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The WDR 2012: Gender Equality and Development will focus on the evolution of gender equality across the world in the context of the development process. The report will consider gender equality as a core development goal in itself, and will argue that gender equality matters for the pace of development. Improvements in gender equality can generate gains in economic efficiency and improvements in other development outcomes. And gender equality has consequences for the quality and representativeness of the institutions a society develops.For key dimensions of gender equality, the report will show that although many women around the world still continue to struggle with gender-based disadvantages, much has changed for the better and at a more rapid pace than ever before. But the report will also show that progress needs to be expanded, protected and deepened.In order to understand why progress has varied across dimensions of gender equality and between countries, the report will look at how markets interact with formal and informal institutions to influence household decision-making by providing incentives, shaping preferences, or imposing constraints. Markets and institutions can combine to provide strong incentives for greater gender equality, but can also fail to do so if they treat males and females differentially.Policymakers and practitioners still face gaps in knowledge both in how gender equality matters for development and how best to incorporate these links in policy design. This WDR aims to bridge these gaps by building upon the growing body of multidisciplinary theory, evidence, and data on these links while highlighting the knowledge gaps that remain.

This review provides an independent assessment of the World Bank Group's performance in achieving key development objectives, with a special focus on support for environmentally sustainable development consistent with economic growth and poverty reduction.The response to the global financial crisis has continued to dominate development and the work of international institutions, including the World Bank Group. Following a pattern similar to previous crises, World Bank lending has seen a sharp, countercyclical expansion, and IFC investments as a whole have undergone a procyclical contraction

This handy pocket guide is a quick reference for users interested in the gender statistics. The book presents gender-disaggregated data for more than 200 countries in an easy country-by-country reference on demography, education, health, labor force, political participation and the Millennium Development Goals. The book's summary pages cover regional and income group aggregates

The Little Data Book on Private Sector Development 2011' is one of a series of pocket-sized books intended to provide a quick reference to development data on different topics. It provides data for more than 20 key indicators on business environment and private sector development in a single page for each of the World Bank member countries and other economies with populations of more than 30,000. These more than 200 country pages are supplemented by aggregate data for regional and income groupings

Since the private health sector is an important, and often dominant, provider of health services in Sub-Saharan Africa, it is the job of governments as the stewards of the health system to engage with it. Increasing the contributions that the existing private health sector is making to public health is an important, but often neglected, element of meeting the daunting health-related challenges facing African nations. This Report presents newly collected data on how and how effectively each country in the Africa region is engaging the respective private health sectors; and how the engagement compares across the region. While the approach taken by governments varies greatly between countries, there is much room for improvement in the Africa region overall to engage more effectively and room for exchange of ideas and good practices on how to do so. Improved solutions on the policy/regulatory side should be supported by effective organization of the private sector itself and by adjustments in donor programs that take the dynamics of the private health sector better into account.

Published in association with Harper Collins, the completely revised and updated third edition of the Atlas of Global Development vividly illustrates the key development challenges facing our world today. 'This is an excellent, up-to-date source book which will be invaluable for students of, and staff teaching, higher levels of geography .... a clear, concise, easily-accessible and well-illustrated volume.' - Geographical Association, United Kingdom.

Looking for accurate, up-to-date data on development issues? 'World Development Indicators' is the World Bank's premier annual compilation of data about development. This indispensable statistical reference allows you to consult over 800 indicators for more than 150 economies and 14 country groups in more than 90 tables. It provides a current overview of the most recent data available as well as important regional data and income group analysis in six thematic sections: World View, People, Environment, Economy, States and Markets, and Global Links. World Development Indicators 2010 presents th

This evaluation assesses the effectiveness of the World Bank?s 2001 gender strategy and the results thereof. Covering the period fiscal 2002-08, the evaluation finds that the Bank made progress in gender integration compared with an earlier IEG evaluation on gender covering the period fiscal 1990-99. Gender integration into Bank support increased both in quantity and in scope, and more than half of relevant projects integrated gender concerns. With regard to outcomes, detailed reviews were undertaken in 12 focus countries, and the evaluation finds that Bank support likely contributed to increased gender equality in three domains?investment in human capital, access to economic assets and opportunities, and voice in development?substantially in 4 of the 12 countries, modestly in another 6, and weakly in 2. The evaluation recommends several actions to regain and sustain the momentum of gender integration that was evident in the first half of the evaluation period. These include redoubling efforts to institutionalize the accountability framework and develop the monitoring system envisioned in the 2001 Gender Strategy, establishing a results framework, and restoring a broader requirement for gender integration at the project level.

