Armenia is a small open economy of $3,937 GDP per capita (2017), a 3 million population and a parliamentary democracy with sound macro-fiscal and financial sector management.
... See More + Macro-financial vulnerabilities include high public debt, low FDI and high exposure to shocks coming from the Russian economy, through FDI, remittances and trade, and high dollarization. Social challenges include a declining and aging population, low formal employment, spatial disparities in living standards and skills mismatches. Other challenges are public and economic governance gaps such as justice reform and corruption, lack of competition and low productivity in both public and corporate sectors. Lack of connectivity illustrated by a low export growth and undiversified trade is a key constraint. Opportunities include a reform-minded government freshly appointed after a 2018 peaceful revolution, an appetite for ICT technological advances and a dynamic diaspora. Armenia can benefit from being a multi-club member, benefiting from Eurasian Economic Union membership and close links to the EU. Greater economic opportunities are key to poverty reduction and shared prosperity as highlighted by the increasing role of employment and wages as drivers of poverty reduction. In line with the above challenges and priorities, pipeline activities support: greater resilience, governance and competition, through a Development Policy Operation, to be delivered in 2019.
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This report provides an assessment of the current state of development of financial safety nets and bank resolution frameworks in eight countries in southern Africa (Botswana, Eswatini [formerly Swaziland], Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe).
... See More + It has been prepared to inform ongoing and planned technical assistance projects in the southern Africa region and to provide a basis for engagement with the authorities in each of the countries covered by the study. This summary draws from more detailed material contained in a comprehensive study.
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This report provides an assessment of the current state of development of financial safety nets and bank resolution frameworks in eight countries in southern Africa (Botswana, Eswatini [formerly Swaziland], Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe).
... See More + It has been prepared to inform ongoing and planned technical assistance projects in the southern Africa region and to provide a basis for engagement with the authorities in each of the countries covered by the study. This summary draws from more detailed material contained in a comprehensive study.
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The Financial Sector Advisory Center (FinSAC), in operation since 2011, is part of the World Bank's regional Europe and Central Asia (ECA) unit of the Finance, Competitiveness, and Innovation (FCI) Global Practice.
... See More + FinSAC supports client countries in the ECA region to build more resilient and more stable financial sectors. A dedicated Vienna-based technical unit of the World Bank, FinSAC delivers implementation-oriented technical advice to client countries with funding fromAustria’s Federal Ministry of Finance. It assists countries in the region in dealing with some of the legacy issues of the global financial crisis, including the resolution of non-performing loans (NPL) and fragmented crisis management frameworks, and in implementing new international and regional regulatory and supervisory initiatives. These activities have a special relevance for the ECA region, which despite recent improvements stands out as the World Bank region worst affected by the financial crisis. FinSAC's work is organized around three thematic pillars: pillar 1 - macroprudential supervision and crisis management, pillar 2 - microprudential oversight and NPL management, and pillar 3 - bank resolution. Bilateral technical assistance engagements with counterparts in eligible countries are the cornerstone of FinSAC's activities, but it also organizes technical workshops, conferences, and seminars and undertakes research projects. A distinguishing feature is the availability of in-house technical experts who take the lead in delivering FinSAC's work program. The FinSAC team bring applicable knowledge and hands-on experience of the stability themes that they cover. Their skills are critical to FinSAC's capacity to provide policy advice that is appropriately tailored to client countries' needs. Their proximity to beneficiaries of FinSAC support allows for frequent short and cost-effective missions, giving central banks and regulators in client countries easy access to technical expertise.
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Georgia is a lower-middle income small open economy and parliamentary democracy with a population of 3.7 million. Its tourism and services sector-led GDP is equal to per capita of $4,047 (2017), a solid increase from $750 in 2000.
... See More + Poverty stood at 10.9 percent in 20172. Georgia is vulnerable to geopolitical risks because of tense relations with Russia. This scope note has 3 brief sections. Section 1 lists context, challenges and opportunities. Section 2 briefs about current engagement. Section 3 outlines pipeline and future engagement opportunities. It concludes with completion timelines.
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The objective of the Financial Inclusion and Stability Project for Mozambique is to increase financial inclusion among underserved groups and MSMEs, while strengthening the overall financial safety net.
... See More + There are three components to the project, the first component being increasing usage of transaction accounts and access to finance for MSMEs. The objective of this component is to support increased usage of transaction accounts (bank or mobile money accounts) in remote and underserved areas. This component includes three subcomponents: digitization of government payments, promoting financial education and awareness, and enabling environment for access to credit for MSMEs. The second component is the strengthening financial safety net. The objective of this component is to increase the capacity of the deposit insurance scheme to protect individual small depositors and contribute to overall financial stability. This component includes two subcomponents: deposit insurance capitalization and upgrading supervisory technology and deepening capital markets. Finally, the third component is the project management, monitoring and evaluation. Drawing from the experience of the FSTAP, the project will establish a dedicated PIU within the Ministry of Economy and Finance comprised of individuals that can work full time on the project’s implementation. This will entail a project coordinator, a procurement officer, a financial management officer, and a monitoring and evaluation officer. To ensure proper coordination and supervision, a Project Steering Committee (PSC) will be established, composed of the principle stakeholders. The PSC will be chaired by MEF and comprised of representatives of BOM, DGF, Ministry of Industry and Commerce, Ministry of Education, INAS, and ISSM. Section four expands on implementation arrangements.
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The development objective of the Financial Sector Support Project (FSSP) for Kenya is to strengthen the legal, regulatory, and institutional environment for improved financial stability, access to, and provision of, affordable and long-term financing.
... See More + The restructuring reflects changes in the financial sector priorities and the authorities’ strategy for the use of FSSP funds and revisions to the results framework to better align project indicators and targets with the project development objective (PDO).
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Ratings for the Financial Sector Modernization and Information Management System Project for Vietnam were as follows: outcome and Bank performance was moderately satisfactory, and monitoring and evaluation (M and E) quality was modest.
... See More + Some lessons learned included: the strong client ownership and capacity, and the World Bank’s strong supervision support are crucial for complex information technology (IT) - based projects. The project design must be based on solid analysis of institutional, operational, and technological needs and feasible options. It is important to remain flexible in the rapidly changing IT environment. This project has demonstrated that complex IT projects may take longer than expected time to complete since they require significant consensus-building among stakeholders before the finalization of the IT-systems design. A good communication on the project benefits throughout the project implementation is essential, as is the appropriate support to the end-users once the systems go live.
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