This paper shows new empirical regularities indicating that the structure of trade connections affects the trade-growth nexus. System generalized method of moments estimations indicate that key structural features associated with the composition of traded products and partners matter for growth.
... See More + The results show that increases in the degree of intra-industry trade, greater insertion into the middle of global value chains, and increases in the shares of differentiated goods, skilled labor-intensive goods, and high-tech-intensive goods in traded baskets are all associated with higher income growth. An increase in the share of trade with countries at the core of the global trade network is also associated with greater growth effects. However, many of these effects are non-linear and depend on the degree of trade openness and labor force education. The results suggest that technological diffusion and learning spillovers play some role in the growth effects associated with the nature of trade connections.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8168 AUG 15, 2017
The World Bank Monthly Operational Summary (MOS) reports on the status of projects in the World Bank's pipeline from the time the operation is identified to the signing of the Loan, Credit, or Grant Agreement.
... See More + It is a detailed accountings of the projects included in the country lending programs that are actively being prepared for implementation. The lending programs reflect the Bank's strategy for each member country as set out in the Country Partnership Framework (CPF) presented to the Board of Executive Directors of the World Bank. On average, it takes about 13 months for the Bank to process a project from concept to approval. After a financing agreement is signed or a project is dropped from the program, the project entry is deleted from this summary. Each issue of the summary contains a list of projects reported for the first time and the list of projects deleted from the current issue. Program. Familiarity with the Bank's project cycle, summarized in the following paragraphs, can help potential bidders identify business opportunities with Bank borrowers. Each entry in the MOS indicates at what point the operation is in the project cycle.
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The development objective of the State Owned Bank’s (SOB) Restructuring Program for Results for Tunisia will support key measures aiming at supporting directly and indirectly the restructuring of the SOBs.
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Nepal's recent history of development is marred by a paradox. Many countries in the world have experienced rapid growth but modest poverty reduction, as income has increasingly concentrated in the hands of the wealthy.
... See More + Nepal, however, has the opposite problem-modest growth but brisk poverty reduction. The country has halved the poverty rate in just seven years and witnessed an equally significant decline in income inequality. Yet, Nepal remains one of the poorest and slowest-growing economies in Asia, with its per capita income rapidly falling behind its regional peers and unable to achieve its long-standing ambition to graduate from low-income status.
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As a result of a number of internal and external shocks, Uganda's economy is currently growing at the lowest rate recorded over the past two decades.
... See More + Therefore, current policy is focused on the management of these impacts so that they do not exacerbate macroeconomic instability and on measures to stimulate the economy to increase growth. The Government's investment push is intended to address binding constraints on growth, with the most significant of these constraints being Uganda's huge infrastructure deficit. The first part of this Ninth Uganda Economic Update presents an assessment of the current state of the economy, while the second part addresses a specific theme related to Uganda's development challenges and the manner in which these may be addressed. This focusses on how the management of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) can support Uganda's investment push by facilitating access to private sector financing, by managing the risks intrinsic in these arrangements, and by maximizing the economic and social value of these partnerships. This can only be achieved if the government is committed to building the appropriate set of frameworks to create a conducive environment for private investments and to adopting robust project identification, screening, procurement and contract management processes.
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This paper investigates the dynamics between the exchange rate and consumer price inflation in Zambia. The analysis uses a structural vector autoregression, with quarterly data for 1995-2014 and a combination of short-run sign- and zero-restrictions to identify relevant global and domestic shocks.
... See More + The findings suggest that the pass-through of exchange rates to consumer prices depends greatly on the shock that originally caused the exchange rate to fluctuate. Although the price of copper is the most important driver of the exchange rate, the fluctuations it caused are associated with a low pass-through of only about 7 percent. Exchange rate fluctuations caused by monetary shocks come with a pass-through of up to 25 percent. Food inflation is equally affected by genuine exchange rate shocks, but appears more reactive to changes in copper prices or the money supply. Historical variance decomposition shows that, across periods, the main drivers of exchange rate fluctuations varied substantially.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8128 JUN 28, 2017
In Bank-financed operations, the Bank’s legal agreements with its counterparts contain tailored and operation-specific contractual terms. These agreements also incorporate the General Conditions, which reflect the Bank’s standard terms and conditions that do not vary from case to case.
