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The 2020 budget of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is aligned with Strategy 2030 and supports the strategic and institutional priorities of the Work Program and Budget Framework, 2020–2022. The 2020 work program commitments comprise $18.2 billion and 130 projects for sovereign operations (from $17.6 billion and 120 projects estimated for 2019), $3.4 billion and 37 projects for nonsovereign operations (from $3.2 billion and 32 projects estimated for 2019), and $422.0 million and 237 projects for technical assistance (from $395.0 million and 270 projects estimated for 2019). Strategy 2030 is being implemented through the mainstreaming of the seven operational priorities—supported by seven operational plans, which were endorsed by the Board of Directors in October 2019. The operational plans will guide ADB operations and offer new opportunities to implement Strategy 2030 using integrated and differentiated approaches in project design, knowledge work, and financing. ADB will also focus on the quality of operations.

Reducing poverty and inequality requires innovative modes of financing. By enabling the poor to engage more fully in economic activity and participate in supply chains and value chains, inclusive businesses help them to increase earnings and accumulate wealth. This is why inclusive businesses are gaining prominence as an effective response to socio-economic and environmental challenges. Understanding how best to finance them will accelerate inclusion and poverty reduction. Written as a resource for finance practitioners, financial institutions, fund managers, and development finance institutions, this report builds on the notion that engaging marginalized and commercially-excluded people is vital—and that it can be done profitably. Drawing on case studies from across Asia, it examines the two main conduits for financing inclusive businesses: bank debt and private equity.

The 2015 Annual Report of the Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction (JFPR) presents the background and rationale, implementation progress, and achievements of the JFPR. It is the 15th such report and covers the period 1 January–31 December 2015. Established in May 2000, JFPR provides direct grant assistance to the poorest and most vulnerable groups in developing members of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) while fostering long-term social and economic development. The grants target poverty reduction initiatives with the direct participation of nongovernment organizations, community groups, and civil society. In 2009, the Government of Japan and ADB expanded the scope of JFPR to include provision of support to developing members through capacity development, policy and advisory, research and development, and project preparatory technical assistance.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is working to assist in the development of the transport sector in 14 Pacific developing member countries (DMCs) through technical assistance, loan, and grant financing. ADB provides support for transport sector policy, investment planning, capacity building, and new capital infrastructure investment. ADB is currently implementing transport projects and technical assistance in nine Pacific DMCs—Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. This document provides an update of ongoing, proposed, and recently completed Pacific Transport projects and assistance for 2016.

In June 2012, at the Rio+20 United Nations (UN) Conference on Sustainable Development (hereafter Rio+20), our eight Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) delivered a joint statement making a Commitment to Sustainable Transport (hereafter the Rio+20 Commitment). The aim was to draw attention to the critical role sustainable transport plays as an enabler of sustainable development, and to make known our intentions to support sustainable transport in developing countries in succeeding years. Building on our collective history of support for transport, the commitment outlined our expectation to provide more than $175 billion of loans and grants for transport in developing countries over the coming decade (2012-22). This funding has been increasingly supporting sustainable transport – transport that is accessible, affordable, efficient, financially sustainable, environmentally friendly, and safe.

This paper reviews Cambodia's economic development based on flows of foreign direct investment (FDI) and services sector liberalisation. It uses Cambodia's logistics industry as a case study. Services sector liberalisation in Cambodia has been mainly driven by its commitments under the World Trade Organization (WTO) framework and the ASEAN Framework Agreement on Services (AFAS). Logistics is one of the key contributors to economic growth and competitiveness. To improve the logistics sector, Cambodia needs to develop a comprehensive master plan and national council on logistics to overcome the main issues and challenges such as corruption and informal payments, lack of institutional capacity and coordination, low-quality transport infrastructure, weak urban–rural and cross-border transport networks, limited participation of the private sector, lack of skilled human resources, and low public and private investments. Promoting healthy competition in logistics and removing the impediments to investment are vital to improving the quality and coverage of logistics services.

This Country Partnership Framework (CPF) covers the five-year period FY16-20. Anchored in the government's medium-term development plan as outlined in a January 2015 Cabinet of Ministers Program of Action, it also reflects the analysis and recommendations of the World Bank Group's (WBG) 2015 Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) for Uzbekistan and the lessons learned from the Completion Report of the previous CPS. The CPF's objectives and program, which focus on developing the conditions for faster job creation, are consistent with the WBG's twin goals of eliminating extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity. The Uzbekistan Systemic Country Diagnostic (SCD) identified ten priority areas that would need to be addressed to eliminate poverty, boost shared prosperity, and enable Uzbekistan to reach upper middle-income status. The government's strategic objectives are for Uzbekistan to achieve upper middleincome status by 2030, implying income growth averaging 6 percent annually, and in particular to create 500,000 jobs annually. Building country systems for statistical, fiduciary, safeguard, and statistical capacity underlie the foundation of this CPF. The CPF program will remain flexible as circumstances change and new opportunities may arise.

