The development objective of Financing Innovative Startups and Small and Medium Enterprises Project for Morocco is to facilitate the increase of private equity and quasi-equity finance for innovative startups and small and medium enterprises in the Project Area.
... See More + This project has three components. 1) The first component, Financing Program, will target the following funding categories: angel/seed, early-stage, and VC stage. It has the following subcomponents: (i) Angel/Seed financing(s); and (ii) Early stage/VC fund(s). 2) The second component, Ecosystem Support, will support organizations within the entrepreneurship ecosystem in the project area to stimulate new innovative enterprises. It has the following subcomponents: (i) Pre-seed Grants; (ii) Soft Loans; and (iii) Entrepreneurship Support. 3) The third component, Project Management, Coordination, and Monitoring and Evaluation, will fund the Project Management Unit (PMU) and all of its incremental eligible operational and administrative costs for the management and supervision of the project over the project life (six years).
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Honduras is Central America’s second-largest country with a population of more than 8 million and a land area of about 112,000 square kilometers.
... See More + It has coastlines on both the Caribbean Sea, including the three Bay Islands, and the Pacific Ocean via the Gulf of Fonseca. Its inland territory is largely mountainous, with plains along the coast, and its rain forests, cloud forests, savannas, pine forests and the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System boast a wealth of biodiversity. The country’s two largest cities, Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, are home to almost a quarter of its population, yet approximately half of the population lives in rural areas, where most are engaged in semi-subsistence agriculture. This Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) explores the drivers of these development outcomes in Honduras, and reflects on the policy priorities that should underlie a development strategy focused on eradicating poverty and boosting shared prosperity. After identifying a number of critical factors affecting the country’s development outcomes, the SCD concludes that there is a need for a comprehensive agenda that tackles simultaneously the problems that have kept the country in a low development equilibrium for many decades, as well as emerging challenges that have the potential not only to prevent progress but also worsen the current situation. The SCD also argues that the policy agenda needs to be ambitious and move away from marginal interventions in order to move Honduras from a situation where its economic potentials are just potentials to another where they become actuals.
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Systematic Country Diagnostic 103239 JAN 01, 2017
Hernandez Ore,Marco Antonio; Sousa,Liliana Do Couto; Lopez,J. HumbertoDisclosed
The manufacturing or industrial sector is composed of several individual economic activities, according to the United Nations, International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities, Rev.4, New York, 2008.
... See More + It is to be noted that some countries, especially some developing countries may not conduct all the manufacturing activities and would need the list of activities to be adjusted to the actual conditions of the country affected by a disaster. The manufacturing sector is usually widespread in geographical terms and involves hundreds or thousands of individual manufacturing units of different sizes and types, which make the assessment of disaster impact more complex and time-consuming, and may require conducting more detailed surveys of affected establishments. This paper describes the procedure to assess the effects of a disaster on the manufacturing sector following the traditional methodology originally developed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UN-ECLAC) (Handbook for estimating the socio-economic and environmental impact of disasters, 4 volumes, United Nations, 2003), further developed by the World Bank´s Global Facility for Disaster Recovery and Reduction (GFDRR) (Guidance Notes for Damage, Loss and Needs Assessment, 3 volumes, The World Bank, Washington, D.C., 2010), and now expanded and adopted by the Post-Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA). Application of the methodology enables the assessment of disasters’ economic and social impacts on the manufacturing sector, and the estimation of post-disaster needs for recovery and reconstruction.
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The development objective of the Anhui Xuancheng Infrastructure for Industry Relocation Project for China is to contribute to the economic, social, and environmental sustainability of the project area in the Xuancheng economic and technological development zone.
... See More + Some of the negative impacts and mitigation measures include: (1) compensation fee for land attachments and green crops will be owned by the owner, and the compensation is directly granted to the owner; (2) in the process of relocation, designate personnel, and provide assistance where necessary to help with the relocation work; (3) provide free employment training to members in vulnerable families who have the will and ability to work, and they will preferentially be recommended to the industrial park for employment; (4) enterprises and units relocated in this project will be rebuilt in a nearby place. The placement will be well done in planning and linking, so as to minimize the loss due to suspended production; and (5) during project construction, job priority will be given to the affected vulnerable families in order to increase their income.
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The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) is an international standard to promote open and accountable management of natural resources.