... See More + The last major update to the GeneralIn Bank-financed operations, the Bank’s legal agreements with its counterparts contain tailored and operation-specific contractual terms. These agreements also incorporate the General Conditions, which reflect the Bank’s standard terms and conditions that do not vary from case to case. The last major update to the General Conditions took place twelve years ago. Since then, Executive Directors have approved number of IBRD and IDA-specific changes to these documents. The revised draft IBRD and IDA General Conditions include severalmodifications that emerged from LEG’s simplification exercise described in paragraph. These modifications permit greater use of electronic communications and signatures and give the Bank and its counterparts more flexibility with legal documentation. These changes will provide teams and counterparts with greater operational agility while ensuring that they proactively address legal risks. The IDA General Conditions include many revisions to reflect the recently adopted IDA18 framework. Additionally, the IBRD General Conditions are revised to incorporate certain financial pricing and policy changes that were previously approved by the Executive Directors.
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Brazil is an upper middle-income with a GNI per capita income of USD 9,990 in 2015. During the review period, Brazil’s annual economic growth declined from 4.1 percent prior to the CPS (2008- 2011) to 0.3 percent during the CPS period (2012-15).
... See More + Government strategies, most importantly the Growth Acceleration and “Brazil Without Poverty” programs sought to address Brazil’s three key development challenges at the time of CPS preparation. These challenges included the need to accelerate economic growth and strengthen resilience to international shocks; to reduce inequality and offer human development opportunities to all, especially women; and to enhance environmental sustainability and resilience. The CPS was aligned with those strategies and focused on providing support to sub-national governments to help enhance implementation of national policies, while also providing knowledge intensive services at the federal level.The World Bank Group (WBG) Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) was prepared against a background, in 2011, of solid growth and poverty reduction. The CPS envisaged a combination of investment and policy lending and of Analytical and Advisory Activities (ASA) to support four focus areas: (i) efficiency of public and private investments, (ii) quality and provision of public services for low income households, (iii) regional economic development, and (iv) sustainable natural resource management and climate resilience. WBG support was aligned with several Government programs,including the second Growth Acceleration and “Brazil without Poverty” programs, as well as other more specific plans.the Bank to better achieve a more consistent sequencing of policies and achievement of welfare outcomes. By way of example, two or three programmatic Bahia loans, in lieu of standalone operations, could have helped better achieve outcomes (e.g., on education quality) by strengthening the reforms and allowing more time for reform implementation and achievement of the outcomes. Second, Bank-IFC collaboration can be stronger than that under the CPS. More planning and coordination between the two institutions (e.g. resulting in joint ASA and parallel operations) could bring in synergies between reforms, public, and private investments, for example on WRM. A Joint Implementation Plan (JIP) between the Bank and IFC could have facilitated the collaboration of two institutions at the sector level, following the example of successful JIPs in countries where there is clear interdependency of public and private sector solutions, the problems are complex and there is sufficient scale, such as with the JIPs in the health sector in India and the Sustainable Cities initiative in Turkey. Third, indicators that accurately reflect outcomes are critical to enable program evaluation, particularly for IFC projects that reflect private sector activities and outcomes. For example, country-wide access to education says little about education outcomes from Bank sub-national projects. Similarly, and given multiple sources of finance, the total number of MSMEs financed overstate the reach and development impact of IFC finance in terms of stimulated economic growth and employment generation.
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The World Bank Monthly Operational Summary (MOS) reports on the status of projects in the World Bank's pipeline from the time the operation is identified to the signing of the Loan, Credit, or Grant Agreement.
... See More + It is a detailed accounting of the projects included in the country lending programs that are actively being prepared for implementation. The lending programs reflect the Bank's strategy for each member country as set out in the Country Partnership Framework (CPF) presented to the Board of Executive Directors of the World Bank. General information about business opportunities under Bank loans, credits, and grants may be obtained from the World Bank's Procurement Policy and Services Group's website at http://www.worldbank.org/en/projectsoperations/products-and-services/procurementprojects-programs.
