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Book
Does Pollution Hinder Urban Competitiveness?
Authors: --- ---
Year: 2019 Publisher: Washington, D.C. : The World Bank,

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Abstract

This paper surveys the recent literature exploring the causes of urban pollution in the developing world and the implications of such pollution for a city's competitiveness. Within a system of cities, cities compete for jobs and people. Those cities that specialize in heavy industrial activity will gain from a manufacturing boom but are more likely to be polluted than a city that specializes in the service economy and one that makes investments in regulations to reduce the social costs of power generation, transportation, and household services. The paper explores three main questions. First, why does pollution inhibit urban competitiveness? Second, why is this effect likely to grow in importance over time? Third, why have cities been slow to adopt cost-effective regulatory strategies?


Book
Smart Villages in Azerbaijan : A Framework for Analysis and Roadmap.
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Year: 2021 Publisher: Washington, D.C. : The World Bank,

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This paper is the main output of an analytical and research program aimed at identifying policy options to develop technology and social innovation driven smart village approaches that can improve service delivery and local economic development in rural areas. The concept of smart villages focuses on enabling communities - in partnership with local government and the private sector - to identify opportunities and solutions that are right for their own areas based on demand (bottom-up and participatory needs assessment), on transferring knowledge and innovation, and on policy incentives. With these three elements in place, customized smart solutions for rural areas can result in greater local economic development with better connectivity and improved services, increased livelihoods and incomes, and improved quality of life. The paper is presented in six sections, each representing an element of the research and analysis undertaken to define and apply the concept of smart villages in Azerbaijan. The first section presents the context of rural development, particularly aspects which relate to the rural-urban divide, public policies, and programs aimed at advancing rural development, as well as the digital dimensions of development. The second section introduces the concept of smart villages. What does this mean? How do other countries apply this term? What are the core principles and elements? Following from the definition and global examples of smart villages, the paper lays out a framework for assessing the smart village readiness of villages in Azerbaijan, viewing them as spatial clusters and drawing on global big data and national data sources to rank village clusters with common spatial characteristics as the most versus the least ready to apply smart village approaches.


Book
Turkish Cypriot Community Workforce Development
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Year: 2016 Publisher: Washington, D.C. : The World Bank,

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For the last 50 years, the Turkish Cypriot community (TCc) has remained outside the effective control of the government of the Republic of Cyprus (RoC). The community displays typical characteristics and challenges of a small island economy, and after years of rapid growth and income convergence, it is unlikely to replicate its pre-2009 economic performance in the medium term. Sound macroeconomic policies and structural reforms, thus, become all the more crucial if the community is to regain the growth momentum of the early-2000s and address some of the labor market issues. Structural reforms should, among other things, aim to remove barriers to an expanding private sector, and strengthen domestic and external market competitiveness. To do this, the Turkish Cypriot community needs to better align its workforce and Workforce Development (WfD) policies to the needs of the labor market and of the private sector in particular.This study aims to assess the TCc's overall WfD system. Where shortcomings are identified, the study offers suggestions on how to improve the quality and relevance of the skills produced by the community's workforce system, including Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) at the secondary and postsecondary level, and on-the-job learning. This report presents a comprehensive diagnostic of a WfD system's policies and institutions.


Book
The Role of Local Governments in Promoting Local Economic Development in Uganda
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Year: 2016 Publisher: Washington, D.C. : The World Bank,

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While Uganda has a long history of decentralized service delivery, and has instituted Local Economic Development (LED) as an additional mandate for local governments (LGs), there has been less progress in operationalizing the concept and practically implementing it across LGs in Uganda. In addition to their basic service delivery functions enshrined in the Local Governments Act of 1997, since 2006 LGs are also mandated by various policy documents to play a role in wealth creation, and increasing citizens' income levels. While the Government of Uganda (GoU)'s LED Policy does outline the strategic intervention areas that LGs should implement, there is still considerable confusion among LG staff as to what this entails on a day to day basis and there has been limited progress in implementation. At the request of the MoLG, the World Bank, therefore, commissioned this assignment in support of the Government of Uganda (GoU's) efforts to improve the capacities of LGs for promoting LED. The study focused on assessing three localities (Jinja Municipality, and Arua and Nwoya Districts), both in terms of their local economic potentials and enabling environment for business, as well as in terms of the institutional and policy context for promoting LED. The study used quantitative methodologies, to identify promising economic sectors in the three localities, as well as qualitative methodologies to identify the main constraints that those sectors currently face.


