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 Doing Business 2020 written by World Bank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2019-11-21 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seventeen in a series of annual reports comparing business regulation in 190 economies, Doing Business 2020 measures aspects of regulation affecting 10 areas of everyday business activity.
Download or read book The World Bank in Turkey 1993 2004 written by Basil Kavalsky and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the objectives set by the World Bank for its operations in Turkey in the period 1993-2004 and the extent to which those objectives were met.
Download or read book Ten Steps to a Results based Monitoring and Evaluation System written by Jody Zall Kusek and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2004-06-15 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An effective state is essential to achieving socio-economic and sustainable development. With the advent of globalization, there are growing pressures on governments and organizations around the world to be more responsive to the demands of internal and external stakeholders for good governance, accountability and transparency, greater development effectiveness, and delivery of tangible results. Governments, parliaments, citizens, the private sector, NGOs, civil society, international organizations and donors are among the stakeholders interested in better performance. As demands for greater accountability and real results have increased, there is an attendant need for enhanced results-based monitoring and evaluation of policies, programs, and projects. This Handbook provides a comprehensive ten-step model that will help guide development practitioners through the process of designing and building a results-based monitoring and evaluation system. These steps begin with a OC Readiness AssessmentOCO and take the practitioner through the design, management, and importantly, the sustainability of such systems. The Handbook describes each step in detail, the tasks needed to complete each one, and the tools available to help along the way."
Download or read book Quality Systems and Standards for a Competitive Edge written by and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2007 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book responds to the challenge of providing a comprehensive account of quality systems for private sector development: what works and what doesnt on the ground, and why. This volume provides a thorough analysis of the diversity of institutions, linkages, and arrangements involved in quality systems, identifying success factors in countries quality strategies. It explains why quality and standards matter for export growth, for productivity, for industrial upgrading, and for diffusion of innovation, all central ingredients in improving economic growth and generating real gains in poverty reduction. It provides a detailed blue print for implementing effective National Quality Systems. Quality and Standards Matter is a valuable tool for policymakers confronted with the challenges of building trade competitiveness in the new global economy.
Download or read book The Growth Report written by Commission on Growth and Development and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2008-07-23 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The result of two years work by 19 experienced policymakers and two Nobel prize-winning economists, 'The Growth Report' is the most complete analysis to date of the ingredients which, if used in the right country-specific recipe, can deliver growth and help lift populations out of poverty.
Download or read book Targeting of Transfers in Developing Countries written by David Coady and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2004 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on a database of more than one hundred anti-poverty interventions in 47 countries, 'Targeting of Transfers in Developing Countries' provides a general review of experiences with methods used to target interventions in transition and developing countries. Written for policymakers and program managers in developing countries, in donor agencies, and in NGOs who have responsibility for designing interventions that reach the poor, it conveys what targeting options are available, what results can be expected as well as information that will assist in choosing among them and in their implementation. Key messages are: - While targeting 'works' - the median program transfers 25 percent more to the poor than would a universal allocation - targeting performance around the world is highly variable. - Means testing, geographic targeting, and self-selection based on a work requirement are the most robustly progressive methods. Proxy means testing, community-based selection of individuals and demographic targeting to children show good results on average, but with considerable variation. - Demographic targeting to the elderly, community bidding, and self-selection based on consumption show limited potential for good targeting. - There is no single preferred method for all types of programs or all country contexts. Successful targeting depends critically on how a method is implemented. The CD-ROM includes the database of interventions, an annotated bibliography (PDF) and Spanish and Russian translations of the book (PDFs).
Download or read book Earthquake Insurance in Turkey written by Eugene Gurenko and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2006 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This publication, Earthquake insurance in Turkey, is an exposition of the dangers faced by Turkey as it is located in one of the most active earthquake (EQ) and volcanic regions in the world on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the efforts that Turkey is making to alleviate the social and fiscal disasters that are caused when these calamities do strike. The persistent potential for large-scale disasters has led to the establishment of the Turkish Catastrophe Insurance Pool (TCIP) in 1999. The main rationale for the creation of TCIP was a very low level of catastrophe insurance penetration among households. The authors stress that the four principal objectives of the program are to (1) provide earthquake insurance coverage at affordable but actuarially sound rates for all registered urban dwellings, (2) limit the government's financial exposure to natural disasters, (3) build long-term catastrophe reserves to finance future earthquake losses, and (4) encourage risk reduction and mitigation practices in residential construction. The book points out that the program has reduced significantly the government's fiscal exposure to EQ risk. In five years, the TCIP transformed itself from an unknown and controversial government-sponsored program to one of the most trusted brand names in the Turkish insurance industry. Moreover, it has led the World Bank to rethink the roles of ex-ante risk management relative to ex-post donor support. In this context, the World Bank supported Turkey's earthquake insurance program to establish and expand national catastrophic risk management and risk transfer capabilities. The authors conclude that the TCIP's success has brought it worldwide recognition. Inspired by the TCIP's example, more than a dozen countries, including China, Colombia, Greece, India, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Italy, the Philippines, Romania, and nine island states of the Caribbean have begun technical and legislative preparation of catastrophe insurance programs.