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Ratings for Public Expenditure Support Facility Development Policy Loan with Deferred Drawdown Option for Indonesia were as follows: outcome was satisfactory, risk to development outcome was moderate, Bank performance was satisfactory, and Borrower performance was satisfactory.
... See More + Some lessons included: The DPL DDO proved to be an effective instrument to assist Indonesia in responding to financial market turbulence in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis. Making the drawdown of the DPL DDO funds conditional on market borrowing conditions can strengthen the government’s commitment to maintain fiscal discipline despite the crisis. The implementation of the PESF also illustrates that using a crisis response operation to support longer-term structural reforms may require strong client commitment and sustained post-crisis support.
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Project Performance Assessment Report 110741 MAY 30, 2017
Ratings for Public Expenditure Support Facility Development Policy Loan with Deferred Drawdown Option for Indonesia were as follows: outcome was satisfactory, risk to development outcome was moderate, Bank performance was satisfactory, and Borrower performance was satisfactory.
... See More + Some lessons included: The DPL DDO proved to be an effective instrument to assist Indonesia in responding to financial market turbulence in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis. Making the drawdown of the DPL DDO funds conditional on market borrowing conditions can strengthen the government’s commitment to maintain fiscal discipline despite the crisis. The implementation of the PESF also illustrates that using a crisis response operation to support longer-term structural reforms may require strong client commitment and sustained post-crisis support.
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Project Performance Assessment Report 110741 MAY 30, 2017
This Policy Paper presents a menu of reforms that would enable the country to rapidly and significantly turn the page of inaction and decline and return the country to a prosperous and inclusive development path.
... See More + To that end, reforms are prioritized over two time horizons—the first 100 days of the new Government and the medium term. The immediate set of reforms suggested aim at establishing a record of achievements and government credibility that is currently sorely absent; without such a clear statement, policymaking effectiveness will be limited. They will also set the platform for the medium term. Failing to move swiftly on reforms would not only damage the credibility of this government, diminish its chances of success during the upcoming elections, but would also increase the already high level of skepticism that the Lebanese people and the international community harbor when it comes to Lebanon's capacity to take on serious and transformational changes. In short, and contrary to some wishes, the international community's engagement and commitment to help Lebanon will hinge heavily on Lebanon helping itself. The seeming end of a long political stalemate offers Lebanon a unique window of opportunity to mitigate impending risks and tackle longstanding and, by now, pressing development challenges. This sense of urgency is reinforced by a palpable deterioration in the quality of public services, institutions, governance and the business climate, to name a few. Macroeconomic risks and institutional lethargy, have also been compounded by the Syrian war, taking a toll on the economy, which, even prior to the regional turmoil, exhibited significant shortfalls in the provision of more and better jobs. Furthermore, the influx of displaced persons from Syria (estimated at over one million by UNHCR as of September 2016) has placed added strain on Lebanon’s education, health, municipal and other sectors, while exacerbating already notable subnational inequalities. This Policy Paper presents a menu of reforms that would enable the country to rapidly and significantly turn the page of inaction and decline and return the country to a prosperous and inclusive development path. To that end, reforms are prioritized over two time horizons—the first 100 days of the new Government and the medium term. The immediate set of reforms suggested aim at establishing a record of achievements and government credibility that is currently sorely absent; without such a clear statement, policymaking effectiveness will be limited. They will also set the platform for the medium term. Failing to move swiftly on reforms would not only damage the credibility of this government, diminish its chances of success during the upcoming elections, but would also increase the already high level of skepticism that the Lebanese people and the international community harbor when it comes to Lebanon's capacity to take on serious and transformational changes. In short, and contrary to some wishes, the international community's engagement and commitment to help Lebanon will hinge heavily on Lebanon helping itself.
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La République du Congo possède de nombreuses ressources qui peuvent être mises à profit pour bâtir une économie solide et robuste. Ces ressources sont : le pétrole, les minerais, les terres arables et une population jeune.
