This Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) aims to identify the major constraints on and opportunities for sustaining poverty reduction and shared prosperity in Serbia. The SCD serves as the analytic foundation on which the World Bank Group and the Government of Serbia will define a new Country Partnership Framework for FY2016 to FY2020. It is based on the best possible analysis, drawing on available evidence, and not limited to areas where the World Bank Group is currently engaged. The SCD is structured as follows: Chapter 2 presents the political and economic context. The economic context describes recent trends in growth, shared prosperity, and poverty reduction and briefly discusses factors behind them. Chapter 3 discusses pre-crisis patterns of growth and opportunities for future growth and inclusion in Serbia. Chapter 4 presents drivers of economic growth in Serbia and the principal constraints on growth and competitiveness. Chapter 5 discusses drivers of and constraints to economic inclusion. Chapter 6 outlines risks to sustainable shared prosperity and poverty reduction. Chapter 7 presents priorities for action.
After a destructive civil war and extreme political instability, Uganda began its reconstruction process in 1987. Within the enabling environment of macroeconomic stability, most of the progress on the twin goals was attributable to higher agricultural incomes. Poverty reduction among households primarily engaged in agriculture accounted for 53 percent of the reduction in poverty from 2006 to 2010 and 77 percent of the reduction in poverty from 2010 to 2013. Despite significant progress on the twin goals, vulnerability to poverty in Uganda is high and the sparse social safety nets and limited access to finance have provided little protection. Change in economic and social policies is required to prevent a slowdown in poverty reduction and an increase in vulnerability. In this context, a comprehensive framework based on the three interrelated blocks of growth, inclusion, and sustainability has been used to identify the challenges to and opportunities for ending poverty and boosting shared prosperity. The first block emphasizes the development of a competitive and resilient private sector to lead the growth process by adequately capitalizing on all the available opportunities. The second block, complementary to the first one, reinforces the need to ensure a fair distribution of the growth dividend across all Ugandans, especially those living in the north and the east, by providing them with access to social and infrastructure services so that they can increase their productive capacity and income generating opportunities. The third block emphasizes the need to undertake the inclusive growth process in a fiscally, socially, and environmentally sustainable manner.
This paper estimates slum residents willingness to pay for formalized land tenure in Pune, India. In so doing, it offers evidence that the legal assurance of slum residents occupancy of their lands could benefit them. Previous studies have discussed legal and non-legal factors that substantially influence the tenure security of residents in informal settlements. However, it remains unclear to what extent, and how, the assignment of legal property rights through the formalization of land tenure improves the tenure security of residents in informal settlements and living conditions, even in the presence of other legal and non-legal factors that also contribute to their tenure security. To address the question, this study focuses on the city of Pune, India, where government agencies have formalized slums by legally ensuring the occupancy of the residents under slum declaration. Applying a hedonic price model to an original household survey, this paper investigates how slum residents evaluate formalized land tenure. A spatial econometrics method is also applied to account for spatially autocorrelated unobserved errors. The spatial hedonic analysis finds that the premium of slum declaration is worth 19 percent of the average housing rent in slums. The associated marginal willingness to pay is equivalent to 6 percent of the average household expenditure, although it is heterogeneous depending on a households caste and other legal conditions. This finding suggests that the assurance of occupancy rights is a vital component of land-tenure formalization policy even if it does not directly provide full property rights.
Maldives is an island nation scattered in the Indian Ocean comprising 1,190 small coral islands of which 190 are inhabited by a local population of 341,000. Maldives' unique archipelagic coral island provides the country with an extremely rich and diverse marine ecological system. With more territorial sea than land, marine resources have played a vital role shaping the contours of economic development, with nature-based tourism being the key driver of economic growth and fisheries an important sector of employment for the local population. Maldives developed a successful high-end tourism sector, whose sizeable rents have been redistributed to the population to address its development challenges. This systematic country diagnostic for Maldives aims at identifying the most critical constraints and opportunities facing the country as it works towards promoting sustainable growth, reducing poverty and boosting shared prosperity. In addition to serving as a public good for the government, civil society, research and academic community, and local and international development partners, the findings of the SCD will be used as key inputs in the preparation of the WBG strategy, the Country Partnership Framework, which will outline how the Bank Group's engagement in Maldives can best contribute towards achieving the twin goals.
