Suchergebnisse

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.

As a normative principle, federalism describes "the method of dividing powers so that the general and regional governments are each, within a sphere, co-ordinate and independent" (Wheare 1963: 10). The federal principle thus prescribes subnational self-rule on matters of local and regional scope and shared rule of the subnational units and the federal government on matters that transcend regional capabilities and jurisdiction (Elazar 1987). To not confuse federalism with other means and ways to territorially distribute power, e.g. decentralization, the vertical division and diffusion of jurisdiction needs to be constitutionally enshrined and cannot be unilaterally altered (Hueglin 2013). The constitutional safeguard is the core of federations that are the empirical embodiments of the normative principle of subnational autonomy on the one hand and federally shared jurisdiction on the other. Hence, federations are states that possess a federal constitution, i.e. a written agreement enshrining the basic political order of a state (who does what), that necessitates the approval of all constitutive parts, i.e. the federal government and the subnational units (Watts 2008: 8–9). Since "federalism is some one or several varieties of political philosophy or ideology and […] federation […] some type of political institution" (King 1982: 75), the constitution and its political institutions are only the formal framework within which actors of different levels of government work. Thus, federalism does not only encompass structure (polities) but also processes and culture (politics). The latter describes the political actors' behavior according to the logic of compromise and accommodation but also a commitment of the people as a whole towards territorial power sharing and the aforementioned logic of "thinking federal" (Elazar 1987: 192–197; see also Duchacek 1970). Especially, processes and practices within and beyond the federal frame stand out. One procedural characteristic in multi-tiered, federal systems are intergovernmental relations (IGR) that describe "ways and means of operationalizing a system of government" (Elazar 1987: 16). In its broadest terms, IGR are formal and informal interactions of government units between and within layers of government (Poirier and Saunders 2015a). Intergovernmental agreements (IGAs) and intergovernmental councils (IGCs), the two central embodiments of IGR, come into play when self-rule or shared rule is granted but cannot be sufficiently or satisfactorily fulfilled (for a general introduction see Poirier et al. 2015; for an encompassing discussion of IGCs see Bolleyer 2009 and Behnke and Mueller 2017; for an introduction to IGAs see country specific literature). The dissertation project "Federal Reform and Intergovernmental Relations in Switzerland. An Analysis of Intercantonal Agreements and Parliamentary Scrutiny in the Wake of the NFA" starts from the conceptual dualism of federalism and IGR. It aims at answering crucial questions on the most recent developments in the Swiss federal system with respect to horizontal IGAs and the role of subnational legislatures when such IGAs are at stake. The basic and overall research question of the dissertation is directly derived from the underlying research project1 on "[t]he hidden political effects of the Swiss federal reform: The NFA and the changing power relations in the Swiss cantons": To what extent has the NFA affected the cantons and their political systems? The research strategy is twofold and so is the research question further split in two: A first preparatory part approaches the research objects at hand and a second part then aims at answering the basic research question. First, the dissertation asks for the significance of horizontal IGAs between the Swiss cantons and for the factors that explain their occurrence: (I) What is the state of intercantonal cooperation by means of IGAs and what explains the intensity of their use? While literature in the international (Parker 2015) and the Swiss context (Bochsler and Sciarini 2006) assign crucial importance to IGAs, barely anything is known about their empirical significance as well as the factors that drive it. Two exceptions stand out: the investigations by Frenkel and Blaser (1981) and Bochsler (2009) address both questions – state and explanatory factors of IGAs – within the Swiss federal system. However, research on the topic resides in the shadow. Answering research question (I) adds another point in time to the two existing ones – Frenkel and Blaser (1981) analyze IGAs as of 1980 and Bochsler (2009) as of 2005. The subsequent analysis checks whether the state of horizontal IGAs has changed and whether the explanatory factors tested are still of significance. Both is by no means certain: The most recent and encompassing federal reform, the Neugestaltung des Finanzausgleichs und der Aufgabenteilung zwischen Bund und Kantonen (NFA), took force on 1 January 2008 and, among others, strengthened intercantonal cooperation especially with reference to the conclusion of IGAs providing public goods and services that require the sharing of costs and burdens. Art. 48a para. 1 lit. a.