In Latin America, labor markets have been the main channel through which growth has reduced poverty, with higher labor income accounting for 49 percent of the reduction in poverty in 2008–13. Understanding labor markets is critical to designing policies and programs aimed at reducing poverty. With close to 70 percent of the population under age 30 years, labor markets are bound to be central to defining Haiti's future. Yet, labor analysis in Haiti has been constrained by the dearth of data and the focus on measuring the impact of the 2010 earthquake. This present paper contributes to filling this gap by providing an overview of Haiti's labor markets and the determinants of labor income over a decade, focusing on growing urban areas. The paper also contributes to the research on Haiti in general, as well as labor markets in fragile countries such as Haiti, in particular through an unprecedented effort to harmonize three household surveys conducted between 2001 and 2012. Building on this exercise, the study provides new insights into the development of labor markets in a particularly turbulent decade for Haiti, one that was marked by the political crisis of 2004 and the earthquake of 2010. In spite of the earthquake, the analysis shows that Haiti's labor markets are characterized by continuity over the period. Somewhat surprisingly, the defining features remain overall unchanged in spite of the shock, pointing to heavy forces shaping economic and labor dynamics.

Tunisia emerges today the only success story of the Arab Spring revolution that swept the Arab world five years ago. This poverty assessment seeks to learn from the pre and post revolution periods with a view of avoiding the repetition of past mistakes in the future. Specifically, it will provide Tunisians with a more detailed and updated diagnostics of poverty, regional disparities, trends over time and the strong links between poverty, inequality, opportunities, and vulnerability. Beyond statistics, this report will also provide a somber but more balanced alternative explanation of socioeconomic development in the country, which will hopefully complement the efforts of the Government of Tunisia to develop and implement its strategic development plan. This poverty assessment questions the extent to which growth was truly pro-poor in Tunisia and, more importantly, capable of reducing inequalities and increasing inclusion in society. This questioning sheds light on Tunisia's prospects for a more prosperous society if substantive changes in the socioeconomic model are not introduced. The poverty assessment analysis goes into a post-2010 analysis; expanding as well the analysis of monetary poverty to broader concepts of vulnerability and equal opportunities; and by enriching traditional instruments with more sophisticated tools to measure poverty, analyze poverty dynamics, and simulate the effects of certain policy reforms for the first time in Tunisia.

Existing work on China's economic influence in Africa refers to Africa in broad terms, thereby generalizing the results to an extent that is unhelpful for policy-makers in a specific country. Moreover, the emphasis is on oil exporters. This paper remedies this by focusing on a single, oil-importing country: Kenya. The paper examines China's economic presence in Kenya and some of the popular myths surrounding Chinese economic activity. The first myth is that Chinese companies do not employ local workers. In fact, 78 percent of full-time and 95 percent of part-time employees in Chinese companies are locals. Second, although China represents a large potential market for local exporters, the study finds that China has a better chance of expanding its exports to Kenya than Kenya does to China based on existing specializations. This may change with recent oil discoveries in Kenya, increasing the space for Kenyan exports to China, as well as from China's shift to a consumption-driven economy which will increase demand for services, a growing strength of Kenya's economy (World Bank Country Economic Memorandum 2016). The paper emphasizes that Kenyan policy makers should be less concerned about bilateral trade imbalances and worry about Kenya's overall trade balance. However, the Standard Gauge Railway and Thika superhighway experiences suggest that Chinese firms offer relatively few technology transfer or supplier opportunities for local firms and academia. Third, the popular focus of Chinese competition is on the impact on well-organized Kenyan producers and not on consumers, thereby underestimating the benefits Kenyan consumer derive from the availability of more affordable Chinese goods. The paper concludes with policy directions for improving export competitiveness and transparency in infrastructure projects, and local content.

Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 11 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and labor market regulation. Doing Business 2016 presents the data for the labor market regulation indicators in an annex. The report does not present rankings of economies on labor market regulation indicators or include the topic in the aggregate distance to frontier score or ranking on the ease of doing business. This regional profile presents the Doing Business indicators for economies in Southern African Development Community (SADC). It also shows the regional average, the best performance globally for each indicator and data for the following comparator regions: East Asia and the Pacific (EAP), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), European Union (EU), Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA). The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2015 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January–December 2014).