Uruguay is a country of about 3.3 million people, which has consistently given high priority to achieving broadly-shared economic growth and a sustainable reduction in poverty. A strong and progressive social compact has been a defining feature of Uruguayan society and politics, with consistent emphasis placed on protecting vulnerable groups, assuring worker dignity and promoting equitable growth. This compact, combined with rapid economic growth since 2003, has contributed to the development of a sizeable middle class, at 60 percent, the largest in Latin America as a proportion of the population, as well as effective institutions, good governance and, in consequence, a high degree of public trust in Government. The resultant political stability has been a fundamental element of Uruguay's success in attaining its present standards of living. This Country Partnership Framework (CPF) is aligned with Uruguay's 2015-2020 political cycle and selectivity has been exercised in the identification of objectives. The design of the CPF program responds to the Government's priorities and is also closely coordinated with the programs of Uruguay's other development partners, including IADB and CAF. The program is anchored in the findings of the new Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) which was informed by extensive consultations with a wide range of stakeholders. The proposed CPF program is designed to support the Government in its pursuit of six objectives identified in the SCD, grouped into three focal areas, namely, building resilience, rebalancing the social compact, and integrating Uruguay into global markets. During consultations, the Government endorsed the selection of focal areas (CPF's pillars and objectives) and the technical teams closely coordinated with the Bank experts who designed a set of indicators, which are fully owned.
Tunisian social development policy making has always counted on energy subsidies to play a pivotal role. Due to the increasingly unsustainable budget implications, a new strategy has begun to reform the subsidy system in the energy sector while striking a balance between improving fiscal and equity considerations without increasing social tensions. This paper presents an analysis of the fiscal and distributive consequences of the changes to the subsidy setup announced by the government at the end of 2014. The results show that raising electricity prices for consumers and removing subsidies for other energy sources would lead to a short-term increase in the poverty rate of 2.5 percentage points. In addition, compensation mechanisms that could be readily implemented (such as universal coverage or building on the existing health cards system) will not bring substantive counterweight to the increased poverty, even if all savings of reforms could be perfectly channeled as cash transfers. The analysis suggests that bold reforms of energy subsidies need to be accompanied by equally bold improvements to the targeting schemes of public spending if poverty and disparities are to be substantively reduced.
Automation of government financial management (GFM) systems is one of the core elements of the reform program since ready availability of timely and accurate information is critical to the management of government finances and public funds; and it may simply not be possible to obtain the information required for economic management in a timely manner without some degree of automation, in view of the large transaction volumes involved and their dispersal across multiple sites around the country. These systems are also referred to as integrated financial management information systems (IFMIS). As described in this handbook, IFMIS consists of a number of modules which support the different functional processes associated with GFM. These include modules for macroeconomic forecasting, budget preparation, budget execution (including cash management, accounting, and fiscal reporting), managing the size of the civil service establishment and its payroll and pensions, debt management, tax administration, and auditing. This handbook tries to fulfill the need and to provide information related to the entire systems life cycle, including the setting of reform priorities, designing systems functionality and architecture, and during systems implementation and ongoing operation and maintenance. In doing so, the author draws on his experience gained while managing, assisting, and advising on the implementation of World Bank financed projects for the implementation of such systems over the last 30 years in countries of the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, South and East Asia, and Africa. The handbook discusses the policy prerequisites, scope, and functionality of these systems in detail. It describes the steps and issues involved in systems design, procurement, and implementation. This includes project management structures required, the main activities involved in systems implementation, the type of technology architecture that needs to be deployed to implement the systems, and what technology choices need to be made, the main cost drivers and how long can systems implementation be expected to take, and the critical success factors that determine successful outcomes. The handbook also highlights key failure points in the design, implementation, and maintenance of these systems.