–i. Cst prescribes the use of IGAs in certain policy areas, e.g. school and higher education, cultural infrastructure but also waste management and waste water treatment. The further institutionalization of IGAs by its strong codification in the federal constitution and the enshrined federal enforcement mechanisms were widely expected to spur intercantonal cooperation (see Bochsler and Sciarini 2006: 36). After around ten years since the NFA has taken force, the subsequent analysis investigates whether this expectation was right and whether the logic behind the conclusion of IGAs has changed or remained the same. Hence, it provides for the better understanding of state and occurrence of IGAs in general. Furthermore, it puts a special focus on such addressed by the NFA in particular. First, the descriptive analysis shows that there is no clear answer to the question on the development of IGAs: While the mere number of IGAs has not significantly changed of late but consolidated on a high level, other (fiscal) indicators point towards enhanced intercantonal cooperation. With respect to the explanatory model, applying cross-sectional regression analysis as well as the Quadratic Assignment Procedure (QAP) on dyadic data of intercantonal contracting, the subsequent analysis replicates but also expands the analysis of Bochsler (2009). One of the main findings is that intercantonal cooperation by IGAs mainly takes place within functional, geographically demarcated areas. Mobility plays a crucial role and is one of the main predictors of the intensity of horizontal contractual cooperation. To abstract from the Swiss case, a comparative analysis of the German Bundesländer and the U.S. states is conducted. The crucial question here is whether it exists a similar state and a common logic behind IGAs in other federations as well or whether country specific differences occur. The second part of the dissertation project deals with specific political effects of the NFA, namely effects on the cantonal parliaments as one of the core political institutions on the subnational level (Vatter 2002). While the first part approaches the topic by clarifying state and logic behind IGAs to assess its overall significance for the cantons, the second part directly addresses the basic research question on the political effects of the NFA on power relations within the cantons: (II) How do cantonal parliamentary rights of participation and scrutiny in intercantonal affairs have developed over time and what explains this development? Research on the Swiss cantons provides not only specific descriptive knowledge on singular cases (see Iff et al. 2010 for the canton of Berne and Schwarz et al. 2015 for the canton of Uri) but also on all cantons (Strebel 2014). However, both approaches lack a quantitative comparative and explanatory perspective. Towards answering question (II), it is hypothesized that the NFA and the accompanying public debates and executing national legislation2 triggered change in cantonal parliamentary rights of participation and scrutiny. As already pointed out, the reform heightened the expectation of more executive-driven intercantonal cooperation. Additionally, the federal government settled minimal standards for the conclusion of IGAs that lie within Art. 48a para. 1 lit. a.–i. Cst. Strebel (2014: 231ff.) discusses reforms on the cantonal level towards better parliamentary participation and scrutiny against the background of the NFA. However, a quantitative comparative analysis of the specific factors explaining institutional change stands out: Did the NFA trigger parliamentary reforms in the cantons and what role did other factors play, e.g. the institutional context and the parliaments itself as well as partisan actors within the cantonal arenas? The analysis builds on approaches testing similar effects in other contexts, e.g. the effects of increased activity of state officials on the European level on more parliamentary scrutiny of national governments 'at home' (Raunio and Hix 2000, O'Brennan and Raunio 2007, Winzen 2012, Auel et al. 2015). Methodically, the investigation in this second part makes use of time-series analysis on panel data to isolate the factors explaining institutional change. Besides, an in-depth discussion on a typical case (Lieberman 2005) gives further insights on the workings of the explanatory mechanisms. The dissertation closes by discussing the major implications that can be drawn from the analyses. While the first analysis addressed a trend within federations, i.e. increasing horizontal interactions, the second investigated a major challenge, i.e. efficiency versus democratic accountability (Poirier and Saunders 2015b). The concluding discussion links the two parts of the dissertation and hypothesizes the following: it was the very development towards enhanced parliamentary participation (second analysis) that has hampered the intensity of intercantonal contracting most recently (first analysis). Furthermore, the capability of cantonal political systems is critically discussed. 1 See the abstract of the research project The hidden political effects of the Swiss federal reform: The NFA and the changing power relations in the Swiss cantons (SNSF No. 159343; http://p3.snf.ch/Project-159343, accessed 31 March 2020). 2 i.e. the Bundesgesetz über den Finanz- und Lastenausgleich (FiLaG), in force since 1 April 2005, and the Rahmenvereinbarung über die interkantonale Zusammenarbeit mit Lastenausgleich (IRV), passed for ratification on 24 June 2005.

