world bank publications us (Over 1,500 results)

Paperback. Condition: New. The global development community is increasingly recognizing the need to better manage for results, to implement development assistance to achieve results on the ground. This in turn has highlighted the strategic value of performance information at the operational level. The challenges are to provide quality and timely information for decision-making at critical points, and to help development practitioners incorporate the use of outcome information into their business practices. Evaluative exercises help meet these challenges by providing information on outcomes achieved, examining the relevance of strategies to development impacts, underscoring good practices, and supporting and informing operations. Self-assessment of development strategies and interventions is a powerful tool in planning and managing for results, as it provides critical and timely performance information. Self-Assessment in Managing for Results provides some of the tools for a systematic analytical evaluative process that improves planning and management.Bringing inquiry concepts, process, and practice closer to the users, this title is a must have for any development practitioner interested in better understanding and documenting the results of development aid on the ground.

Paperback. Condition: New. Higher Education Financing in the New EU Member States summarizes the experiences to date of the new EU countries (the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia - the EU8) in the reform of higher education systems in a period of growing demand; changing patters of access; rapid expansion and increased participation rates; and an apparent dilution of average quality. The study discusses the growing experience with a variety of financing mechanisms in EU8 countries, drawing on detailed country case studies, and seeks to develop some useful lessons from experience, mindful that each country will continue to develop its own solution based on national priorities.

Paperback. Condition: New. The World Bank has gained significant experience in supporting innovation systems projects. The Bank's role typically has been to facilitate and augment reform efforts through its experiences around the world, playing the role of an ""honest broker"" between the productive and science and technology sectors. This work has enhanced the effectiveness of the design and delivery of services and the sustainability of these activities. The Bank's involvement also ensures that institutional accountability is of high importance. Prudent market tests are applied to the various available interventions and fiscal discipline is imposed on institutions that are in the process of restructuring. Drawing on its experience, the Bank provides the long-term support, advice, and leverage needed during restructuring for institutions that seek to attain greater fiscal independence and to enhance the quality of their services and their contribution to the national economy. Innovation Systems concentrates its analysis on projects financed by the Bank during 1990-2003, together with some successful earlier examples, and reviews some 51 projects involving over USUSD4.2 billion in Bank support.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. A copy that has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. 'Analyzing Banking Risk (2nd edition)' provides a comprehensive overview of topics dealing with the assessment, analysis, and management of financial risks in banking. This book focuses on risk-management principles and stresses that key players in the corporate governance process are accountable for managing the different dimensions of financial risk. This second edition remains faithful to the objectives of the original publication ('Analyzing Banking Risk'). A significant new addition is the inclusion of chapters on the management of the treasury function and management of a stable liquidity investment portfolio. New material also consists of a discussion of proprietary trading activities and asset management liability components. Chapters include: â?¢ Organization of the Treasury Function â?¢ Investment/Stable Portfolio Management â?¢ Proprietary Trading/Market Risk Management â?¢ Asset-Liability Management Components â?¢ Key Players in the Corporate Governance and Risk Management Process â?¢ Transparency in the Financial Statements of Banks Managing the risks associated with the banking industry today has become more difficult. The approach used in this publication provides a framework for identifying the key players in the risk-management process and discussing their accountability for the various dimensions of the financial and other risk management processes. The hardcover edition includes a CD-ROM.

Paperback. Condition: New. Telecommunications sector policy-makers and regulators have a wide range of instruments available to them that can be used to increase access to telecommunications services in rural and low-income areas. The paper provides a review of these instruments, evaluating them against a set of criteria. It then goes on to identify a number of them that are worthy of further consideration by policy-makers and regulators while demonstrating that the effectiveness of the identified instruments can be greatly enhanced by the establishment of a conducive legal, regulatory and institutional framework. The paper concludes by confirming that while no single instrument taken in isolation can provide a full solution to universal access, a mix of the measures identified can be devised to achieve specific policy objectives in a particular country environment.

