The World Bank - Böcker

The main purpose of the Secondary Education in Africa (SEIA) -TRANSE study has been to identify and analyze measures that may lead to more efficient and equitable transitions in secondary education. These measures are on the one hand aiming at improving the structure and increasing the capacity of secondary education, and on the other hand to facilitate the individuals' possibilities to enter and to succeed in secondary education. Measures may be implemented at the national, regional or local level. The author especially focuses on measures like: (a) Financial (expansion of capacity, improvement of infrastructure, support to students); (b) Provisions (attractiveness and relevance, volume, location, quality and support, selection mechanisms); (c) Counseling; (d) PTA (parent teacher associations) and other local community and school relations; and (e) Reducing factors that are hindering youth to enter or to stay in schools. This paper synthesizes the findings of the country studies, highlighting the factors contributing to more equitable and efficient transitions in secondary education, and offers conclusions and recommendations.

Economic and social changes, fast evolution of technology, and the growing importance of internet services and international communications-all these require secondary education providers to adapt what is taught and learned in schools. However, in Africa the content of secondary curricula is in most cases ill-adapted to 21st century challenges, where young people are mobile, have access to "more and instant information," and face health threats such as HIV/AIDS. In addition, implementation problems exist, and the time for instruction is often much less then what is required by the prescribed secondary curriculum. In Africa there is a need to develop a secondary education curriculum adapted to the local economic and social environment, but with international-comparable performance indicators. This study analyses that challenge: the quality of curricula and assessment, and their development processes in secondary education in Africa against the background of existing contexts, conditions, and ambitions on the one hand and current pedagogical thinking on the other.

Under its Health in Africa Initiative, IFC intended to conduct a country assessment of the private health sector in Mali, working in close collaboration with the World Bank and the Government of Mali. The Core objective of the Mali Country Assessment Report was to work closely with the Government of Mali and Development partners to develop recommendations for a reform program to strengthen the existing policy framework for the public-private interface in the health sector and to improve the delivery of health related goods and services for all Malians. As part of this, the purpose of the book was to: determine the role the private sector currently plays in Mali's health care system; present a diagnoses of the nature and effectiveness of the existing interface between the public and private sectors in Mali, health system constraints, as well as the business enabling and investment environment; assist the World Bank Group to engage in policy dialogue with stakeholders in Mali's health care system, and particularly with public officials and policy makers; and help develop detailed recommendations for the Government of Mali with policy makers and key stakeholders.

The overall objective of this comprehensive report is to consider Rwanda's budget support in the context of its overall public expenditure and resources.The report reviews the country's general budget support relevance, rationale, and outstanding challenges by providing a historical background of budget support; assesses progress in budget support related processes and practices; reviews economic and structural reforms and budget support predictability trends; assesses the net resources available to the government of Rwanda and how these resources have been utilised; provides a review of resource allocations and spending among the government's ministries, including its transfers to districts breaking down public expenditures according to the structure of the Organic Budget Law; summarises in-depth studies undertaken in the agriculture, education, health, social protection, infrastructure (water and sanitation, energy and transport sectors) with the objective to provide a consolidation of data to enhance the understanding of the country's overall public expenditure, to help put each independent sector-specific analysis into the context of the overall budget allocation considerations, and to enhance the overall priority-sector analysis; provides a snapshot of non-priority sectors between 2004 and 2007; and finally addressing outstanding challenges and offering concluding remarks.