... See More + Le Congo est le quatrième plus grand producteur de pétrole parmiles pays d’Afrique centrale et occidentale, tant en termes de production totale (260 000 barils parjour) qu’en termes de production par habitant. Le pays est doté d’importants minerais tels que le fer et la potasse, qui ne sont pas encore exploités, d’une vaste superficie de terres arables, qui pourraient se révéler utiles dans le développement de l’agriculture, ainsi que d’une population jeune — qui, si suffisamment instruite, pourrait constituer une main-d’oeuvre dynamique porteuse d’effets bénéfiques sur la croissance économique.
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Vietnam is a lower middle income country with a GNI per capita income of USD 1,990 in 2015. During the review period, the country continued to experience rapid GDP growth averaging 5.8 percent, compared to 4.3 percent for the East Asia and Pacific region as a whole.
... See More + This is the first WBG Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) for Vietnam after it had become a lower middle-income country in 2009. The CPS was well aligned with the government’s objectives and stated development goals. It supported the implementation of the government’s Socio- Economic Development Strategy (SEDS, 2011-20) as this was operationalized in the Socio-Economic Development Plan (2011-15). The SEDS focused on structural reform, environmental sustainability, and the then emerging issues of macro-economic stability, with three core areas: promoting human resources and skills development, improving market institutions, and infrastructure development. Macroeconomic stability, and poverty was increasingly being concentrated in ethnic minority communities. In line with these concerns, the WBG through the CPS and the Progress Learning Review (PLR) focused on partnering with Vietnam to help the country achieve success as a middle income country with three focus areas: Competitiveness, Sustainability, and Opportunity. The CLR identifies a number of lessons, with which IEG mostly agrees. Most importantly: (i) Achieving selectivity requires strong engagement with the government. (ii) Comprehensive and programmatic engagement enhances the impact of engagement. (iii) Cross-sectoral, holistic approaches should be adopted and implemented more frequently. (iv) Expectations must be carefully calibrated when it comes to structural or transformational reform areas – also noting the importance of understanding the political economy aspects. (v) The WBG can use more effectively its convening power. IEG adds three key lessons from this CPS: First, in Vietnam going forward there is room for greater concentration of resources, including more emphasis on selectivity and with fewer but on average larger lending operations. The selectivity of the knowledge program could probably also be enhanced. Second, it is also important to pay more attention to the design of the results framework, including the balance between objectives and their under pinning outcomes and indicators, and for program additionally to be clearer, beyond the expected results of individual operations. Third, updating of the results framework at the PLR is an essential element of proactive program management and would need to be used effectively, including the continued monitoring and reporting of results throughout the CPS period.
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This is a validation of the Completion and Learning Review (CLR) for the World Bank Group’s (WBG) engagement in Togo covering two Interim Strategy Notes (ISNs) for the period, FY08-FY10;and FY12-13.
... See More + The WBG returned to Togo in 2004 through a Country Re-Engagement Note (CRN). The CRN was followed by two successive ISNs: the first ISN (FY08-FY10); and the second ISN (FY12-13). The firstISN was aligned with the I-PRSP, which was adopted in March 2008. A Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP-I) covering 2009-2011 followed. When the first ISN ended in June 2010, given theuncertainty on the timing of delivery of PRSP-II, the WBG prepared a second ISN rather than a full blown Country Partnership Strategy (CPS). The second ISN (FY12-13) updated the first ISN andproposed to use the two-year implementation period to consolidate Togo’s knowledge base and help the country increase its aid absorption capacity to draw in external assistance once PRSP-IIwas in place, which happened in early 2013 with the delivery of the Strategy for Boosting Growth and Promoting Employment (SCAPE) covering 2013-2017.Transparency (ii) Promotion of economic recovery and sustainable development, and (iii) Support Urgent Poverty Reduction and Social Needs. Progress achieved during 2008-2016 is uneven according to the information available.The CLR puts forth several lessons regarding (a) the importance of long-term approaches for rebuilding confidence and making sustainable change in the context of political and economic volatility; (b) the importance of political economy analysis; (c) the relevance of selectivity; (d) theneed for intensive supervision on the ground, (e) the need for tractability and realism in the results frameworks; (f) the adequacy of CDD approaches in fragile environments; and, (g) the central placeof donor coordination to drive results on the ground. IEG has complementary observations on the lessons that the CLR presents. First, the CLR emphasizes the importance of political economy analysis, particularly in a fragile state environment in which political commitment and reform momentum remain fluid. IEG concurs and adds that bringing on board political economy considerations facilitate making the hard choices that underpin a selective approach, which as the CLR points out, offers the best chance of achieving results without straining client resources. Second, IEG also concurs that simplicity of design is an important characteristic thataffects the effectiveness of WBG engagements.
