This paper studies the relationship between the level of economic development and the incidence of three forms of payments across countries, namely the incidence of bank accounts, digital payments, and mobile money accounts among the adult populations across countries.
... See More + It presents simple statistical tests of leapfrogging, the phenomenon by which poor countries surpass rich countries in the provision of payments mechanisms. It contributes to a broader and long-standing literature on stages of development, as well as to the literature on financial development and access to finance. The findings suggest that there is evidence of "absolute" and "relative" leapfrogging, with both terms defined in the paper. In addition, the Middle East and North Africa region, on average, suffers from a notable underperformance gap across all observed stages of payment-systems development. This finding suggests that the region suffers from structural impediments to the development of its financial and banking systems that go well beyond the adoption of digital-technology tools.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS9104 JAN 07, 2020
Armenia's economy is heavily reliant on domestic demand, which is itself driven by remittances that support local construction and consumption.
... See More + Armenia will need to shift to an export led strategy if it is to move from middle income to high-income status. Because Armenia is a landlocked country with comparatively high trading costs in physical goods, high-tech digital exports will continue to be key to Armenia's growth. This report seeks to identify strategic opportunities for Armenia’s private sector in high-tech global value chains (GVCs) and also highlights reforms that could support Armenia’s evolution. The study builds on the FY18 Armenia Systematic Country Diagnostic, which identifies value-chain development as a core building block for sectoral growth. Although the report is targeted at policy makers in the Armenian government, sectoral development strategies rely heavily on strong private sector engagement and open public-private dialogue. Armenia's tech community may therefore also take interest in this analysis.
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Armenia's economy is heavily reliant on domestic demand, which is itself driven by remittances that support local construction and consumption.
... See More + Armenia will need to shift to an export led strategy if it is to move from middle income to high-income status. Because Armenia is a landlocked country with comparatively high trading costs in physical goods, high-tech digital exports will continue to be key to Armenia's growth. This report seeks to identify strategic opportunities for Armenia’s private sector in high-tech global value chains (GVCs) and also highlights reforms that could support Armenia’s evolution. The study builds on the FY18 Armenia Systematic Country Diagnostic, which identifies value-chain development as a core building block for sectoral growth. Although the report is targeted at policy makers in the Armenian government, sectoral development strategies rely heavily on strong private sector engagement and open public-private dialogue. Armenia's tech community may therefore also take interest in this analysis.
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The main objective of this technical note is to evaluate the institutional and implementation framework needed for strengthening payment systems as a core element of delivering social protection and labor (SPL) benefits to the poor, around which targeting, identification and monitoring systems operate.
... See More + The assessment aims to support improving how new national programs and initiatives identify the poorest households, assess their needs and facilitate the delivery of investments and services to them by maximizing digital financial technology. The note is structured as follows. Following the introduction in section I, section II looks at institutional framework, including the regulatory environment for financial services as well as the personal identification (ID) landscape in Côte d'Ivoire. Section III assesses the current payment systems in the four focus programs chosen. Section IV provides recommendations for improvement of the payment systems of the four focus programs in the short and long term, with an eye not only toward improving service delivery for the beneficiaries of individual programs, but also toward improving coordination between programs.
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The main objective of this technical note is to evaluate the institutional and implementation framework needed for strengthening payment systems as a core element of delivering social protection and labor (SPL) benefits to the poor, around which targeting, identification and monitoring systems operate.
... See More + The assessment aims to support improving how new national programs and initiatives identify the poorest households, assess their needs and facilitate the delivery of investments and services to them by maximizing digital financial technology. The note is structured as follows. Following the introduction in section I, section II looks at institutional framework, including the regulatory environment for financial services as well as the personal identification (ID) landscape in Côte d'Ivoire. Section III assesses the current payment systems in the four focus programs chosen. Section IV provides recommendations for improvement of the payment systems of the four focus programs in the short and long term, with an eye not only toward improving service delivery for the beneficiaries of individual programs, but also toward improving coordination between programs.
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During 2019 Yemen's economy continued to suffer from protracted and spasmodic conflict. Early in the year, the economy was projected to grow at around 2 percent in 2019, underpinned by a gradual recovery in the oil sector, resumption of gas production, and relative macroeconomic stability.
... See More + However, this scenario may not materialize given the prevailing economic and security conditions, especially in the latter half the year, which witnessed escalating conflicts and repeated disruptions to oil production and exports, resumption LNG exports, and supply of foreign exchange to import essential inputs.
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