The World Bank, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Research Institute, and the Foundation for Advanced Studies on International Development (FASID), in collaboration with researchers affiliated with the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), recently conducted a study on Africa’s domestic enterprises to improve the understanding of the constraints micro and small enterprises in Africa face in improving productivity and expanding their markets.In Africa, there are stark performance gaps between domestically owned enterprises and foreign-owned enterprises in terms of sales performance, productivity, and ability to reach distant markets. Among others, size appears to be a dominant factor in explaining the gap. Against this background, the study analyzes how naturally formed industrial clusters - concentrations of enterprises engaged in same or closely related industrial activities in specific locations - could potentially mitigate constraints Africa’s micro and small enterprises face and enhance their business performance. The study is one of the first comprehensive quantitative inquiries on industrial clusters in Africa.The analysis specifically focuses on the role of spontaneously grown clusters of light manufacturing industries based on a set of original case studies of industrial clusters conducted for this research project. One of the key findings from the case studies was that cluster-based micro and small enterprises are performing better than similar micro and small enterprises outside of the clusters in terms of sales performance and ability to reach distant markets. Market access is a leading reason for cluster-based enterprises to choose their current locations.However, cluster-based enterprises face another set of unique growth constraints. By the very nature of spontaneous agglomeration, new enterprises continue to flow to the clusters seeking the profit opportunities and better access to markets at such locations. The result can be intense competition in addition to increased congestion. Space constraints often impede growth within clusters. The lack of alternative locations available for industrial activities in the same cities, generic infrastructure bottlenecks, and unclear zoning policies and their unpredictable changes limit firms’ location choices and constrain their mobility. While competition should improve efficiency, lack of capacity among those competing cluster-based enterprises to invest and innovate does not generate growth out of the competition. The vast majority of naturally formed clusters of light manufacturing industries in Africa are still at a “survival” level, where agglomeration externalities are only limited to expand quantity but not quality as we observe in more advanced innovation-oriented clusters in elsewhere in the world.Existing studies on such natural industrial clusters in Africa have found that the lack of managerial skills among entrepreneurs running micro and small enterprises is a major constraint for innovation and growth in the clusters. As a part of this study, pilot managerial skills training programs were conducted in two industrial clusters on an experimental basis, where a group of randomly selected entrepreneurs within the clusters were given three-week long crush course of based management such as bookkeeping, marketing, business planning, and production management. The impact evaluation of the experiments showed significant positive impacts of the training programs on value added and gross profits of enterprises.Raising the current survival-type industrial clusters, which have been formed as a coping mechanism to weak investment climate, into more dynamic innovating clusters will be an important avenue for fostering growth of micro and small enterprises in Africa. While national efforts to improve investment climate and investments in human capital are undoubtedly important, there could be more targeted policies to be formulated, in complementing general policies, to support growth of micro and small domestic enterprises using existing industrial clusters as a natural springboard for their growth. In that context, the study discusses the merit of cluster-based managerial human capital development to build steps toward more innovation-oriented clusters, the importance of sound spatial planning policy, particularly at the local level in the context of urban planning, the need to expand market access and economic linkages for industrial clusters including regional integration and linkages with large enterprises.

Historically countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia have faced a number of obstacles in their transition to democracy and market-based economies. These obstacles include higher levels of corruption, and greater administrative and regulatory burdens as they pass laws and implement programs to combat corruption and promote private sector development. This report uses the results of the most recent Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) to examine trends in corruption and administrative burden of regulations on private sector firms in 29 Eastern European and Central Asian countries. The results show overall positive trends in the Eastern Europe and Central Asian region in terms of incidence of corruption and the burden placed on private sector firms by administrative and other regulations.The most notable and definitive finding from the 2008 BEEPS is a continuation in the favourable trend regarding firms’ payment of administrative bribes. Across the region, there has been progress made in the perceptions of bribery and unofficial payments. Frequency of bribe-paying fell significantly in the areas of taxes, customs and imports and courts, for the region overall and in most countries. The report examines several factors that influence the level of administrative corruption, including regulatory burden, strength of anti-corruption legislation, and income (among others). Results show that countries with greater capacity to enforce and implement anti-corruption measures are less likely to have high levels of corruption and incidence of graft. The results presented in the report show that countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia are no longer facing higher corruption or regulatory burden than firms in comparable non-transition countries.

Research, education, and extension investments, while usually necessary, are often insufficient alone to bring knowledge, technologies, and services that enable farmers and entrepreneurs to innovate. Efforts to strengthen research systems and increase the availability of knowledge have not increased innovation or the use of knowledge in agriculture at the pace or the scale required by the intensifying and proliferating challenges confronting agriculture. Agricultural Innovation Systems: An Investment Sourcebook contributes to the identification, design, and implementation of the investments, approaches, and complementary interventions most likely to strengthen agricultural innovation systems (AIS) and to promote innovation and equitable growth. The Sourcebook provides a menu of tools and operational guidance, as well as good practice lessons, to illustrate approaches to designing, investing in, and improving these systems.Managing the ability of agriculture to meet rising global demand and to respond to the changes and opportunities will require good policy, sustained investments, and innovation - not business as usual. Experience indicates that aside from a strong capacity in R&D, the ability to innovate is often related to collective action and coordination, exchange of knowledge among diverse actors, incentives and resources available to form partnerships and develop business, and an enabling environment. While consensus is developing about what is meant by 'innovation' and 'innovation system,' no detailed blueprint exists for making agricultural innovation happen at a given time, in a given place, for a given result. That said, the AIS approach, which looks at these multiple conditions and relationships that promote innovation in agriculture in specific contexts, has moved from a concept to a subdiscipline with principles of analysis and action.Drawing on approaches that have been tested at different scales in different settings, this Sourcebook emphasizes the lessons learned, benefits and impacts, implementation issues, and prospects for replicating or expanding successful practices.The Sourcebook reflects the experiences and evolving understanding of numerous individuals and organizations concerned with agricultural innovation, including the World Bank. It targets the key operational staff who design and implement lending projects in international and regional development agencies and national governments, as well as the practitioners who design thematic programs and technical assistance packages. The Sourcebook can also be an important resource for the research community and nongovernmental organizations.