This Technical Note evaluates state bank corporate governance practices in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The analysis was completed during October 27-November 18, 2014. This TN is not a formal assessment against the Basel Committee's Principles for Enhancing Governance; rather, it assesses key issues and provides a set of recommendations to the authorities with the view to strengthen state bank governance and the State's ownership structures in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The governments of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) and the Republic of Srpska (RS) are involved in their domestic banking systems through equity stakes and subordinated debt investments in certain banking institutions. Banks' supervisory boards are not performing their intended leadership role.

This report provides an overview of the World Bank Group's engagement in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, highlighting the new operating model of the World Bank Group. In particular, the report provides insight on the key challenges and strategic engagement of each sector (Global Practice) in MENA and details some of the key cross-cutting challenges that countries face. This report serves as a basis to convene international thought leaders, as well as internal and external stakeholders, in the context of developing a new strategy for the Middle East and North Africa region later this year. The region faces three challenges in particular: (a) long-standing distortions that have generated jobless growth and poor service delivery as well as low financial access and inclusion; (b) severe imbalances that threaten macroeconomic stability; and (c) deep political and social tensions, at times escalating into violent conflict. The World Bank Group's current engagement supports four key pillars: (a) strengthening governance; (b) ensuring economic and social inclusion; (c) creating jobs; and (d) accelerating sustainable growth. Progress on these pillars can be made through a two-pronged approach focused on addressing the immediate needs arising from humanitarian crises throughout the region while also giving sustained attention to the investments and reforms needed for medium- and long-term development. This two-pronged approach is necessary to help governments cope with immediate pressures on already fragile institutions and at the same time develop long-term strategies to address deep-seated issues that have hindered inclusive growth and prosperity for decades. This report details nine specific cross-cutting challenges: climate change; decentralization; disaster risk management; fragility, conflict and violence; fuel subsidies and social safety nets; gender; governance and service delivery in health and education; private sector development and job creation; and public-private partnerships. Looking ahead, responding to the changing realities on the ground, the World Bank Group is rethinking its regional strategy in order to maximize its impact in the Middle East and North Africa. This new strategy, which is currently under preparation, will aim to step up the Bank Group's engagement in the region in order to achieve shared growth and prosperity, as well as work with partners to convene change in the region.

Over the review period covered by this report (2003-2012), the budget allocated to agriculture increased noticeably more than the sector's contribution to GDP. This reflects a notable effort by the Chad authorities to increase the budget to boost this sector's development in recent years. In this proactive context, Chad signed its CAADP compact in December 2013 to continue supporting agriculture's revival. The CAADP is being implemented in Chad even as the terms of the National Rural Sector Investment Program (PNISR, 2014-2020) are being finalized. Within the context of the CAADP, the Government of Chad (GOC) wished to undertake a review of public agriculture expenditures to learn from past budgetary implementation in this sector with a view to improving future program performance. Following a request by the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation (MoAI), the NEPAD planning and coordination agency gave Chad it's backing for this review. This process was undertaken by the Program for Strengthening National Comprehensive Agricultural Public Expenditure in Sub-Saharan Africa, co-financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the CAADP Multi-Donor Trust Fund. This program, implemented by the World Bank, aims to improve the impact of the still-limited public resources available to governments in Sub-Saharan Africa to foster agricultural development and reduce poverty in rural areas, where most of the poor in these countries, notably Chad, live. This study follows and builds upon a number of similar studies conducted in recent years on public expenditure management, in particular in Chad the Action Plan for the Modernization of Public Finances (PAMFIP). However, these studies have focused on budget management as a whole, and none to date has looked at the agricultural sector specifically.