This report is structured in three parts. Part one is a summary document, including: (i) an executive summary (ii) an introduction; (iii) a review of core concepts of reintegration that will be referred to in this study; (iv) a meta-analysis of reintegration process¬es in the Great Lakes Region (GLR) vis-à-vis the conceptual discussion; and (v) conclusions to the summary document. Part two (annex one) comprises an in-depth review and analysis of data on the reintegration process-es of ex-combatants across the GLR. Part three (annex two) is an in-depth analysis of community dynamics across the GLR. In brief, part one of the study is a meta-analytical and knowledge-focused piece that reflects more broadly on the detailed analysis of the datasets presented in annexes one and two, therefore, this part can be read as a freestanding report. However, it's worth noting that any reading will benefit significantly from exploring the detailed findings in annexes one and two.
Pakistan's trade indicators reflect low outward orientation, concentration on low value added activities and an undiversified product mix which out of line with the fastest growing areas of world demand. The export share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has remained low and falling—fro
This paper examines the general purpose licensing imposed by central or local authorities, and the need to eliminate unnecessary licensing regulations imposed on businesses. This paper does not address the issue of reform of sector-specific or professional licensing regulation, but provides criteria and tools for identifying unnecessary licensing regulations, and their elimination or, in some instances, for changing licensing regulations to free notifications. Indeed, this paper argues that a simplified review of licensing regimes that identifies unnecessary licensing saves energy and resources for well-balanced reform of remaining licensing regulations, eventually providing better protection for the public at large and a more enabling business environment. This paper is primarily oriented towards reform practitioners from governments that intend to reform their business environments; development agencies; donor-funded projects; practitioners of licensing reforms; and others interested in improving state and local governance. This paper is divided into three parts: (1) overview of licensing practices that provides common definitions of licensing, analysis of justified licensing regimes with focus on criteria for their justification, and theoretical overview of unjustified and questionable licenses; (2) analysis of commonly declared functions of unjustified licenses that provides insight into the nature of these licenses and their typology; and (3) four case studies that examine how unjustified licenses can be reformed with examples of unsuccessful, partially successful, and successful reform efforts. The analytical conclusions of this paper summarize criteria for unjustified licenses; describe lessons learned from the reform efforts; and provide a practical set of recommendations to the interested parties.
Entidades financieras canadienses desempeñaron un papel importante en el desarrollo de los mercados financieros de las principales ciudades colombianas. Aseguradoras tales como Manufacturers Life insurance Company y Life Assurance Company of Canada tuvieron un gran impacto en el desarrollo del negocio de seguros en la costa Atlántica, mientras que Royal Bank of Canada contribuyó al desarrollo de la banca personal. Este artículo se centra en las experiencias de entidades financieras canadienses en Colombia desde finales del siglo XIX hasta el comienzo de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Resalta la naturaleza competitiva del negocio financiero internacional y el papel que cumplieron los líderes empresariales, las políticas públicas y los gobiernos en su lucha por el posicionamiento en los mercados emergentes de países como Colombia. Esta investigación histórica también contribuye a un mejor entendimiento de las relaciones bilaterales entre Colombia y Canadá y la forma como el capitalismo se extendió en el hemisferio occidental. ; Canadian financial institutions played an important role in the development of financial markets within Colombia´s urban centers. Specifically, insurance companies such as Manufacturers Life Insurance Company and Life Assurance Company of Canada were crucial in the expansion of the insurance business across the Caribbean coast, while Royal Bank of Canada contributed to the development of personal banking operations throughout the nation. This paper looks at the experience of Canadian financial companies in Colombia from the late 1800s to the beginning of World War II. It highlights the competitive nature of international financial business and the role of business leaders, policy, and governments in efforts to secure market shares in emerging nations such as Colombia. This historical research also contributes to a better understanding of the bilateral relations between Colombia and Canada, and the ways in which capitalism expanded across the western hemisphere.
