The Connected Community Initiative (CCI) supports the achievements of the Europe 2020 Agenda and the Gigabit Society targets. The initiative was established in 2015 by the European Commission, Directorate General for Communication Networks, Content and Technologies (DG CONNECT) as a single donor trust fund implemented by the World Bank.
... See More + The initiative focuses on facilitating the flow of private and public investments to broadband connectivity projects and assist them in bringing their projects to a level of maturity that would enable funding from various public and private sources. The program was successful in channeling private and public funds into important broadband network deployment projects. With an overhead of only Euro 1 million, CCI was able to unlock approximately Euro 134 million. 10 projects were able to secure, or are in the process of securing, funding to construct their fiber-based broadband networks. These projects are the Rural Network (RUNE) projects in Croatia and Slovenia; ToPix project in Italy’s Piedmont region; and DSTelecom in Algarve, Alentejo, Lower Minho, and Norte regions in Portugal, Drenthe in the Netherlands, and Gran Canaria in Spain. Funding varied between public, private, private equity, and the Connecting Europe Broadband Facility (CEBF), or a mix of them. Thus, CCI will help connect approximately 687,000 homes in remote and underserved areas of the portfolio countries. CCI experience has shown that the challenges and opportunities in promoting broadband and ultrafast broadband deployment in rural and gray areas are considerable. However, project promoters can improve the chances of getting funding if they take into consideration specific measures to address the following: demand management, cost management, risk and infrastructure sharing, financial modelling, time-to-market and building a successful investment pitch. This report lays out the main findings of the CCI experience and elaborates on the factors that facilitated or inhibited the success of broadband financing and deployment projects. These factors depend on the countries, topographies, market conditions, national framework, etc. However, many are also in common, given that the regulatory framework is similar, most gray and rural areas are in challenging topographies and financing is scarce. These challenges and opportunities constitute the basis of the recommendations to be considered by the EC, national and regional governments, and regulatory bodies. In summary, support to project promoters shows that there are still major financial and commercial risks in investment in infrastructure in rural and in grey areas. State aid rules are not clear or cumbersome to abide by for incentivizing investment in gray areas and in networks of 100Mbps capacity and above. When state aid is not applicable, there is a need to provide other types of incentives to the private sector to encourage investment in these areas. Attention should be given to the rules and practices that are crowding out private investment such as the requirements for the declaration of commercial interest in gray zones, the clawback mechanism for companies benefiting from state aid, and the mapping of grey and white zones. The technical assistance conducted by the World Bank showed that there are measures that policy makers can put take to facilitate bridging the financing gap in lagging zones. Looking forward, project promoters and financiers can replicate the lessons learned from the CCI in their future projects and investments. But beyond replicability at the same community levels, the CCI can be scaled up and made replicable in more regions and countries in the EU, and in neighboring and EU-acceding countries.
See Less -
Report 135244 MAR 12, 2019
Haddad,Marolla; Stoykov,Petar Georgiev; Abdul Khalek,Joulan; Bezzina,JeromeDisclosed
The objectives of a well-designed pension system are poverty reduction in old age and income smoothing throughout an individuals' lifetime. Over the last thirty years, changing demographic trends have caused a shift from 'pay as you go' and occupational defined benefit (DB) schemes - where the obligation for paying for retirement income is with the state and employers - to defined contribution (DC) schemes, where the obligation to save for retirement rests more with individuals.
... See More + The transition to DC schemes did help establish a strong link between contributions during working life and benefits during retirement, for individuals. However, an increasing challenge has been balancing genuine needs for some pre-retirement liquidity, access to savings and providing adequate income post retirement for individuals. The need to get this balancing act right is being felt increasingly as coverage of national social security systems is expanded to include more of the non-salaried workforce which often has lower levels of income, more periods of unemployment and more irregular earnings. This note surveys recent literature and country experiences to understand if and how countries address the need for pre-retirement liquidity in both mandatory and voluntary DC schemes. The note also uses simple modelling to illustrate the impact of allowing access to pension savings on income adequacy after retirement. The report concludes with recommendations based on emerging best practice.
See Less -
Based on a survey of households in 10 Central Eastern European and Western Balkan countries, this paper presents new and unique evidence on which households have savings and how they save.
... See More + The paper shows that the percentage of savers is low, and savings are frequently informal. Formal savings are dominated by bank savings, and participation in contractual and capital market savings is very low in comparison to high-income countries. Poor households are significantly less likely to have any savings; income also has an effect, albeit smaller, on the choice of formal versus informal savings. With a high density of bank branches in Central Eastern European and Western Balkan countries lack of physical access to banks does not explain the lack of formal savings. Lack of trust in banks reduces the probability of formal savings, especially bank savings.
See Less -
Policy Research Working Paper WPS8751 FEB 19, 2019
Since the introduction of the KiwiSaver scheme in New Zealand in 2006, several countries have implemented, or are in the process of implementing, voluntary funded pension systems with automatic enrollment features.
... See More + Since most of the literature has focused on countries with the common law tradition, including the United Kingdom and the United States, this note analyzes cases of countries with the civil code tradition, including Turkey, Poland, the Russian Federation, Chile, Brazil, and the Province of Quebec in Canada. This sample includes mostly emerging economies, with reforms at different stages, from those that have already been completed to those that are about to start discussions in their parliaments. Although they are not a substitute for necessary parametric reforms, automatic enrollment schemes offer the possibility of improvements in future retirement income for a significant part of the labor force. This note stresses that the paternalistic approach of automatic enrollment schemes imposes a great degree of responsibility on governments and requires careful consideration of the design of the system, including the industrial organization of the pension fund industry and default investment strategies. Sufficient time and resources for preparing communication and educational campaigns has played a key role in achieving high rates of participation.
See Less -
Policy Research Working Paper WPS8726 FEB 05, 2019