The 2010 World Bank Entrepreneurship Snapshots (WBGES) provide a unique indicator of business creation around the world and facilitate the investigation of the factors that foster dynamic private sector growth. Now in its fourth year, the WBGES measure entrepreneurial activity in 115 developing and industrial countries over the six year period 2004-2009. Importantly, the data offer a distinctive and timely snapshot of the impact of the 2008-2009 financial crisis on entrepreneurial activity. There is wide variation in new business creation across countries: On average, about four new firms regi

The World Bank, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Research Institute, and the Foundation for Advanced Studies on International Development (FASID), in collaboration with researchers affiliated with the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), recently conducted a study on Africa's domestic enterprises to improve the understanding of the constraints micro and small enterprises in Africa face in improving productivity and expanding their markets. In Africa, there are stark performance gaps between domestically owned enterprises and foreign-owned enterprises in terms of sales performance, productivity, and ability to reach distant markets. Among others, size appears to be a dominant factor in explaining the gap. Against this background, the study analyzes how naturally formed industrial clustersâ€"concentrations of enterprises engaged in same or closely related industrial activities in specific locationsâ€"could potentially mitigate constraints Africa's micro and small enterprises face and enhance their business performance. The study is one of the first comprehensive quantitative inquiries on industrial clusters in Africa. The analysis specifically focuses on the role of spontaneously grown clusters of light manufacturing industries based on a set of original case studies of industrial clusters conducted for this research project. One of the key findings from the case studies was that cluster-based micro and small enterprises are performing better than similar micro and small enterprises outside of the clusters in terms of sales performance and ability to reach distant markets. Market access is a leading reason for cluster-based enterprises to choose their current locations. However, cluster-based enterprises face another set of unique growth constraints. By the very nature of spontaneous agglomera¬tion, new enterprises continue to

The East Asia and Pacific Update is the World Bank's comprehensive semiannual review of developing economies in the region. This November 2009 issue discusses East Asia's role as the driving force behind the global economic rebound. The region's economy has rebounded from the financial crisis and global recesesion that began in late 2008, but has it reached recovery stage? Why has the East Asia and Pacific region fared better than other developing regions? Can the region continue to grow as fast as it did before the crisis if demand from the developed world remains weak? Take China out of the

Africa Development Indicators 2008/09 (ADI) provides the most detailed collection of data on Africa available in one volume. It puts together data from different sources, making it an essential tool for policy makers, researchers, and other people interested in Africa. This year's ADI addresses the issue of youth employment. The report shows that success in addressing youth employment in will not be achieved and sustained through fragmented and isolated interventions. Instead it finds that an arching guideline for addressing the youth employment challenge is the need for an integrated strategy

The future prosperity of most people of the Middle-East and North Africa-and the social cohesion of their countries-rests in great part on the ability of governments to enable the private sector to respond to this job creation challenge. This is what this report is about. It is about enabling the new generations of entrepreneurs that have emerged over the past years all across the region to play a bigger role in the growth of their countries. It is also about encouraging more investors to believe in the prospects of the region and trusting that business-friendly policy reforms will benefit them and not only a minority of privileged entrepreneurs. From privilege to competition: unlocking private-led growth in the Middle-East and North Africa complements previous regional flagship reports published by the World Bank. In particular, the 2004 flagship report on trade and investment in the MENA region and the 2008 report on education touched upon other fundamental ingredients of economic competitiveness and private sector development. By focusing on market institutions, the quality of implementation of economic policies and the credibility of reforms from the private sector perspective, this report offers a new angle to the growth and employment challenge of the MENA region.

Following the serious economic crisis in 2001-02, Argentina mobilized an unprecedented effort to provide income support to the segment of the population most in need. Now, as growth has returned and social indicators recovered to precrisis levels, there is an opening to move from emergency support programs to a more comprehensive, long-term, and sustainable strategy for social protection. The challenge is to design and fully implement a social protection system that has adequate coverage and benefits and is integrated and fiscally and politically sustainable.The analysis contained in this book aimed to contribute to and inform the debate about the future of income support policies in Argentina, taking the views, values, and preferences of the stakeholders and the population as starting points. The research included two innovative efforts to collect and understand the landscape of ideas regarding options for social protection circulating in Argentina: first, an extensive set of consultations with policy makers and practitioners in social policy, mainly at the provincial level; and second, a national, representative opinion survey on the views and perceptions of the population regarding social policy and income support programs in particular.