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Paperback. Condition: New. Examining innovative ways to address Africa's infrastructure deficit is at the heart of this analysis. Africa's infrastructure stock and quality is among the least developed in the world, a challenge that significantly hinders economic development. It is estimated that the finance required to raise infrastructure in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) to a reasonable level within the next decade is at US$93 billion per year, with two-thirds of this amount needed for capital expenditures. With the existing spending on infrastructure being estimated at US$45 billion per annum and after accounting for potential efficiency gains that could amount to US$17 billion, Africa's infrastructure funding gap remains around US$31 billion a year. One approach to address this challenge is by facilitating the increase of private provision of public infrastructure services through public-private partnerships (PPPs). This approach, which is a relatively new arrangement in SSA is multifaceted and requires strong consensus and collaboration across both public and private sectors. There are several defined models of PPPs.Each type differs in terms of government participation levels, risk allocations, investment responsibilities, operational requirements, and incentives for operators. Our definition of PPPs assumes transactions where the private sector retains a considerable portion of commercial and financial risks associated with a project. In more descriptive terms, among the elements defining the notion of PPPs discussed in this study are: a long-term contract between a public and private sector party; the design, construction, financing, and operation of public infrastructure by the private sector; payment over the life of the PPP contract to the private sector party for the services delivered from the asset; and the facility remaining in public ownership or reverting to public sector ownership at the end of the PPP contract. The observations and policy recommendations that follow draw on ongoing World Bank Group PPP engagements in these countries, including extensive consultations with key public and private sector stakeholders involved in designing, financing, and implementing PPPs.The study is structured around the most inhibiting constraints to developing PPPs, as shared by all six countries.

Paperback. Condition: New. "What do we mean when we say participatory communication? What are the practical implications of working with participatory communication strategies in development and social change processes? What experiences exists in practice that documents that participatory communication adds value to a development project or programme?The aim of this user guide on participatory communication is to provide answers to some of these questions. Many communication practitioners and development workers face obstacles and challenges in their practical work. A participatory communication strategy offers a very specific perspective on how to articulate social processes, decision-making processes and any change process for that matter. Participatory approaches are nothing new. However, what is new is the proliferation of institutions, especially governmental but also non-governmental, that seek participatory approaches in their development initiative. This guide seeks to provide perspectives, tools and experiences regarding how to go about it with participatory communication strategies. It is conceived as a guide that hopefully can be of relevance and utility for development workers in the field.It is targeted at both at government and their officials, World Bank staff and at civil society.".

Paperback. Condition: New. There has been a burgeoning of public-private partnerships in different parts of the world. The partnerships differ in form and structure, in the extent of public and private participation, and in the forms of their engagement. The essays in this volume are written mainly from the perspective of providers. They provide valuable insights into the purpose, trend and impact of public-private partnerships in different parts of the world, as well as an understanding of the barriers they face.

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Paperback. Condition: New. Migrant remittances provide the most tangible link between migration and development, having significant potential to reduce poverty and spur socioeconomic development. Drawing on the findings from responses to a survey conducted in 2008-09 from 114 central banks worldwide (of which 33 are in Africa), this paper aims to better understand how central banks and other national institutions regulate and collect data and other information on cross-border remittance flows. Findings indicate that, although the vast majority of countries, in both sending and receiving countries, collect data on remittances, and 43 percent of receiving countries estimate informal remittances, there is a need for more frequent and better coordinated data collection, both across national institutions and among different divisions within the same national institution, as well as between countries. Countries must take into account new channels and technologies, such as mobile phone service providers, in monitoring remittance flows, as the survey results indicate that many new market entrants?? transfer activities are unregulated.It will be important for national regulatory authorities to work closely with mobile telecoms network operators to strike the right regulatory balance, to better understand these new channels?? associated risks and fully tap their potential for fostering inexpensive, efficient remittance transfer services. Policy reforms and initiatives are needed to address the high cost of transfers, cited in the survey as the top factor inhibiting migrants from using formal channels. Building further on the recent progress by many countries, particularly in Africa, in rendering exclusivity contracts illegal would help increase competitiveness and reduce transfer costs.

Paperback. Condition: New. These reports have been published with the approval of the subject government to communicate the results of the Bank's work on the economic and related conditions of member countries to governments and to the development community. Broad-based growth is one of the four pillars of the Nicaraguan Government's Poverty Reduction Strategy. Living standards of the rural poor will continue to depend largely upon agriculture. This study takes stock of major developments in Nicaragua's agricultural sector and argues that broad-based growth can be promoted by strengthening agricultural competitiveness. Export growth is the key, requiring immediate action within a coherent strategy. The case for coffee is used to illustrate the proposed strategy. The study also identifies productivity constraints in rural factor markets, suggesting medium- and long-term solutions. The study reviews the issue of risk management and concludes with descriptions of some promising pilot projects.