Afghanistan is in a state of transition which involves the handover of security responsibilities from international forces to the Afghan government. However, at present, Afghanistan's economy is growing strongly as a result of an exceptionally good harvest this year. Real gross domestic product (GDP) growth will most likely close the calendar year at 10 percent, a significant increase from last year's 5.8 percent. The services and construction sectors continue to grow strongly, driven mostly by continued high military spending and external aid. The good harvest has also brought Afghanistan to near food self-sufficiency and slowed inflation to 4.6 percent in July 2012 (y-o-y). Progress in the mining sector is clouded by uncertainty about a new mineral law. While investor interest in the sector is encouraging, gaps in the legal and regulatory framework of the sector do not provide sufficient confidence to investors to start operations or make firm commitments. A new low is in preparation but has also been heavily debated. Afghanistan's economic growth prospects for 2012 give cause for optimism. Although real GDP growth slowed, to around 7 percent in 2011 (from 8 percent the year before), due mainly to unfavorable weather and a poor harvest, the agriculture sector rebounded strongly in 2012 and is expected to boost economic growth to over 10 percent. Agriculture is an important but volatile component of economic growth.

Using recent estimates of industry assistance rates, the effects of trade liberalization in the rest of the world and in Pakistan alone are analyzed using a global and a Pakistan computable general equilibrium (CGE) model under two tax replacement schemes: a direct income tax and an indirect tax replacement. The results indicate that the distributional and poverty effects in Pakistan of a unilateral liberalization of all traded goods are significantly greater than the effects of trade liberalization in the rest of the world. There is relatively higher increase in real income and larger decline in poverty incidence in poor households both in rural and urban areas. The effects of agricultural trade liberalization alone in both the rest of the world and in Pakistan are considerably smaller than those from trade liberalization involving all goods. In both the agricultural and all-goods trade liberalization scenarios involving direct income tax replacement, real household income is raised and the poverty incidence is lowered at varied rates across all household groups except for the urban non-poor. When an indirect tax replacement is used, where the burden of replacing tariff revenue is shared by all household groups depending on their consumption structure, there is reduction in household income for most of the groups and less reduction of poverty.

For more than a decade, Africa has enjoyed a mineral boom. is the growth mostly happening in isolated places, sectors and periods? The approach adopted in this study is two-pronged. First, through case studies, including the results of fieldwork, mining's impacts are examined in a country-specific context for each of three countries, Ghana, Mali, and Tanzania; and second, a statistical analysis is used to test whether the indicators of welfare improve with proximity to a mine.

Global trajectories for reducing carbon emissions depend on the local adoption of alternatives to conventional energy sources, technologies, and urban development. Yet, decisions on which type of capital investments to make, made by local governments as part of the normal budget cycle, typically do not incorporate climate considerations. Furthermore, current academic and professional literature specific to climate change draws attention to decision-making tools that would require access to technical expertise, data, and financial support that may not be practical for cities in low- and middle-income countries. Arguably, the methodologies most able to effect this transformation will be those that are convenient and affordable to administer, and that offer straight-forward low carbon alternatives to traditional forms of infrastructure investment. Current methodologies for capital investment planning that do not take climate change into consideration can result in prioritization of investments that diverge from a low carbon path and a potential missed opportunity to reap financial benefits from efficiency gains. This paper concludes that relatively minor alterations to common procedures can reveal the trade-offs and local benefits of low carbon alternatives in the capital investment planning process. This paper was written as an input to the preparation of the Climate-Informed Capital Investment Planning Guidebook, a how-to guide for local government staff, which will be published in 2015.

