Download or read book Belarus Heat Tariff Reform and Social Impact Mitigation written by Fan Zhang and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 91 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Government of the Republic of Belarus (GoB) plans to increase district heating tariffs to cost-recovery levels and gradually phase out subsidies, replacing them with social assistance programs. Residential DH tariffs in Belarus are currently at roughly 10†“21 percent of cost-recovery levels. DH subsidies are highly regressive, add costs to business, and create significant fiscal risks and macroeconomic vulnerabilities. The study analyzes the social, sectoral, and fiscal impacts of the proposed tariff reform, and identifies and recommends measures to mitigate adverse impacts of district heating tariff increases on the households. The analysis shows that a negative social impact is manageable if a tariff increase is accompanied by countervailing measures to compensate for the loss of purchasing power, in particular of the poor, through targeted social assistance and energy efficiency programs. The reform is more likely to be successful if communication campaigns to address consumer concerns are carried out before significant price increases, and consumer engagement and monitoring systems are established. When tariff reform and mitigation measures are properly sequenced and coordinated, the reform will become more socially acceptable, consumers will benefit from better quality of services, the government will achieve positive fiscal savings, and the DH sector will become sustainable in the long term. The study analyzes the social, sectoral, and fiscal impacts of the proposed district heating tariff reform in Belarus, and identifies and recommends measures to mitigate adverse impacts of district heating tariff increases on the households.

Download or read book Heat Tariff Reform and Social Impact Mitigation written by and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Heat Tariff Reform and Social Impact Mitigation written by Weltbank and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Government of the Republic of Belarus (GoB) plans to increase district heating (DH) tariffs to cost-recovery levels and gradually phase out subsidies, replacing them with social assistance programs. Residential DH tariffs in Belarus are currently at roughly 10-21 percent of cost-recovery levels. DH subsidies are highly regressive, add costs to business, and create significant fiscal risks and macroeconomic vulnerabilities. The purpose of this report is to analyze the social, sectoral, and fiscal impacts of the proposed tariff reform, and to identify and recommend measures to mitigate adverse impacts of DH tariff increases on the households. The analysis shows that: 1) the burden of higher DH tariffs will fall most heavily on low-income groups; 2) the current system of subsidies is unfair, benefitting wealthy customers more than the poor; 3) cross-subsidies undermine the competitiveness of industries in Belarus; and underpriced residential heat places an increasing fiscal burden on the GoB and risks macroeconomic instability. The analysis shows that a negative social impact is manageable if a tariff increase is accompanied by countervailing measures to compensate for the loss of purchasing power, in particular of the poor, through targeted social assistance and energy efficiency programs. The rest of the report is organized as follows: Section 1 describes the GoB's plans for the sector. Section 2 analyzes the principal challenges in the sector that necessitate tariff reform. Section 3 discusses tariff reform options and the likely impact of pursuing each of these options. Section 4 concludes by recommending a reform action package that includes customer communication and engagement, social protection measures and investments in energy efficiency. The appendices contain material supporting the analysis in each section.

Download or read book Green Finance and Investment Inventory of Energy Subsidies in the EU s Eastern Partnership Countries written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2018-06-04 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This publication aims to provide the first comprehensive and consistent record of energy subsidies in the EaP region, with a view to improving transparency and establishing a solid analytical basis that can help build the case for further reforms in these countries.

Download or read book Adapting to Higher Energy Costs written by Rebosio Calderon, Michelle P.; Georgieva, Sophia V.; Romanova, Ekaterina and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report presents a summary of findings from 208 focus group discussions (FGDs) held across eight countries (Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Kyrgyz Republic, Romania, Tajikistan, and Turkey) in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ECA) between 2013 and 2014. This report complements a large body of research on the poverty impacts of the energy sector reforms as well as quantitative data previously collected. Specifically, it gives voice to poor and middle-income citizens, and presents their perspectives and concerns with regard to rising tariffs and reforms in the energy sector overall. The report argues that by gaining a deeper understanding of the narratives that people attach to energy issues, governments can design better mitigation policies to address the reforms’ adverse impacts; better communication campaigns to convey the rationale of reforms to the public; and institute stronger accountability measures to help citizens protect their rights as consumers.

Download or read book Environmental Performance Reviews written by United Nations. Economic Commission for Europe and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This series assists countries to improve their environmental policies by making concrete recommendations for better policy design and implementation. It helps integrate environmental policies into sector-specific policies such as those in agriculture, energy, transport and health. The present publication contains the third Environmental Performance Review of Belarus. It takes stock of progress made by Belarus in the management of its environment since the country was reviewed for the second time in 2005. It assesses the implementation of the recommendations made in the second review. It also covers issues of specific importance to the country related to legal and policy frameworks, the financing of environmental policies, greening the economy, and integrating environmental concerns into selected sectors, in particular air protection, water management, waste management, biodiversity, forests and protected areas, energy, agriculture, transport, forestry, tourism, environmental education and education for sustainable development, human settlements and health

Download or read book Republic of Belarus written by International Monetary Fund. European Dept. and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2017-12-18 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 2017 Article IV Consultation highlights that the Belarusian economy is recovering after two years of recession, helped by better policies, a more favorable external environment, and stronger domestic demand conditions. In 2017Q3, the economy grew by 1.7 percent year-on-year, amid household consumption boosted by strong wage growth and recovering investment. The current account deficit has narrowed, reflecting growth in services exports, as well as recession and real exchange rate adjustment in 2015–16. Medium-term growth is expected to be about 2 percent, limited by negative demographics, weak credit conditions, and lagging competitiveness under the state-centric economic model.

