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The Accra Agenda for Action contains a commitment to increase aid effectiveness by 'addressing the issue of countries with insufficient aid.' This paper highlights the difficulties in identifying such countries unequivocally, given the limited theoretical and empirical knowledge on optimal aid allocations. Actual aid receipts by low income countries are compared to several benchmarks derived from different aid allocation models. These models differ primarily with regard to the weights assigned to country needs and performance. The analysis shows that different aid allocation models identify different sets of countries as receiving insufficient aid. The paper does not find a greater tendency for fragile states to receive insufficient aid compared to non-fragile states. However, there appears a greater tendency for bilateral aid to leave countries with insufficient aid compared to multi-lateral aid, which in fact in many cases partly compensates for under-funding from bilateral donors. The potential aggregate cost of increasing aid to countries with insufficient aid varies significantly depending on which aid allocation model is used, but could be as high as USD 7 billion annually. Enhanced coordination of donors' aid allocation decisions to ensure that no low income country ends up inadvertently as an aid orphan will be an important step in addressing 'the issue of countries with insufficient aid.'

Developed Countries --- Development Economics & Aid Effectiveness --- Development Policy --- Disability --- Education --- Equal Opportunity --- Equality --- Gender --- Human Rights --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Official Development Assistance --- Public Policy --- School Health --- Social Protections and Labor

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This study explores the far-reaching economic consequences emerging from the archipelagic nature of most Pacific Island countries (PICs). The dispersion of populations across thousands of miles of ocean and hundreds of islands magnifies the economic disadvantages arising from the remoteness and small size that characterize the PICs as a whole. At the same time, population dispersion creates extraordinary challenges related to public service delivery, connectivity, migration and urbanization, and the equity and inclusiveness of economic development. This study focuses on these challenges in pursuit of two main objectives: deepening the understanding of socio-economic conditions on the PICs' outer islands and the drivers of migration from outer islands to main islands; and reviewing the policy and investment options for fostering the socio-economic development of outer islands populations. This overview summarizes the main findings in five parts. First, the authors present the objectives and outline of the full report. This is followed by a section which explains how the PICs' external and internal geography are key determinants of socio-economic development outcomes and spatial inequalities. The third part presents data on spatial inequality with respect to a range of socio-economic indicators, public services, connectivity, and migration. In the fourth part, the authors discuss interactions between geographic dispersion and key political economy issues that shape spatial economic policy decisions and outcomes. The report concludes with a summary of policy options for dealing with the development challenges arising from geographic dispersion.

Labor Markets --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Migration --- Poverty Reduction --- Public Sector Development --- Public Service Delivery --- Social Protections and Labor --- Urbanization

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This paper defines three new indicators that capture the remoteness of local communities within a country context and the overall scale of population dispersion and settlement sparsity across a country. The paper also exploits the World Bank's subnational geography database to estimate the geographical scale of population dispersion and dispersion-adjusted population sparsity for 100 countries around the world. The new indicators are evaluated and explored for several Pacific Island countries, which are often characterized as being remote (in a global context) and highly dispersed. However, within each Pacific Island country, there is enormous variation in the remoteness of individual communities and the extent to which communities are clustered or dispersed from one another, and these conditions can be related to communities' socioeconomic characteristics. The results reflect this. The paper empirically contextualizes the settlement patterns evident in the Pacific Island countries within a broader global context, highlighting the extreme degree of population sparsity in the Pacific, relative to all the other countries that are assessed.

Economic Development --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Pacific Island Countries --- Population Dispersion --- Population Distribution --- Population Sparsity --- Remoteness

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Education --- Educational accountability --- Lesson planning

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This paper examines spending plans suggested by the recent literature regarding Dutch disease and examines their implications to Niger relative to its expanding mineral sector. The key to the benefits of significant mineral revenue lies with the productivity and supply responses of spending. If significant output gain is ensured, then there is little difference across the spending plans in their effects on real consumption. The overshooting of relative prices of the non-tradable sector or the shrinking share of traded sectors in gross domestic product is also ameliorated with greater supply flexibility. Growth paths of alternative spending strategies differ markedly in timing and pattern when spending does not raise productivity. As a caution against expectations that exaggerate the benefits of mineral revenue under all circumstances, the more aggressive spending plan may result in a boom-bust cycle if fiscal adjustments and debt repayments are necessary for any significant borrowing against future revenue and productivity gains are not realized. Using extractive industries revenue for transfers to households would have a greater effect on poverty reduction in the short and medium term but the long-run gains from investment in human and physical capital are likely to offset the initial lack of pro-poor bias. Different strategies differ significantly with regard to risks and required technical implementation capacity and political capacity to sustain a chosen course of action.

Banks & Banking Reform --- Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) Models --- Currencies and Exchange Rates --- Debt Markets --- Dutch Disease --- Economic Development --- Economic Theory & Research --- Emerging Markets --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Poverty Reduction --- Spending Strategies