lost productivity because of import controls. After devaluation the exchange rate will reach a new equilibrium, strongly influenced by government and central bank policies.