Despite India’s record of rapid economic growth and poverty reduction over recent decades, rising inequality in the country has been a subject of concern among policy makers, academics, and activists alike.Poverty and Social Exclusion in India focuses on social exclusion, which has its roots in India’s historical divisions along lines of caste, tribe, and the excluded sex, that is, women. These inequalities are more structural in nature and have kept entire groups trapped, unable to take advantage of opportunities that economic growth offers. Culturally rooted systems perpetuate inequality, and, rather than a culture of poverty that afflicts disadvantaged groups, it is, in fact, these inequality traps that prevent these groups from breaking out. Combining rigorous quantitative research with a discussion of these underlying processes, this book finds that exclusion can be explained by inequality in opportunities, inequality in access to markets, and inequality in voice and agency.This report will be of interest to policy makers, development practitioners, social scientists, and academics working to foster equality in India.

While economic theory considers technological progress to be a key factor for sustained long-term economic growth and job creation, technology absorption is particularly an important driver for 'catch-up growth.' This study seeks to identify channels of technology transfer and absorption for Southern African enterprises, constraints to greater technology absorption, and discuss policy options open to governments and the private sector in light of relevant international experience. It has been done based on sector and enterprise case studies carried in four countries: South Africa, Mauritius, Lesotho and Namibia. This study uses a combination of econometric and in depth case study analyses to investigate the presence of specific channels of absorption and the various constraints that the firms face to effectively absorb this technology. There is evidence of learning by exporting, and spillovers from FDI underscoring the importance of trade and FDI as important channels of absorption. The study finds that four countries while open to trade and FDI face a number of constraints that inhibit them from maximizing the economic benefits from technology absorption.These constraints include a major skills mismatch, insufficient research and development and ineffective industry-research linkages. While outlining broad policy directions in four areas namely increasing skills supply, fostering learning through trade, increasing domestic spillovers from FDI and incentivising greater firm level research and development, it lays out some priority areas for each of the four countries. We hope that the issues discussed and the dialogue initiated during the course of this study would lend itself to policy design to foster technology absorption with a view to higher growth and job creation in this highly globalised world.

The countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have been recovering from the global financial crisis, but the recent political turmoil has interrupted the pace of credit and output recovery in many countries. The political turmoil in the MENA region reveals deep-seated frustrations and a sense of political, social, and economic exclusion, especially among the youth. The relatively weak growth performance reflects a combination of insufficient reforms and weak reform implementation, including financial sector reforms. The structural weaknesses of financial sectors imply that access to finance may remain restricted even with a full recovery of credit activity. Therefore, the region's countries face an ambitious reform agenda to revert two decades of relatively poor performance of output and employment growth. Financial development should be a central component of the region's growth agenda. This study reviews the region's financial systems, the severity of the limitations on access to finance, and the main factors behind such limitations. It goes on to provide a road map for expanding access and preserving financial stability.

The Government of Sudan has made great efforts in increasing access to education for children in northern Sudan across education sub-sectors over the past decade. In particular, educational access for children in areas previously affected by conflict has improved substantially since the signing of the peace agreements of 2005 and 2006. Estimates suggest that, on average, 90 percent of all children in northern Sudan had access to a formal school in 2010. However, inequities in access to schooling by gender and location persist. There continues to be regional disparities in access to education by children in rural areas, with girls facing the greatest disadvantage in terms of access to schooling. The challenges ahead relate not only to reducing these inequities in access, but in improving the efficiency of the education system to produce young adults equipped with the skills and knowledge to secure their livelihoods and contribute towards society. If northern Sudan is to achieve its target of Education for All, it needs to focus not only on enrolling all children, but on keeping them in school and creating an environment which facilitates learning.The critical constraints facing the efficiency of the system in northern Sudan include; the large number of drop-outs both at basic and secondary levels; ineffective deployment of teachers across schools (and the inability to attract teachers to remote schools); insufficient resources (particularly textbooks) for children in schools; and inadequate instructional time.