Paperback. Condition: New. Regional economic development is an interest of policymakers throughout the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region. One of its principal aims is to reduce poverty in lagging regions by stimulating local economic growth. However, problems exist with this approach. First, it may miss the target. Although geographical concentrations of poverty exist, poor people also live in regions that are - on average - rich. Second, the sources of the problem may be misdiagnosed. Poverty is not only related to where people are, but to who people are. In ECA, poverty is associated with low levels of education and people who are too young or too old to participate in the labor force.Under these circumstances, efforts to bring higher wage employment opportunities to poor regions may have little immediate benefit for the people who live there. Third, relying on regional economic development to address poverty in lagging regions ignores the potential role of migration. The emigration of labor, rather than the immigration of capital, may be a more effective means of reducing the poverty of individuals in lagging regions, though this is unlikely to eliminate pockets of poverty quickly.Development opportunities may exist in poor regions that markets have overlooked. Interventions must be assessed carefully. Some of the traditional instruments used to stimulate regional economic growth have mixed track records. Comprehensive custom-tailored approaches appear to be a promising alternative. However, governments should be modest in using regional development as a tool of poverty reduction. Policies aimed at stimulating growth in poor regions should be complemented by more direct anti-poverty measures, including targeted transfers and investments in education, and efforts to remove barriers to emigration.

Paperback. Condition: New. This 200 page companion to ""Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries, 2nd edition (DCP2)"" makes the larger body of work readily accessible to policymakers and a wider non-technical audience by synthesizing the larger works major themes and findings. Via this companion volume, policy makers, practitioners, academics, and the interested public can learn about DCP2's main messages, gain an understanding of its principal methods of analysis, appreciate the scope of diseases and issues covered, and are alerted to chapters of immediate interest.

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Paperback. Condition: New. Beyond its terrible toll in human lives and suffering, the Ebola epidemic has inflicted a measurable economic impact on West Africa in terms of forgone output, higher fiscal deficits, rising prices, lower real household incomes, and greater poverty. This impact results partly from the health-care costs and forgone productivity associated with being infected, but it is driven principally by the efforts of the uninfected population to avoid exposure ('aversion behavior'). The Economic Impact of the 2014 Ebola Epidemic: Short- and Medium-Term Estimates for West Africa provides a mixed methods analysis of the economic impact, combining theory on the channels of economic impact of the epidemic, economic indicators across sectors in the affected countries, and models of how these economies interact with each other and with the broader world. The result is a quantification of the potential overall magnitude of the economic impact for Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, as well as for West Africa as a whole.Ebola's short-term economic impact (2014) in the three core countries is on the order of US$359 million in forgone output: That is how much poorer these economies will be than they would have been in the absence of Ebola. Two alternative scenarios are used to estimate the medium-term impact (2015): A Low Ebola scenario corresponds to rapid containment within the three most severely affected countries and limited regional contagion, and a High Ebola scenario corresponds to slower containment in the three core countries with broader regional contagion. The estimates of the output lost as a result of the epidemic in the three core countries for 2015 alone sum to US$97 million under the Low Ebola scenario (implying some recovery from 2014) and US$809 million under the High Ebola scenario.Over the medium term, however, epidemiological and economic contagion are likely in the broader sub-region of West Africa. This report uses a multi-country general equilibrium model to estimate the medium-term impact on output for West Africa as a whole. Under the Low Ebola scenario, the loss in GDP for the sub-region is estimated to be US$2.2 billion in 2014 and US$1.6 billion in 2015. Under the High Ebola scenario, the estimates are US$7.4 billion in 2014 and US$25.2 billion in 2015. These are major regional impacts with global implications.This report will be of particular interest to policy makers and others interested in understanding the broader impact of the Ebola epidemic and in assisting with the subsequent economic recovery.

Paperback. Condition: New. This book discusses the issues and steps involved in building a lifelong learning system in China, including: a coherent policy framework, a sound incentive and institutional framework, a sound regulatory environment, a coordinated governance process, a timely and reliable management information system, a dynamic link with the evolving global system, and the optimal use of limited resources.

Paperback. Condition: New. This book examines Haiti's conflict-poverty trap from the perspective of demographic and socioeconomic factors, the state's institutional capacity to provide public goods, and the strategies of political actors. The report's three main sections explore the nature of these components, and a closing section considers the linkages among them.