Download or read book The Road to Results written by Linda G. Morra-Imas and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2009 with total page 611 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'The Road to Results: Designing and Conducting Effective Development Evaluations' presents concepts and procedures for evaluation in a development context. It provides procedures and examples on how to set up a monitoring and evaluation system, how to conduct participatory evaluations and do social mapping, and how to construct a "rigorous" quasi-experimental design to answer an impact question. The text begins with the context of development evaluation and how it arrived where it is today. It then discusses current issues driving development evaluation, such as the Millennium Development Goals and the move from simple project evaluations to the broader understandings of complex evaluations. The topics of implementing 'Results-based Measurement and Evaluation' and constructing a 'Theory of Change' are emphasized throughout the text. Next, the authors take the reader down 'the road to results, ' presenting procedures for evaluating projects, programs, and policies by using a 'Design Matrix' to help map the process. This road includes: determining the overall approach, formulating questions, selecting designs, developing data collection instruments, choosing a sampling strategy, and planning data analysis for qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method evaluations. The book also includes discussions on conducting complex evaluations, how to manage evaluations, how to present results, and ethical behavior--including principles, standards, and guidelines. The final chapter discusses the future of development evaluation. This comprehensive text is an essential tool for those involved in development evaluation.
Download or read book Government Guarantees written by Timothy Irwin and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2007 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book considers when governments should give guarantees to private investors. After describing the history of guarantees, and the challenges the politics and psychology create for good decisions, the book sets out a principles for allocating risk (and therefore guarantees), techniques for valuing guarantees, and rules to encourage good decisions.
Download or read book World Development Report 2004 Overview written by and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inclusive." --Résumé de l'éditeur.
Download or read book Beyond Economic Growth written by Tatyana P. Soubbotina and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book, which draws on data published by the World Bank, is addressed to teachers, students, and all those interested in exploring issues of global development.
Download or read book Women Business and the Law 2021 written by World Bank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2021-04-05 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Women, Business and the Law 2021 is the seventh in a series of annual studies measuring the laws and regulations that affect women’s economic opportunity in 190 economies. The project presents eight indicators structured around women’s interactions with the law as they move through their lives and careers: Mobility, Workplace, Pay, Marriage, Parenthood, Entrepreneurship, Assets, and Pension. This year’s report updates all indicators as of October 1, 2020 and builds evidence of the links between legal gender equality and women’s economic inclusion. By examining the economic decisions women make throughout their working lives, as well as the pace of reform over the past 50 years, Women, Business and the Law 2021 makes an important contribution to research and policy discussions about the state of women’s economic empowerment. Prepared during a global pandemic that threatens progress toward gender equality, this edition also includes important findings on government responses to COVID-19 and pilot research related to childcare and women’s access to justice.
Download or read book Economic Growth in the 1990s written by World Bank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2005 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report was prepared by a team led by Roberto Zagha, under the general direction of Gobind Nankani.
Download or read book Handbook on Poverty Inequality written by Jonathan Haughton and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2009-03-27 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For anyone wanting to learn, in practical terms, how to measure, describe, monitor, evaluate, and analyze poverty, this Handbook is the place to start. It is designed to be accessible to people with a university-level background in science or the social sciences. It is an invaluable tool for policy analysts, researchers, college students, and government officials working on policy issues related to poverty and inequality.
Download or read book Global Economic Prospects June 2021 written by World Bank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2021-08-03 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world economy is experiencing a very strong but uneven recovery, with many emerging market and developing economies facing obstacles to vaccination. The global outlook remains uncertain, with major risks around the path of the pandemic and the possibility of financial stress amid large debt loads. Policy makers face a difficult balancing act as they seek to nurture the recovery while safeguarding price stability and fiscal sustainability. A comprehensive set of policies will be required to promote a strong recovery that mitigates inequality and enhances environmental sustainability, ultimately putting economies on a path of green, resilient, and inclusive development. Prominent among the necessary policies are efforts to lower trade costs so that trade can once again become a robust engine of growth. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Global Economic Prospects. The Global Economic Prospects is a World Bank Group Flagship Report that examines global economic developments and prospects, with a special focus on emerging market and developing economies, on a semiannual basis (in January and June). Each edition includes analytical pieces on topical policy challenges faced by these economies.
Download or read book Making It Big written by Andrea Ciani and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2020-10-08 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economic and social progress requires a diverse ecosystem of firms that play complementary roles. Making It Big: Why Developing Countries Need More Large Firms constitutes one of the most up-to-date assessments of how large firms are created in low- and middle-income countries and their role in development. It argues that large firms advance a range of development objectives in ways that other firms do not: large firms are more likely to innovate, export, and offer training and are more likely to adopt international standards of quality, among other contributions. Their particularities are closely associated with productivity advantages and translate into improved outcomes not only for their owners but also for their workers and for smaller enterprises in their value chains. The challenge for economic development, however, is that production does not reach economic scale in low- and middle-income countries. Why are large firms scarcer in developing countries? Drawing on a rare set of data from public and private sources, as well as proprietary data from the International Finance Corporation and case studies, this book shows that large firms are often born large—or with the attributes of largeness. In other words, what is distinct about them is often in place from day one of their operations. To fill the “missing top†? of the firm-size distribution with additional large firms, governments should support the creation of such firms by opening markets to greater competition. In low-income countries, this objective can be achieved through simple policy reorientation, such as breaking oligopolies, removing unnecessary restrictions to international trade and investment, and establishing strong rules to prevent the abuse of market power. Governments should also strive to ensure that private actors have the skills, technology, intelligence, infrastructure, and finance they need to create large ventures. Additionally, they should actively work to spread the benefits from production at scale across the largest possible number of market participants. This book seeks to bring frontier thinking and evidence on the role and origins of large firms to a wide range of readers, including academics, development practitioners and policy makers.