In light of the outflow of deposits in Serbia in late 2008 and early 2009, a series of measures were introduced to urgently address stability concerns. These measures included increased deposit insurance coverage, shortened payout periods, introduction of regulations on lenders of last report (LoLR) and new liquidity lines, and the possibility for the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) to purchase shares of insolvent banks under instruction from the Government of Serbia (GoS). At the time, it was understood that, once stability returned, it will be prudent to have a crisis management framework in place to address systemic financial crises at all times, much like some countries have a framework to deal with natural disasters. The new framework will seek to minimize the need for ad hoc measures during crises and limit the need for the authorities to take measures that are technically illegal. Because of the lack of such crisis provisions, in several past crises, ministers and governors were forced by deteriorating events to take measures for which they had no authority, leaving the passage of appropriate regulation or laws to the aftermath of the crisis. This technical note has been prepared in the context of the initiative, primarily spearheaded by the National Bank of Serbia (NBS), to develop a contingency management framework. In particular, the note discusses the key elements of such a framework, explores how the NBS and other countries are tackling such contingency planning.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play a major role in economic development, particularly in emerging countries. Access to finance remains a key constraint to SME development in emerging economies. Closing the credit gap for formal SMEs will be less daunting than for informal SMEs. The SME finance gap is the result of a mismatch between the needs of the small firms and the supply of financial services, which typically are easier for larger firms to access. Deficiencies in the enabling environment and residual market failures have motivated government interventions to foster SME access to financing. The stocktaking exercise confirms the rise in various parts of the world of specific business models aimed at providing financial services to SMEs in a cost-effective manner. Effective SME financing models can be implemented in different country and market environments, but greater outreach is achieved in the most developed environments for the financial sector. Although SME banking and microfinance models are successfully being rolled out in an increasing number of countries and regions, equity financing remains a challenge in developing economies. The role of international finance institutions (IFIs) and development finance institutions (DFIs) to foster SME financing in the developing world has been significant so far. Increasing access to finance can only be successful if qualitative aspects are taken into account.

Asia and the Pacific depend on healthy and resilient oceans for disaster resilience, food security, and livelihoods. Healthy oceans also drive economies through tourism, fisheries, and aquaculture. However, climate change, overfishing, pollution, and unsustainable development have pushed our oceans to the brink of collapse. In order to address the growing funding gap required to protect and restore ocean health, global markets need to systematically change. Blue bonds encourage that shift by increasing the amount of capital that can be invested in oceans to finance solutions at scale.

A blue bond is a relatively new form of a sustainability bond, which is a debt instrument that is issued to support investments in healthy oceans and blue economies. Like in the case of conventional bonds, investors lend money to a bond issuer, who agrees to repay the interest every year for the term of the bond plus the capital on a certain day. In a blue bond, earnings are generated from the investments in sustainable blue economy projects. Furthermore, the issuance of a blue bond enables investors to fulfill their corporate social responsibilities and generate benefit for the ocean and humankind.

Green, social, and sustainability bonds are bond instruments where the proceeds are used for eligible projects with positive environmental and/or social outcomes. The International Capital Market Association (ICMA) has developed Green Bond Principles, Social Bond Principles, and Sustainability Bond Guidelines to improve consistency and integrity for issuers and investors in relation to these fixed income debt instruments.

Since the first edition of paying taxes, and especially following the global financial crisis, the media, the public, and many policymakers have become increasingly interested in how international tax systems operate. Most recently the focus has been the work initiated by the G20 and carried out by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS). The BEPS agenda however does not consider what some commentators will consider to be equally important issues for developing economies, including how to enhance the administrative capacities of tax authorities, reduce the informal economy, and corruption while promoting growth and investment. The paying taxes study, with its emphasis on efficient tax compliance and straightforward tax regimes provides valuable insight into many of these developing country issues. It can be an invaluable source of information to decision-makers, providing an independent assessment of whether interventions are resulting in a simplified compliance process for a standardized domestic model business. Governments also often find it useful to be able to learn from the experience of economies in their peer group and to consider whether a measure adopted elsewhere may be relevant for the economy.