This Country Partnership Framework (CPF) for Tunisia, prepared jointly by International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) covers the period Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 through FY 2020. The CPF is anchored in the Government of Tunisia's September 2015 Note d'Orientation Stratégique and the WBG's October 2015 Strategy for the Middle East and North Africa Region. It builds on extensive discussions with a wide range of stakeholders, and is underpinned by WBG analytics, including the June 2015 Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD). The Government's "Note d'Orientation Stratégique" outlines Tunisia's development vision for the next five years. Its main premise is that Tunisia will maintain its strong partnerships with the international community; rely on the private sector to lead economic growth and job creation; and promote a vibrant civil society. Technical ministries and regions are in the process of preparing their five-year sectorial plans based on this vision, for which financing will be sought during an international donor conference in late 2016.

Financial regulation affects government revenue whenever it imposes both the mandatory quantity and price of government bonds. This paper studies a banking regulation adopted by the National Bank of Ethiopia in April 2011, which forces all private banks to purchase a fixed negative-yield government bond in proportion to private sector lending. Having access to monthly bank balance sheets, a survey of branch costs and public finances documentation, the effect of the policy on government revenue can be tracked. This is compared to three plausible revenue-generating alternatives: raising funds at competitive rates on international markets; distorting the private lending of the state-owned bank; and raising new deposits through additional branches of the state-owned bank. Three main results emerge: the government revenue gain is moderate (1.5-2.6 percent of the tax revenue); banks comply with the policy and amass more safe assets; banks' profit growth slows without turning negative (from 10 percent to 2 percent).

This program document presents the World Bank Group (WBG) FY17-22 Country Partnership Framework (CPF) for Bulgaria. The timing of the new CPF follows the preparation of theSystematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) prepared in FY15, and informs the areas and objectives ofthe CPF in support of the WBG's twin goals to reduce poverty and boost shared prosperity1 for the bottom forty percent of the population. The CPF proposes to focus WBG support in selective areas aligned with the SCD, in response to clear Government demand, supporting and complementing Bulgaria's European Union agenda, and reflecting the WBG's comparative advantage. In addition, the CPF applies two key principles for engagement, including: (i) realism, recognizing that the WBG plays a selective role and that it will contribute most effectively by being strategic and catalytic in supporting key elements of Bulgaria's development agenda, and (ii) scalability, creating opportunities to engage in dialogue and analytical work that may create space for broader engagement in areas where there is potential for transformational impact, including IFC investments in private sector development. Government demand is focused primarily on the agenda to strengthen public institutions, notably in the financial and energy sectors. The WBG will complement that focus by investing its own resources to stay engaged in the inclusion agenda, which is critical to the WBG twin goals. CPF proposes to cover a six year period, with Progress Learning Reviews (PLRs) will facilitate a more proactive approach to monitoring results and ensure close alignment with the country-led strategy.

Oil prices on global markets have plunged from United States (U.S.) $115 per barrel in mid-June of 2014 to U.S. $48 at end-January 2015, while other fuel prices have continued the slow downward trend of recent years. The rapid decline in oil prices by about 60 percent was accompanied by U.S. dollar appreciation against the major global currencies (except the Swiss franc), partly offsetting the oil price decline measured in currencies other than the dollar. The impact assessment of the oil price shock was conducted using a multi-county, multi-sector computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, PLACE, maintained by the Center for Climate Policy Analysis (CCPA). The effects of a permanent 60 percent oil price shock are assessed against a baseline scenario through 2020 based on the International Energy Agency (IEA) 2012 world energy outlook assuming a high oil price scenario of U.S. $118 in 2015 and U.S. $128 in 2020 (both in 2010 constant prices) and correlated price changes of coal (by 50 percent), and natural gas (by 30 percent). Model simulations show that, first, oil exporters will suffer substantial double-digit welfare losses through 2020 due to significant deterioration in their terms of trade. Second, the European Union (EU), as a large oil importer, will benefit significantly from lower oil prices, with the new member states being relatively better off, as a consequence of their relatively high energy intensity. Third, if the assumed permanent oil price shock occurs at half the level of the headline 60 percent scenario (proxying for U.S. dollar appreciation or reflecting a rebound in oil prices from their early 2015 levels through 2020), welfare effects will be smaller and less than proportional for most countries. Finally, in the EU, the existing emissions cap constrain the use of cheaper fossil fuels and limits the welfare increase by about 0.5 percentage points. The interpretation of results from the CGE model has been supported by regression, attributing the diversity of the simulated welfare effects by region to certain characteristics of regional economies, such as refined oil products-to- gross domestic product (GDP) and net exports of crude oil-to-GDP ratios.