Book
Economic Structure, Development Policy and Environmental Quality : An Empirical Analysis of Environmental Kuznets Curves with Chinese Municipal Data
Authors: ---
Year: 2011 Publisher: Washington, D.C., The World Bank,

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In many cases, the relationship between environmental pollution and economic development can be generally depicted by an inverted U-shaped curve, or an environmental Kuznets curve, where pollution increases with income at the beginning and decreases after a certain level of income. However, what determine the shape of an enviornmental Kuznets curve, such as the height and the turning point of the curve, have not been thoroughly studied. A good understanding of the determinants is vitally important to the development community, especially for the developing world, where income growth is a high priority and yet environmental pollution also needs to be carefully controlled. This study analyzes the impacts of economic structure, development strategy and environmental regulation on the shape of the environmental Kuznets curve with a city-level panel dataset obtained from China. The results show that economic structure, development strategy and environmental regulation can all have important implications on the relationship between environmental environmental quality and economic development but the impacts can be different at different development stages.


Book
External Shocks, Fiscal Policy and Income Distribution : Alternative Scenarios for Moldova
Authors: --- --- ---
Year: 2013 Publisher: Washington, D.C., The World Bank,

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The economy of Moldova, which has one of the lowest levels of gross national income per capita in the World Bank Europe and Central Asia region, is strongly linked to the outside world, especially to the neighboring countries of the European Union and the Commonwealth of Independent States. This paper analyzes a set of scenarios for Moldova up to 2020, defined to shed light on issues related to an alternative future dominated by goods and services exports as opposed to today's reliance on worker remittances. The analysis is based on a Moldovan version of MAMS (Maquette for Millennium Development Goal Simulations), a CGE (Computable General Equilibrium) model for country strategy analysis. In sum, the impact of increased export demand and productivity growth is more positive when these shocks are directed to manufacturing, a sector more heavily linked to international trade, compared with agriculture. Increased productivity in transport and communications generates faster growth with widely diffused benefits, reaching households in a relatively equitable manner compared with foreign trade-induced growth. A comparison between adverse shocks in two areas, higher energy import prices, and lower remittances, designed to have similar effects on gross domestic product, suggests that a remittance shock leads to less of a poverty increase, related to the fact that remittance-receiving households are not highly vulnerable; among sectors, agriculture is most vulnerable due to heavy energy reliance. Finally, well-targeted transfer schemes may offer an effective tool for diffusing the benefits of economic growth to the whole population, perhaps also contributing to more general acceptance of structural change.


Book
Madagascar Economic Update, December 2016
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Year: 2016 Publisher: Washington, D.C. : The World Bank,

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Even though a large majority of poor households are engaged in agriculture, per capita productivity and real levels of sectoral growth remain low in Madagascar. Approximately 80 percent of the population are engaged in agriculture, which provides the main source of income for households, albeit at subsistence levels. Cultivation practices are based on extensification strategies with implications for Madagascar's fragile natural resource base, rather than improving the productivity of existing farms and land use. To ensure Madagascar's growth prospects more inclusively benefit the entire population it will be crucial to improve the productivity of the agriculture sector. The first part of the this economic update has the World Bank's assessment of recent economic developments and the outlook over the short to medium term in Madagascar. The second part of this update focuses on Agriculture and Rural Development.


Book
Creating and Using Fiscal Space for Accelerated Development in Liberia
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Year: 2013 Publisher: Washington, D.C., The World Bank,

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This paper presents simulations for the period 2013-2030 of measures that permit increased spending on infrastructure and human development, the priority areas in Liberia's 2013-2017 "Agenda for Transformation" and for its national vision, Liberia Rising 2030. The simulations are carried out with a Liberian version of MAMS (Maquette for Millennium Development Goals Simulations), a Computable General Equilibrium model. According to the results, among the key sources of fiscal space, foreign grants generate the best outcomes followed by improved government allocative efficiency. Taxes tend to involve trade-offs since they reduce resources for private consumption and investment, both of which tend to contribute to stronger macro and Millennium Development Goals performance. Increased foreign borrowing is less attractive since, in order to make a substantial difference, it would quickly add to the foreign debt, making the economy more crisis-prone and less flexible. The preferred balance between different uses of fiscal space depends on payoffs from different government functions, typically unknown or only appearing with a lag. Under the parameters used in the simulations, determined in light of fragmentary evidence, the outcomes were marginally stronger under a balanced approach with scaling up of both infrastructure and human development services. Balanced expansion may also contribute to efficiency and be easier for political reasons. A final finding is that it is possible to consider fiscal space issues in isolation from the mining sector: simulations suggest that the marginal effects of creating additional fiscal space are very similar irrespective of the level of mining export prices.


