This report summarizes the work of the World Bank’s initiative ‘Wastewater: from Waste to Resource,’ launched in 2018 to raise awareness among decision makers regarding the potential of wastewater as a resource.
... See More + The report highlights the findings and conclusions from three technical background reports and from an in-depth analysis of several case studies. During the design phase of the initiative, seven case studies were analyzed and published in the form of short notes available here. These case studies provide international best practices examples of projects and programs that promote the implementation of one or several circular economy principles (i.e. resource recovery from waste water treatments plants, efficient plant management and cost savings, innovative financing mechanisms, integrated planning principles and additional financing flows from the final resource recovery). For each case study the following aspects were analyzed: i) circular economy and resource recovery model promoted; ii) contract arrangements; iii) financing structure; and iv) enabling factors (i.e. institutional, regulatory and technical aspects). These cases were also selected based on the sustainability of the project (i.e. projects that have been in implementation for at least 3 years with consistent results). Additional case studies are being edited for future publishing. The result of this analysis has informed the conclusions and recommendations of this report.
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This paper reviews the determinants of Latin America's uneven growth based on an accounting decomposition that breaks down countries' growth (relative to the world) into three trade-related channels: (i) an export pull measuring the traction exerted by the country's exports, (ii) an external leverage measuring the impact of the country's use of external resources, and (iii) a domestic response measuring the impact of the country's imports on its domestic income.
... See More + This decomposition brings to light three regional growth dynamics: the first is centered on commodities and South America, the second on manufactures and Mexico, and the third on services and Central America. The evidence points toward the need for a trade-oriented growth agenda that puts a premium on raising exports and making countries more attractive to people, not just capital. The latter in turn adds urgency to healing the region’s social fractures and dealing with its institutional weaknesses.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8871 JUN 03, 2019
This international workshop held in Santiago de Chile on April 9, is the final one of a series of activities which the World Bank has been supporting since 2014 through the Latin American Open Parliamentary Network to strengthen the region’s legislative branches to ensure greater transparency.
... See More + The objective of the workshop, hosted by the Chilean House of Representatives, was to discuss the implementation of Chile’s transparency agenda, including the role played by Parliament in implementing transparency reforms. To this end, the event had special invitees, such as the Comptrollers of Peru and Chile, in addition to the Chilean Attorney General’s Office. The event also had the participation of public sector actors, academia, international organizations and civil society.
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A well-designed internal administrative process for reviewing tax decisions can contribute toeconomic efficiency, competitiveness, and growth by accurately identifying errors in tax administration, lowering compliance costs for taxpayers, and enhancing the credibility and popularlegitimacy of the tax regime.
... See More + This toolkit describes the administrative processes that various jurisdictions in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) use to review tax decisions and analyzes their relative efficiency and effectiveness. The toolkit is designed to provide policymakers, tax officials, donor agencies, and development partners with a framework for improving the business climate by enhancing the quality of the administrative tax-review process, and it offers practical advice for designing and implementing tax-review procedures based on good-practice principles derived from the international experience. While the toolkit focuses on the LAC region, its conclusions and guidelines are directly applicable to countries around the world. After providing an overview of the key concepts of administrative tax review, the toolkit describes the most salient lessons learned from the international experience, examines recent global trends and innovations, and explores the tax-review mechanisms used by 23 countries in the LAC region. This approach reveals how various concepts apply in practice while highlighting priority areas forreform. The toolkit’s detailed account of the most common tax-review issues facing LAC countriesis designed to inform national strategies for improving tax administration. The toolkit also offersan analysis of cutting-edge developments in information and communications technology and theirpotential to strengthen various aspects of administrative tax review. It concludes by underscoringthe key role that an effective communications strategy plays in the successful implementation oftax-administration reforms. The toolkit draws on three main sources of information: (i) the experience gained by the World Bank Group through more than 20 years of engagement in tax policy, (ii) the international literature on tax policies and systems, and (iii) a survey examining tax administration and related issues in 23 LAC countries. The analysis is based primarily on data collected in 2016, and thus it may not fully reflect the latest round of reforms in all countries.
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