... See More + By encouraging governments, extractive companies, civil society and the public to engage in discourse around transparency of the extractive sector, it aims to facilitate the management of a country’s natural resource wealth to benefit all its citizens. The objective of this report is to present, in a structured form, data categories and their reporting formats, that can be used to standardize information generated under each EITI Requirement. The review conducted for this study included a sample of recent EITI Country Reports, as well as other initiatives and industry standards. ‘Good’ refers to reporting standards that meet the minimum data to be provided under each EITI Requirement. ‘Better’ typically refers to reporting standards that are enhancements of data covered under the good category. ‘Best’ refers to standard formats for reporting data that represent the highest international benchmarks and are considered to provide comprehensive information, beyond the minimum data requirements. The research team recommends a step by step approach to this, starting with a specific set of Requirements, across a number of countries. This would allow the EITI International Secretariat to develop a set of comparable statistics for various reporting entities, as well as start constructing guidelines for EITI implementers.
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Ratings for Enhancing Access to Finance for Micro and Small Enterprises Project for Egypt, Arab Republic were as follows: outcomes were moderately satisfactory, risk to global environment outcome was moderate, Bank's performance was moderately satisfactory, and Borrower performance was moderately satisfactory.
... See More + Some of the lessons learned included: (i) responsiveness to changing market conditions reduces implementation delays; (ii) project design requires strong implementation arrangements ahead of project effectiveness; (iii) possible trade-off between diversification of provider types and implementation efficiency; (iv) liquidity is not always the binding constraint for financial service providers to engage in Micro and Small Enterprise (MSE) lending in Egypt; (v) investments needed to promote postal financial inclusion; (vi) strong Monitoring and Evaluation (M and E) design and effective arrangements are necessary for rigorous assessment of outcomes; (vii) alignment with business practices increases the project’s attractiveness; (viii) linkages between the World Bank Group financing, advisory, and analytical work; and (viii) implementation support missions and midterm reviews provide opportunities for strengthening the project.
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Implementation Completion and Results Report ICR3851 JUN 30, 2016
Which region will become the next global factory? As the work force ages and labor costs rise in China and other East Asian countries, many eyes turn to South Asia.
... See More + It is a region that is still largely rural, where agriculture accounts for a large share of employment and a substantial fraction of GDP, and it has not been particularly successful in integrating within itself and with the rest of the world. Yet, education levels are on the rise, and more than one million young workers enter the labor market each year, by 2030, 26 percent of the world’s working adults will live in South Asia. This is the region’s greatest opportunity and greatest challenge. What will determine South Asia’s ability to take advantage of the demographic transition to unlock its potential and accelerate growth, create jobs, reduce poverty, and boost shared prosperity? One of the answers lies in improving the region’s competitiveness. While different authors have proposed different definitions for the concept, this report chooses a simple approach by defining competitiveness as productivity (a la Porter, 1990). Despite relatively rapid economic growth, the contribution of total factor productivity (TFP) to the region’s growth has been low and factors subject to diminishing returns, quantity rather than quality of labor and non-ICT capital, have been the main drivers of growth. This calls for greater focus on improving productivity.
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Working Paper ACS8954 JUN 29, 2016
Lopez-Acevedo,Gladys C.; Medvedev,Denis; Palmade,Vincent; Varela,Gonzalo J.; Martuscelli,Antonio; Lage De Sousa,Filipe; Kokas,Deeksha; Ferrantino,Michael Joseph; Nayyar,Gaurav; Cirera,Xavier; Cusolito,Ana Paula; Van Der Mensbrugghe,Dominique; Shaw, Bill; Saraf,PriyamDisclosed
The objective of Implementation of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative Project in Colombia is to strengthen transparency along the value chain of the extractive sector by making available accurate, timely and socially relevant information, which can be used to enhance good governance of the sector, thereby contributing to sustainable development at the national and local levels.
... See More + The objective of this grant is to support the development, implementation and institutionalization of the Extractive Industry Transparency initiative (EITI) in the country and enable Colombia to become EITI compliant. This restructuring paper proposes to further extend the Grant’s closing date by five and a half months, until December 15, 2016.
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The objective of Implementation of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative Project in Colombia is to strengthen transparency along the value chain of the extractive sector by making available accurate, timely and socially relevant information, which can be used to enhance good governance of the sector, thereby contributing to sustainable development at the national and local levels.