Book
Investing in Africa's Agriculture : Solidifying Foundation for Sustainable and Inclusive Development
Authors: ---
Year: 2016 Publisher: Washington, D.C. : The World Bank,

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Agriculture has been essentially the backbone of economic growth for centuries. The sector has provided employment for the majority of the world population for generations, and has served as a powerful force in transforming of economies towards an industry- and service- based. In many countries, through both productivity increases and farm land expansion, agriculture contributed to the transformation by releasing labor force for the other parts of the economy, providing food security, keeping wage down by providing low cost food, and generating foreign exchange. All these contributions are essential for broader social and economic development (Bruce and Mellor, 1961). In the 21st century, agriculture remains a fundamental instrument for sustainable development and poverty reduction. WDR 2008, Agriculture for Development, convincingly demonstrates the need to increase investment in agriculture and improve the effectiveness of such investment in order to enhance the sector's role in overall growth, poverty reduction, and environmental sustainability. As an economic activity, agriculture can be a source of growth for the national economy and a provider of investment opportunities for the private sector. Robust empirical evidence from many countries consistently shows that agriculture is several times more efficient in reducing poverty than other sectors, given majority of the world's poor living in rural area and relying on the sector as a major income source (World Bank, 2008). Agriculture can also be a major provider of environmental services, through sequestering carbon, managing watersheds, and preserving biodiversity. Therefore, agriculture offers great promise in today's world for growth, poverty reduction, and environmental sustainability. China's successful development in the past three decades exemplifies the powerful role the agricultural sector can play in a country's social and economic transformation.


Book
Growing the Rural Nonfarm Economy to Alleviate Poverty : An Evaluation of the Contribution of the World Bank Group.
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Year: 2016 Publisher: Washington, D.C. : The World Bank,

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Most of the world's poor live in rural areas and rural non-farm activities are an important part of their livelihoods strategies. However, for the poor to benefit from the rural non-farm economy (RNFE), they need to overcome a host of human, physical, financial, institutional and social capital constraints. The World Bank Group has highlighted the RNFE in its strategies. From 2004 to 2014, the BankGroup implemented 1,141 projects, valued at USD 46.5 billion that included support for RNFE activities. However, the Bank Group currently lacks an articulated approach to developing the RNFE to alleviate poverty. Many units have products in this space, but there is no coordinating mechanism. There is a gap between poverty and growth-oriented approaches in the RNFE. Those designed toreach the rural poor have reduced vulnerability and increased access to services but have notgenerated sufficient, sustained income to lift the rural poor out of poverty. Those RNFE projects with a growth aim-mainly value chain approaches-achieved increased revenues but mostly withoutevidence of benefits for the poor. Spillover effects are not measured. Efforts to bridge this gap asked approaches adept at service delivery to achieve earned income goals beyond their original design. Where IFC's investments in food processing have had strong links to rural areas, they have generally generated positive rural employment outcomes and demonstrated links to the RNFE. However in its agribusiness portfolio, there was little in project design that targeted or tracked benefits for the poor.IFC's retail investments linked to rural areas seek to increase the availability of goods and drive down costs for rural consumers. However, none of the investments tracked consumer benefits (costs) and only a few included local sourcing. In spite of examples of where market power has adversely affected poor value chain participants, the risks imposed by market structure, its impact on the poor, and related mitigants are rarely treated explicitly in project documentation. The Bank has been a leader in researching the RNFE, including its link to poverty. But there is a gapon the diagnostic and analytics side that has been addressed occasionally but not systematically. Addressing binding constraints is key to linking the rural poor to productive activities in the RNFE. Bank-financed rural transport projects have not measured their contribution to local economic gains,in spite of intentions to achieve this. Rural connectivity is being achieved through synergies between transport and agriculture lending but mainly in transitioning economies. Basic literacy and skills are critical enablers in the RNFE, but dialogue is lacking between the Agriculture and Education GPs. Although many value chain projects include a skills component, impact is not assessed. The delivery of sustainable, low-cost rural financial services requires research, piloting, and scaling up of innovative business models to reach the underserved. World Bank support has extended some financial services to the poorest rural segments, but subsidization raises questions about sustainability, crowding out, and potential for politicization. IFC investments reach countries with high exclusion rates, but only a fraction caters to the lower end of the retail segment.

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