The issue note discusses the rationale for, and presents the initial results of an innovative method of governance support conducted through the preparation and implementation of Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) in fragile states. The experiment was conducted in the context of an action and learning program on governance in fragile and conflict affected countries. The note first examines the political economic framework prevailing in fragile states, and particularly the neopatrimonial dynamics which structure political agents behavior, as they have been studied, notably, by Chabal and Daloz; Douglass North, John Wallis and Bary Weingast; and Margaret Levi. The note looks at the relatively brief history of PRSs and notes that they have been reviewed from a classical economics perspective: whether the PRSs' proposed policies 'got it right.' It argues that an institutionalize perspective, on the other hand, will rather look at the institutional processes from which the PRSP is developed, and concludes that PRS support will be more effective if it is focused on issues of methodology and process facilitation rather than analytics. The last chapter describes, in operational terms, the type of PRS support that has been provided through the experiment in the Cote d'Ivoire case: methodological support and process facilitation were provided for the preparation of the PRS policy matrices and the design of its monitoring and evaluation system. It concludes by proposing a set of results that can be monitored to assess the impact of this type of approach, not only for governance in the meaning of the capacity of a state to develop and implement policies, but also for governance in its broader, more traditional meaning.
Real gross domestic product (GDP) growth, which was estimated at 7 percent in 2009, is expected to increase to 7.8 percent in 2010 driven largely by resource sectors. Out of this growth of 7.8 percent, around 3.3 percentage points comes from power sector (mainly NT2 - nearly 3 percentage points), 0.9 percentage points from agriculture, around 0.4 percentage points for each of mining and construction, 0.8 percentage points from manufacturing and about 1.7 percentage points from services sector (tourism and retail trade, financial sector services as a result of the recent sharp increases in bank lending, and transport and telecommunication services). Real gross national income (GNI) is expected to slow to nearly 6 percent this year compared to 9.5 percent in 2009 due to significant outflows of income (profit repatriation and interest payment) from resources sectors (mining and hydropower). Although international reserves remained fairly stable during the last six months, net foreign assets dropped by 25 percent. Gross official Reserves at the Bank of Lao PDR were estimated at about $635 million during Oct 2009-Mar 2010 of which $65 million can be attributed to an increase in the International Monetary Fund's (IMF's) SDR allocation in late 2009 and $63 million have been borrowed from domestic banks through sales of foreign currency denominated bonds by the Bank of Lao (BoL). Net foreign assets declined by 25 percent in 2009 and 23 percent in Mar 2010 due to rapid credit expansion and import growth. The current account deficit is projected to decline from 10.6 percent of GDP in 2009 to 7.7 percent in 2010 supported by strong export growth, and in particular NT2 exports of electricity to Thailand. The capital account surplus is expected to decrease slightly from 10.6 percent of GDP in 2009 to 10.1 percent this year although FDI started to rebound. The overall balance is likely to turn into surplus in 2010 to about 2.4 percent of GDP. Credit grew rapidly in 2009 and in the first quarter of 2010 but is expected to slow by end?2010. Credits grew by about 90 percent last year and during Jan-Mar 2010 partly due to BOL's direct lending to local projects to finance public infrastructure and associated imports (about 22 percentage points of total credit growth). As the Government of Lao (GOL) made a decision to stop quasi?fiscal activities in September 2009 and bank liquidity tightened (loan to deposit ratio increased significantly to 73 percent by end-2009 from 55 percent in 2008), credit growth is expected to slow in 2010.
Despite reforms over the past quarter-century, world agricultural markets remain highly distorted by government policies. Traditional indicators of those price distortions such as the nominal rate of assistance and consumer tax equivalent provide measures of the degree of intervention, but they can be misleading as indicators of the true effects of those policies. By drawing on recent theoretical literature that provides indicators of the trade- and welfare-reducing effects of price and trade policies, this paper develops more-satisfactory indexes for capturing distortions to agricultural incentives. It then exploits the agricultural distortion database recently compiled by the World Bank to generate estimates of them for both developing and high-income countries over the past half century, based on a sample of 75 countries that together account for all but one-tenth of the world's population, gross domestic product (GDP) and agricultural production. While they are still only partial equilibrium measures, they provide a much better approximation of the true trade and welfare effects of sectoral policies without needing a formal model of global markets or even price elasticity estimates.
During the past decade, the use of conditional cash transfer programs to increase investment in human capital has generated considerable excitement in both research and policy forums. This article surveys the existing literature, which suggests that most conditional cash transfer programs are used for essentially one of two purposes: restoring efficiency when externalities exist or improving equity by targeting resources to poor households. The programs often meet their stated objectives, but in some instances there is tension between the efficiency and equity objectives. The overall impact of a program depends on the gains and losses associated with each objective.