... See More + The additional financing will finance the following areas: (i) establishing an effective system for the collection of data consistent with the EITI Standard to facilitate the preparation of the EITI Report; (ii) dissemination of the information produced at the national and regional levels and promoting public dialogue around relevant extractive industry issues; (iii) mainstreaming the principles of transparency and accountability to the broader agenda of promoting governance along the value chain of the extractive industries; and (iv) guarantee the organization, operation and functioning of the Colombia-EITI governance structure to implement the action plan and the initiative Colombia EITI. The project will be implemented in two consecutive phases: (i) the first phase includes activities leading to the preparation of the first EITI Report for the year 2013 to be presented by December 31, 2015. This phase will be financed from Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative Multi-Donor Trust Fund (EITIMDTF)in the amount of 500,000 US dollars; and (ii) the second phase will be implemented from January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2017 and will continue to support capacity building, communication and outreach activities to increase awareness on EITI and the results of the first report, as well as finance the recruitment of the Independent Administrator to prepare the second EITI Report covering the year 2014 and due by December 31, 2016 and preparatory activities for the third EITI Report. Activities in this phase are expected to be financed by the Extractives Global Programmatic Support Multi-Donor Trust Fund (EGPS MDTF) in the amount of 500,000 US dollars.
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With support from the World Bank Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises Technical Assistance Facility for MENA Trust Fund (MSME TF), the Connecting Voices of Middle East and North Africa (CV MENA) Initiative advanced interventions to increase awareness and provide technical assistance to strengthen the accounting and auditing legal or regulatory, institutional, and professional capacity to enable the development of Small and Medium [accounting] Practices (SMPs) and the MSME sector.
... See More + MSMEs consistently cite access to finance as a primary obstacle to growth, and empirical evidence shows that small firms face more financial constraints and are more affected by these constraints than large entities. Sound, reliable financial information is critical to expanding access to credit and promoting investment and growth in the MSME sector. Given the majority presence of MSMEs and the link between financing and growth, it is important to ensure an adequate lending infrastructure to support MSMEs. Weak accounting standards and practices, as well as low capacity to comply with relevant requirements, can restrict significantly MSME access to credit. Banks and non-banks rely primarily on collateral-based lending. They cite MSME transparency (lack of reliable or available information) as the primary reason for high loan to value collateral requirements for SMEs, followed by SMEs being perceived as less stable and with less competent management than larger corporate firms. High quality financial information is not only important for facilitating MSME access to finance, but for MSMEs in managing their internal finances, making decisions regarding their allocation of internal resources, and overall business and financial planning. The socio-political and economic issues facing the countries in the region present a formidable backdrop against which all CFR work needs to be considered if reforms are to be consistently implemented and sustainable
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Some of the headings included in this issue of the Development Economics Prospects Group (DECPG) weekly global economic newsletter are as follows: Eurozone Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth was confirmed at 0.3 percent in Third Quarter (Q3); Russia remained in recession in Q3; Brazil’s consumer price inflation climbed to a twelve-year high; Turkey’s GDP rose more than expected in Q3; Mozambique announced foreign exchange controls; The nuclear agreement with Iran places limitations on Iran’s nuclear program and lifts nuclear-related sanctions by the United Nations Security Council, the European Union, and the United States; Upon the lifting of sanctions, Iran could almost immediately start exporting its forty million barrels of oil in floating storage; Over the long term, Iran also has the potential to produce and export significant volumes of natural gas.
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The development objective of Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) Validation and Data Support Project for World is to improve the effectiveness, relevance and sustainability of the EITI by supporting the International Secretariat's work on data accessibility, EITI mainstreaming and Implementing Country validation.
... See More + This project has four components. 1) The first component, Supporting the establishment of an EITI data portal hosted and managed by the EITI International Secretariat, aims to develop the EITI Data Portal (EDP) website where users from around the world will be able to understand how governments manage natural resources, access open data as collected by the EITI in implementing countries, and follow the value of the natural resources from the ground all the way into the state coffers. 2) The second component, Support to the EITI Mainstreaming Agenda, including a series of pilots in a range of implementing countries, aims to assess how the timeliness and accessibility of data can be improved through this mainstreamed approach to disclosing the information without compromising data reliability or comprehensiveness. 3) The third component, Supporting the Implementing Country validations, aims to provide the funding necessary to enable the International Secretariat to procure the services of appropriately qualified consultants to undertake the validations that are currently due. 4) The fourth component, Supporting the EITI Global Conference, will fund all or part of the following aspects: (a) participants from implementing countries; (b) EITI National Expo as part of the Global Conference; and (c) simultaneous interpretation of sessions in key EITI languages to enable participants from different regions to fully participate in the conference.
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The objective of the Energy Efficiency for Industrial Enterprises Project for Vietnam is to improve energy efficiency in the industrial sector and contribute to achieving the government’s energy efficiency and GHG reduction objectives.