Paperback. Condition: New. HIV/AIDS is generating a major humanitarian crisis for families in Sub-Saharan Africa. The number of children who have lost one or both parents to AIDS is expected to rise to 35 million by 2010. Rolling back decades of progress in social development, HIV/AIDS has become a major constraint in the fight against poverty. Many African countries are also suffering from civil unrest and post-conflict situations resulting in more orphans and/or displaced children. Reaching Out to Africa's Orphans makes a substantial contribution to our understanding of the many risks and vulnerabilities faced by orphans and the ameliorating role played by the actions of governments and donors. It brings together the admittedly limited evidence from interventions on behalf of orphans with a view to advancing our knowledge on what works and what does not in mitigating the risks faced by orphans and enhancing capacities of communities to address this problem. Juxtaposing the risks and needs of orphans against the effectiveness (including cost-effectiveness) of care-giving arrangements, the study addresses issues bearing on how to scale up the more promising of interventions. The authors draw several important conclusions on the strengths and weaknesses of various programs, targeting methods and their implications, and in particular highlight the gaps in our knowledge with respect to the cost-effectiveness of interventions and the potential incentive effects of orphan care. Considering that resources are limited and the problem is immense, the study rightly underscores the need for coordination of efforts among all agencies seeking to respond to the crisis.

Paperback. Condition: New. This Study explores arguments about the impact of climate change on human rights, examining the international legal frameworks governing human rights and climate change and identifying the relevant synergies and tensions between them. It considers arguments about (i) the human rights impacts of climate change at a macro level and how these impacts are spread disparately across countries; (ii) how climate change impacts human rights enjoyment within states and the equity and discrimination dimensions of those disparate impacts; and (iii) the role of international legal frameworks and mechanisms, including human rights instruments, particularly in the context of supporting developing countries' adaptation efforts. The Study surveys the interface of human rights and climate change from the perspective of public international law. It builds upon the work that has been carried out on this interface by reviewing the legal issues it raises and complementing existing analyses by providing a comprehensive legal overview of the area and a focus on obligations upon States and other actors connected with climate change. The objective has therefore been to contribute to the global debate on climate change and human rights by offering a review of the legal dimensions of this interface as well as a survey of the sources of public international law potentially relevant to climate change and human rights in order to facilitate an understanding of what is meant, in legal terms, by "human rights impacts of climate change" and help identify ways in which international law can respond to this interaction. This is a complex and dynamically evolving legal and policy landscape and this study aims to capture its most salient features insofar as they appear at present. The Study employs the following three-part conceptual understanding of the links between human rights and climate change. First, climate change may affect the enjoyment of human rights: this is explored in part II and draws from the existing work of the United Nations (UN) Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the UN Human Rights Council and the International Council on Human Rights Policy. Second, measures to address climate change may impact the realization of human rights. This is a subset of the discussion of "impacts" targeting "secondary" human rights impacts of measures aimed at addressing climate change. Third, human rights have relevance to policy and operational responses to climate change, such that human rights obligations (both substantive and procedural) may be relevant to the design and implementation of effective responses to climate change, particularly in relation to adaptation and to some extent also to mitigation. Human rights may also have a role in promoting resilience to climate change and may reinforce sustainable development goals. The Study includes a number of approaches from connecting climate change to specific human rights impacts under international human r.

Paperback. Condition: New. Land-based financing of urban infrastructure is growing in importance in the developing world. Why is it so difficult to finance urban infrastructure investment, when land values typically increase by more than the cost of investment? ""Unlocking Land Values to Finance Urban Infrastructure"" examines the theory underlying different instruments of land-based finance, such as betterment levies, developer exactions, impact fees, and the exchange of publicly owned land assets for infrastructure. It provides a wealth of case-study illustrations of how different land-based financing tools have been implemented, and the lessons learned from these experiences. This practical guide is designed to help expand the role of land-based financing in urban capital budgets in a way that strengthens urban infrastructure finance and urban land markets.

Paperback. Condition: New. The Little Data Book on Information and Communication Technology 2017 illustrates the progress of this revolution for 217 economies around the world. It provides comparable statistics on the sector for 2005 and 2015 across a range of indicators, enabling readers to readily compare economies.

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Paperback. Condition: New. Human rights indicators are central to the application of human rights standards in context and relate essentially to measuring human rights realization, both qualitatively and quantitatively, connecting human rights obligations with empirical data and evidence.

Paperback. Condition: New. The Little Data Book on Private Sector Development 2016 provides country tables on aspects of private sector development, accompanied by summary pages by region and by income group aggregates.

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