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 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 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 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 Turmoil at Twenty written by Pradeep K. Mitra and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2009-10-30 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, among all emerging- and developing-economy regions, have been hardest hit by the global economic crisis of 2008-09. This is partly due to the region s deep integration into the global economy across many dimensions trade, financial, and labor flows. Attempts by countries that came later to the transition to catch up rapidly to Western European living standards at a time when global liquidity was unusually abundant, together with some policy weaknesses, made them vulnerable to reversals in market sentiment. Written on the eve of the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, 'Turmoil at Twenty' analyzes the run-up to the current crisis and addresses a number of key questions related to vulnerability to the recession, expected recovery, and necessary reforms in the region: Did the transition from command to market economies, and the period during which this took place, plant the seeds of vulnerability that made transition countries more prone to crisis than other developing countries? Did the choices made on the road from plan to market shape the ability of crisis-hit countries to recover? What combination of domestic policy reform and international collective action is needed to bring about a recovery and minimize the humanitarian cost of the crisis? What structural reforms are needed today to address the most binding constraints on growth in a world where capital fl ows to transition and developing countries are expected to be considerably lower than before the crisis? 'Turmoil at Twenty' will be of interest to policy makers and their advisers, researchers, and students of economics who seek lessons from the current economic crisis, as well as scholars of the transition.

Download or read book Ukraine written by International Monetary Fund. European Dept. and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2014-06-11 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper discusses Ukraine’s Ex Post Evaluation of Exceptional Access Under the 2010 Stand-By Arrangement. For the most part, the 2010 program was appropriately designed given the ambitious agenda it had set out to accomplish. The macroeconomic strategy and program design correctly addressed the most important vulnerabilities—Ukraine’s large fiscal and quasi-fiscal deficits, its lack of resilience to external shocks, and lingering weaknesses in the financial sector. Although the program’s long duration was appropriate given its focus on medium-term issues, hindsight would suggest that a shorter program would have been preferable given the country’s past program performance.

Download or read book Foreign Operations Export Financing and Related Programs Appropriations for 2002 written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Appropriations. Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 1680 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Energy Poverty written by Stefan Bouzarovski and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-12-22 with total page 125 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book aims to consolidate and advance debates on European and global energy poverty by exploring the political and infrastructural drivers and implications of the condition across a variety of spatial scales. It highlights the need for a geographical conceptualization of the different ways in which household-level energy deprivation both influences and is contingent upon disparities occurring at a wider range of spatial scales. There is a strong focus on the relationships among energy transformation, institutional change and place-based factors in determining the nature and location of energy-related injustices. The book also explores how patterns and structures of energy poverty have changed over time, as evidenced by some of the common measures used to describe the condition. In part, this means investigating the makeup of energy poor demographics across various social and spatial cleavages. More broadly, it also argues that energy sector reconfigurations are both reflected in and shaped by various domains of social and political organization, especially in terms of creating poverty-relevant outcomes.

Download or read book Lights Out written by World Bank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2010-03-29 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emerging Europe and Central Asia, the region made up of the countries of Central and South East Europe (CSE) and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), is a major energy supplier to both Eastern and Western Europe. However, the outlook for both primary and derivative energy supplies is questionable, with a real prospect that there will be a significant decline during the next two decades. Western Europe is heavily dependent on energy imports from this region and therefore will be affected by declines in primary energy supplies. But Western Europe has the financial capacity to secure the energy supplies it needs (albeit at the expense of others). In contrast, the region s energy-importing countries are caught between Western Europe, which has increasing import needs, and it s own exporters, whose exports will likely decline. These countries face the prospect of being squeezed not only financially but also in terms of energy access. This difficult prospect is compounded by the deterioration of the energy infrastructure, including power generation and district heating. Although the public sector will have to finance a portion of these infrastructure investments, it will not have the capacity to meet the full needs. It is essential, therefore, that the countries in the region move quickly to put in place an enabling environment to support investment in the sector. Further complicating these issues are environmental concerns, in particular concern about climate change. EU member states and those with EU ambitions will need to meet the challenging EU greenhouse gas emissions targets. At the same time, a number of countries in the region will face the temptation to use environmentally unfriendly technology to meet their immediate energy needs. 'Lights Out?' analyzes key measures that can help countries address all of these challenges.

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 Green Finance and Investment Energy Subsidy Reform in the Republic of Moldova Energy Affordability Fiscal and Environmental Impacts written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report looks at the fiscal, environmental and social impacts of energy subsidy reform in Moldova with a particular focus on energy affordability.

Download or read book Kyrgyz Republic Joint Economic Assessment Report for the Kyrgyz Republic Donor Conference Bishkek July 27 2010 written by International Monetary Fund. Strategy, Policy, & Review Department and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2010-08-23 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the time of the 2005 review of the Fund’s transparency policy, it was agreed that information on key trends in implementation of the transparency policy would be circulated to the Board regularly, along with lists indicating the publication status of reports discussed by the Board. The set of tables provided in this report updates the last Key Trends2 with information on documents published through December 2009.

Download or read book Implementing Energy Subsidy Reforms written by Maria Vagliasindi and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2012-11-01 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Poorly implemented energy subsidies are economically costly to taxpayers and damage the environment. This book aims to provide lessons from a sample of twenty case studies to help policymakers address implementation challenges and overcome political economy and affordability constraints.

Download or read book People and Power written by Julian A. Lampietti and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2007 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Empirical insights on household behavior and electricity consumption patterns in this book reveal that, in Europe and Central Asia, the erosion of tariff based subsidies has disproportionately affected the poor, while direct transfers through social benefit systems have often been inadequately targeted. The book suggests alternative strategies for achieving cost-recovery in the electricity sector in a socially and politically acceptable manner, providing lessons that are equally relevant for other utilities and regions.