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Thirty years after the launch of the economic reforms known as Doi Moi, Vietnam is considered a development success story—marked by remarkable poverty reduction and economic growth.
... See More + Notwithstanding notable achievements, development challenges persist. The last World Bank Group (WBG) country strategy for Vietnam, the FY12–16 Country Partnership Strategy (CPS), was presented to the WBG Board of Directors on December 15, 2011.The Vietnam Country Partnership Framework (CPF) covers the period FY18–22. It has been prepared based on analysis and conclusions in Vietnam 2035: Toward Prosperity, Creativity, Equity, and Democracy (Vietnam 2035)1 and in the 2016 Vietnam Systematic CountryDiagnostic (SCD), and informed by the CPS Completion and Learning Review (CLR) and the 2016 Client Survey. The CPF is fully aligned with the Government of Vietnam’s (GoV) 2010–20 Socio-Economic Development Strategy (SEDS) and the recent 2016–20 Socio-Economic Development Plan (SEDP). The CPF responds to priorities for support expressed by the government and builds on the WBG’s comparative advantage.The CPF is prepared at a critical juncture in Vietnam’s development and at a time of transition. FY18 represents a new period in GoV–WBG relations as Vietnam graduates from the International Development Association (IDA) at end-FY17. Moreover, success raises expectations—Vietnam has high ambitions for further development and growth, aspiring to modernity, industrialization, and a better quality of life.The CPS has three pillars: (i) strengthen Vietnam’s competitiveness in the regional and global economy; (ii) increase sustainability of the country’s development; and (iii) broaden access to economic and social opportunity, supported by three cross-cutting themes: (a) strengthen governance, (b) promote gender equality, and (c) improve resilience related to external economic and climatic shocks.
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Country Assistance Strategy Document 111771 MAY 04, 2017
The Afghanistan Development Update, which is published twice a year, provides a comprehensive report of the state of the Afghan economy. It covers recent economic developments and outlines the medium-term outlook for Afghanistan.
... See More + Afghanistan. Each edition includes a section that provides in-depth analysis on one or more specific focus topics. The lack of high-frequency data in Afghanistan makes it difficult to track economic activities on a monthly or quarterly basis. Thus, proxy indicators are utilized when their quality is deemed satisfactory. Efforts are made to ensure that key analysis and forecasts are based primarily on reliable sets of data. The Afghanistan Development Update is intended for a wide audience, including policy makers, the donor community, the private sector, the community of analysts and professionals engaged in monitoring the economy and Afghanistan’s citizens at large. In this issue of the Update, the Focus Section discusses how economic stimulus can be provided in Afghanistan’s resource-constrained environment. In the context of the economic slowdown, Afghanistan faces the difficult dilemma of balancing measures to stimulate the economy while at the same time avoiding a further weakening of its fiscal position. The fiscal space is already extremely limited, with no room to increase public expenditure or to lower taxes. Thus, the Government must implement initiatives to maximize the growth impact of fiscal expenditure. First, policies to encourage government spending on non-tradable goods from local suppliers will ensure that demand taps domestic production, rather than imports. Second, policies to improve absorptive capacity will increase the quality, speed of execution and value for money of public investments. Third, policies to promote contestable markets in banking and construction will stimulate the entry of small and medium-sized firms in both sectors. Fourth, polices to increase fiscal space should include measures to improve revenue mobilization and to use existing resources more effectively, which will release additional resources.
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