The European Commission’s Directorate General for Neighborhood and Enlargement Negotiations approached the World Bank to develop an evidence base and to deliver policy advice and technical assistance for supporting the effective reintegration of (Roma) returnees in the Western Balkans: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Serbia.
... See More + This synthesis report presents the results of that research. This report documents the main socio-economic factors that drive migration from the Western Balkans to the EU. Returnees emphasize that they migrate to escape poverty, lack of housing, unemployment, the lack of or insufficient access to social security, and a consistent struggle and inability to provide a basic standard of living for themselves and their families. Poverty, discrimination, and historic marginalization reinforce one another and constitute strong push factors. Estimates suggest a substantial number of returnees belong to the Roma minority and that Roma are over-represented in migration and returnee flows. In addition, Roma and ethnic minorities have had to contend with systemic economic and social exclusion and institutional discrimination. Roma communities lack access to basic infrastructure and social services, are more likely to be underemployed, and have limited earning potential due to low incomes from unskilled jobs in the formal and informal sectors.
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This note was prepared within the ASA project, the objective of which was is to provide knowledge and advisory support to the Ministry of Higher Education and Science and to Russian regional universities on critical topics for higher education development.
... See More + To implement this objective several knowledge-sharing activities were conducted for the Ministry and regional universities to support the implementation of a new National Project ‘Education’, using the most relevant and up to date international experience in higher education development. Export of Higher Education is one of the areas, where Russian counterparts requested to share the most relevant global international expertise to support topics related to the National Project’s priorities. This expertise is of big interest and use of the Ministry of Higher Education and Science and leading Russian universities: participants of 5/100 project, National research universities, regional flagship universities and participants of university innovative infrastructure project. This benchmark study focuses on examples of efficient and effective internationalization policy in an attempt to propose a condensed list of best practices in internationalization of higher education (HE) that have resulted in attracting international students to national higher education institutions (HEIs). Although all internationalization actions are intertwined, this benchmark presents the actions and policy choices that encourage and incentivize student mobility, with priority given to incoming mobility.
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To what extent does immigration affect the economic institutions in destination countries? While there is much evidence that economic institutions in developed nations are either unaffected or improved after immigration, there is little evidence of how immigration affects the economic institutions of developing countries that typically have weaker institutions.
... See More + Using the Synthetic Control Method, this study estimates a significant and long-lasting positive effect on Jordanian economic institutions from the surge of refugees from the First Gulf War. The surge of refugees to Jordan in 1990–1991 was massive and equal to 10 percent of Jordan's population in 1990. Importantly, these refugees were able to have a large and direct impact on Jordanian economic institutions because they could work, live, and vote immediately upon entry due to a quirk in Jordanian law. The refugee surge was the main mechanism by which Jordan's economic institutions improved in the decades that followed.
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Malaysia has experienced a rise in foreign labor inflows in response to steady economic expansion and demographic changes. The foreign workforce has been hovering around 15 percent of the total labor force in recent years according to labor force surveys by the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM).
... See More + Foreign labor is concentrated in low-skilled occupations, and in Malaysia the term foreign worker specifically implies a foreigner doing low-skilled work. Foreign labor makes important contributions to the labor market and economic growth. Yet, concerns over irregular foreign workers have been growing. Heated discussions have taken place on the number of irregular foreign workers in Malaysia as there is no definitive estimate of the number of irregular foreign workers. To illustrate the magnitude, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MOHA) reported that four out of ten foreign workers are irregular, based on its enforcement and amnesty program operations, suggesting the number of irregular foreign workers be about 1.2 million in 2017 and the total foreign worker population of about 3 million. This report attempts to estimate the number of irregular foreign workers in Malaysia. Its contributions to this field are the following: first, it develops a conceptual framework that lays out potential entry points of irregular foreign workers. Second, it identifies alternative administrative data sources that can help estimate the magnitude of irregular foreign workers at each entry point. Third, it identifies methods that can be employed to measure irregular foreign workers with the current data availability and outlines what can be carried out further in the future using immigration department’s microdata.
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Report AUS0000681 MAR 28, 2019
Yi,Soonhwa; Tan Wei,Kershia; Loh,Wei San; Simler,KennethDisclosed
Covering an area of almost 10, 000 square kilo meters across the coastal region of Bay of Bengal, the Sundarbans is a vast tract of forest and saltwater swamp in the lower part of the Ganga-Brahmaputra and Meghna river deltas.
... See More + The delta extending across Khulna, Satkhira, and Bagerhat districts of Bangladesh and South 24 Parganas and North 24 Parganas districts of West Bengal in India is also the largest mangrove forest in the world supporting diverse habitats for various aquatic, terrestrial, and amphibian species. On the Bangladesh side, according to the 2011 Bangladesh Census, the Sundarban impact zone (SIZ) has a population of 7.8 million. A considerable section of this population works as agricultural laborers. Agriculture unfortunately is not high yielding due to pronounced salinity of soil and water. Other than agriculture, the major sources of livelihood include fishery, honey, and wax collection. In this context, it is therefore believed that tourism can provide alternate livelihood opportunities to the local population and act as a tool for regional development. However, if tourism is not regulated it may inflict irreparable damage on the bio-diversity of the region. Thus, there is a need for development of sustainable tourism in the Sundarbans area. The South Asia water initiative (SAWI) Sundarbans focus area program seeks to promote joint management of the Sundarbans by the governments of both Bangladesh and India for sustainable development of the region. The two specific goals of this endeavor are to: (i) enhance bilateral cooperation to support operation of the Sundarbans agreements between Bangladesh and India; and (ii) enhance technical cooperation between Bangladesh and India to support joint water resources management in the Sundarbans.
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Remittances are an important source of income for households in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), as well as a crucial source of foreign exchange for countries in the region.
... See More + Despite the relatively large inflows of remittances to SADC, the cost of sending money to and within the region is significantly higher than other regions in the world. To address the high cost of remittances globally, the World Bank has been involved in a number of initiatives aimed at improving the efficiency and safety of the market for remittances. At the regional level, the SADC Committee of Central Bank Governors (CCBG) has led several initiatives aimed at enhancing the regional payment system infrastructure, also with a focus on reducing the cost of remittances within the region.
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Ratings for the Identification System for Enhancing Access to Services (IDEA) Project for Bangladesh were as follows: outcomes were moderately unsatisfactory, the Bank performance was moderately satisfactory, and the monitoring and evaluation quality was substantial.
... See More + Some lessons learned included: the success of a project depends a great deal on its leadership capacity and empowerment. Contrary to the expectation, the Project turned out to be politically sensitive. Project management as well as its steering committee were often constrained in making decisions based on available technical advice. In hindsight, the design for the implementation arrangements could have considered more robust mitigating measures for likely political interference in the implementation of the Project. The Project recruited a professional communications firm to implement strategic communication programs which was effective in the promotion of NID authentication services. It has also collected feedback from the citizens and users of NID services about their experience. There is continuing high demand for NID services by the citizens as well as different agencies, and it would be important for NIDW to further strengthen its communication strategy after closing of the Project. Significant investment is required to update and maintain a database for over 103 million registrants. The NID system has many busy users to conduct their essential Customer Due Diligence. The NIDW will need to further collect revenues to run the system on its own and be economically viable. Therefore, an effective business model would be important to diversify NID services. The private sector will be willing to pay for the value-added services of the NID system.
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Implementation Completion and Results Report ICR4570 AUG 24, 2018