Download or read book Toward gender informed energy subsidy reforms written by Rebosio Calderon; Michelle P.; Georgieva, Sophia V. and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report is a companion piece to the summary report “Adapting to Higher Energy Costs: Findings from Qualitative Studies in Europe and Central Asia”, which looks at poverty and social impact of energy subsidy reforms. In particular, this report examines whether energy subsidy reforms in ECA region impact men and women differently, and what it means for energy subsidy reforms to be more gender sensitive. Prior global studies on gender and energy suggest that men and women have different priorities when it comes to energy use; that the reforms may have unequal effects on their well-being; that they face different challenges in interacting with energy providers or social assistance institutions; and may have different views on and knowledge of policy reforms. Qualitative findings of this research indicate that gender-related vulnerabilities in energy reforms occur for the following reasons: the relative economic vulnerability of women and female headed-households; intra-household roles related to energy use, and to procurement of energy sources and appliances; impacts of household coping strategies on the well-being of both women and men; and behavioral differences in how women and men interact with relevant institutions, such as energy providers and social assistance offices.

Download or read book Energy Subsidy Reform written by Mr.Benedict J. Clements and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2013-09-13 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Energy subsidies are aimed at protecting consumers, however, subsidies aggravate fiscal imbalances, crowd out priority public spending, and depress private investment, including in the energy sector. This book provides the most comprehensive estimates of energy subsidies currently available for 176 countries and an analysis of “how to do” energy subsidy reform, drawing on insights from 22 country case studies undertaken by the IMF staff and analyses carried out by other institutions.

Download or read book Balancing Act written by Caterina Ruggeri Laderchi and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2013-01-15 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Policy makers in ECA are facing a balancing act between the competing claims of fiscal and environmental concerns on the one hand, and affordability and political economy concerns on the other. However, the needed reforms can be built on the improvements in social assistance and energy efficiency initiated in the last decade.

Download or read book Taxation Innovation and the Environment written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2010-10-13 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report draws on case studies to explore the relationship between environmentally-related taxation and innovation to see whether taxation can spur innovation and if so, what types.

Download or read book Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists written by and published by . This book was released on 1994-01 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is the premier public resource on scientific and technological developments that impact global security. Founded by Manhattan Project Scientists, the Bulletin's iconic "Doomsday Clock" stimulates solutions for a safer world.

Download or read book The Poverty and Distributional Impacts of Carbon Pricing Channels and Policy Implications written by Baoping Shang and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2021-06-25 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Addressing the poverty and distributional impacts of carbon pricing reforms is critical for the success of ambitious actions in the fight against climate change. This paper uses a simple framework to systematically review the channels through which carbon pricing can potentially affect poverty and inequality. It finds that the channels differ in important ways along several dimensions. The paper also identifies several key gaps in the current literature and discusses some considerations on how policy designs could take into account the attributes of the channels in mitigating the impacts of carbon pricing reforms on households.

Download or read book Macroeconomic and Financial Policies for Climate Change Mitigation A Review of the Literature written by Signe Krogstrup and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2019-09-04 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of this century. Mitigation requires a large-scale transition to a low-carbon economy. This paper provides an overview of the rapidly growing literature on the role of macroeconomic and financial policy tools in enabling this transition. The literature provides a menu of policy tools for mitigation. A key conclusion is that fiscal tools are first in line and central, but can and may need to be complemented by financial and monetary policy instruments. Some tools and policies raise unanswered questions about policy tool assignment and mandates, which we describe. The literature is scarce, however, on the most effective policy mix and the role of mitigation tools and goals in the overall policy framework.

Download or read book Reforming Infrastructure written by Ioannis Nicolaos Kessides and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2004 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Electricity, natural gas, telecommunications, railways, and water supply, are often vertically and horizontally integrated state monopolies. This results in weak services, especially in developing and transition economies, and for poor people. Common problems include low productivity, high costs, bad quality, insufficient revenue, and investment shortfalls. Many countries over the past two decades have restructured, privatized and regulated their infrastructure. This report identifies the challenges involved in this massive policy redirection. It also assesses the outcomes of these changes, as well as their distributional consequences for poor households and other disadvantaged groups. It recommends directions for future reforms and research to improve infrastructure performance, identifying pricing policies that strike a balance between economic efficiency and social equity, suggesting rules governing access to bottleneck infrastructure facilities, and proposing ways to increase poor people's access to these crucial services.

Download or read book Global Trends 2040 written by National Intelligence Council and published by Cosimo Reports. This book was released on 2021-03 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.

Download or read book The Regional Impacts of Climate Change written by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Working Group II. and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cambridge, UK : Cambridge University Press, 1998.