... See More + Some of the negative impacts and mitigation measures include: food security in the new settlement is ensured at a minimum to the degree of the previous settlement; the relocation sites will have access to facilities and services at least of the same level, if not better, to the land lost; information on relocation to affected ethnic minorities is provided using the communication guidelines recommended in the following section; relocation of affected communities would be completed before construction work starts; if directly affected by a project, ethnic minorities are entitled to compensation for all lost land and affected assets, incomes and businesses at replacement costs and provided with rehabilitation measures sufficient to assist them to improve or at least maintain their pre-project living standards, incomes and productive capacity; and lack of legal rights to assets and access lost or adversely affected will not bar them from entitlement to such compensation and rehabilitation measures.
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Some of the headings included in this issue of the Development Economics Prospects Group (DECPG) weekly global economic newsletter are as follows: United States (U.S.)
... See More + Industrial Production (IP) contracted unexpectedly; consumer prices inched up in October; Eurozone Inflation turned positive in October; Japan entered recession in Third Quater (Q3); Brazil’s inflation exceeded 10 percent in November; Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased moderately in Q3. Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)’s economic ties with China have expanded greatly over the past decade; Sub-Saharan Africa is the largest recipient of Chinese development financing; Stronger institutions and better policies will help SSA benefit more fully from opportunities presented by China.
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Some of the headings included in this issue of the Development Economics Prospects Group (DECPG) weekly global economic newsletter are as follows: United States (U.S.) job growth exceeded expectations in November; European Central Bank (ECB) unveiled new stimulus measures; India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth accelerated in Third Quarter (Q3); Brazil’s GDP contracted more than expected in Q3; Kenya’s inflation rate at 15-month high in November, Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI edged up; Demand from China, and, to a significantly lesser extent, India, tilted global commodity consumption towards coal and metals during 2000 - 2014; The diverging contributions of China and India to global commodity consumption during the 2000s reflect different income elasticities and, for metals specifically, different growth engines in China and India; Going forward, China and India’s role in global commodity consumption will be shaped by how quickly they catch up with advanced country per capita consumption levels and their rates of economic and population growth.
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Maldives is an island nation scattered in the Indian Ocean comprising 1,190 small coral islands of which 190 are inhabited by a local population of 341,000.
... See More + Maldives’ unique archipelagic coral island provides the country with an extremely rich and diverse marine ecological system. With more territorial sea than land, marine resources have played a vital role shaping the contours of economic development, with nature-based tourism being the key driver of economic growth and fisheries an important sector of employment for the local population. Maldives developed a successful high-end tourism sector, whose sizable rents have been redistributed to the population to address its development challenges. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita increased from $275 in 1980 to $6,666 in 2013. This growth rate, which averaged 7 percent between 2002 and 2013, is mainly driven by tourism and non-tradable tourism related activities. This impressive track record of economic growth has been supported by capital accumulation through investment in resorts, and by an increase in the labor force mainly benefiting foreign workers. Fiscal revenues generated in the tourism sector have been used to address some of the structural development challenges of Maldives’ economy. This systematic country diagnostic for Maldives aims at identifying the most critical constraints and opportunities facing the country as it works towards promoting sustainable growth, reducing poverty and boosting shared prosperity. In addition to serving as a public good for the government, civil society, research and academic community, and local and international development partners, the findings of the SCD will be used as key inputs in the preparation of the WBG strategy, the country partnership framework, which will outline how the Bank Group’s engagement in Maldives can best contribute towards achieving the twin goals.
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The relation between industrialization and economic growth is a subject of continuing controversy. Historically, the rise in the share of manufacturing in output and employment as per capita income increases, and the corresponding decline of agriculture, are among the best documented generalizations about development.
... See More + But how does this transformation of the structure of production affect the rate of growth and the distribution of its benefits? And what has been the effect of policies designed to accelerate this shift or to alter its composition? These and related questions are still in dispute. This book attempts to clarify the role of industrialization in development by conducting a series of comparative studies of semi-industrial economies. The studies address three main topics: industrialization as a stage in the overall transformation that constitutes modern economic growth; the similarities and differences in the experiences of nine industrializing economies; and the relation between rising productivity and structural change. This chapter traces the background of the principal issues to be considered; summarizes the studies' main findings; and gives the reader a guide to the countries chosen, the topics discussed, and the analytical techniques employed.
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This report discusses the remarks delivered by Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank. He discusses on Ethiopia’s commitment to climate action, the role of industrialization in delivering development, and bringing together low-carbon and equitable growth.
... See More + He speaks about the government’s promotion of low-carbon growth, poverty reduction, and climate resilience to tackle the impact of climate changes. He talks about the crucial component of Ethiopia’s drive for growth and transformation will be the development of a vibrant manufacturing and industrial base, which creates jobs for growing urban areas. He assures working with the government to ensure that new industrial parks make use of recycled water and renewable resources, develop green areas, and reflect upgraded environmental standards and inspection systems.
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