Education in South Sudan: Status and Challenges for a New System. As part of the Country Status Report series, this book provides a comprehensive review of the status of education in post-conflict South Sudan. With the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005 began the establishment of a new education system specifically for South Sudan. Primary school enrollments approximately doubled between 2005 and 2009 from 0.7 million to 1.4 million; yet, the recent rapid growth has resulted in a concentration of students in the early grades, a high proportion of overage students, repetition and dropout

South Asia has created nearly 800,000 jobs per month during the last decade. Robust economic growth in large parts of the region has created better jobs -- those that pay higher wages for wage workers and reduce poverty for the self-employed, the largest segment of the region’s employed. Going forward, South Asia faces the enormous challenge of absorbing 1 to 1.2 million entrants to the labor force every month for the next two decades at rising levels of productivity. This calls for an agenda that cuts across sectors and includes improving the reliability of electricity supply for firms in both urban and rural settings, dealing decisively with issues of governance and corruption, making access to land easier for urban informal firms and strengthening transport links between rural firms and their markets. It requires improving nutrition in early childhood to avoid cognitive impairment, intensifying the focus on quality of learning in education systems, equipping workers with the skills that employers demand, and reorienting labor market regulations and programs to protect workers rather than jobs. The continuance of high economic growth to help improve job quality is not assured. But the region’s demography can provide a favorable tailwind. The growth of workers exceeds that of dependents in much of the region. The resources saved from having fewer dependents can be shifted to high-priority investments in physical and human capital accumulation necessary to create productive jobs in countries with an enabling policy framework. But the demographic window of opportunity is open for only the next three decades, a fact which lends urgency to the reform agenda. This book will be of interest to policy makers, their advisers, researchers and students of economics who seek solutions, not only to the challenge of creating more and better jobs in South Asia but globally as well. It is the first title in South Asia Development Matters,a new series that will serve as a vehicle for in-depth synthesis of economic and policy analysis on key development topics for South Asia.

Global Development Finance 2012: External Debt of Developing Countries is a continuation of the World Bank’s publications Global Development Finance, Volume II (1997 through 2009) and the earlier World Debt Tables (1973 through 1996). As in previous years, GDF 2012 provides statistical tables showing the external debt of 129 developing countries that report public and publicly guaranteed external debt to the World Bank’s Debtor Reporting System (DRS). It also includes tables of key debt ratios for individual reporting countries and the composition of external debt stocks and flows for individual reporting countries and regional and income groups along with some graphical presentations. GDF 2012 draws on a database maintained by the World Bank External Debt (WBXD) system. Longer time series and more detailed data are available from the Global Development Finance 2012 on CD-ROM and the World Bank open databases, which contain more than 200 time series indicators, covering the years 1970 to 2010 for most reporting countries, and pipeline data for scheduled debt service payments on existing commitments to 2018. The database covers external debt stocks and flows, major economic aggregates, and key debt ratios, as well as average terms of new commitments, currency composition of long-term debt, and debt restructuring in greater detail than can be included in the GDF book. The CD-ROM also contains the full contents of the print version of GDF 2012. Text providing country notes, definitions, and source information is linked to each table. World Bank open databases are available through the World Bank’s website, http:// www.worldbank.org. Global Development Finance 2012: External Debt of Developing Countries is unique in its coverage of the important trends and issues fundamental to the financing of the developing world. This report is an indispensable resource for governments, economists, investors, financial consultants, academics, bankers, and the entire development community.

The government of the Republic of Congo is taking a system approach to reorganizing its health system. It is endeavoring to create a political, juridical, and regulatory environment to foster the development of its health care services under government leadership working with the private sector

Homelessness had become a social problem that was primarily not about solving the nation's housing crisis. The pressing question becomes: How (and why) did homelessness become the social problem in its own right, one that was only tangentially related to the problem of inappropriate or insufficient housing? Why, when people demanded that something be done about homelessness, did they get specific policies and unintended outcomes? Cynthia Bogard is not content with the shorthand answers that rested on bias and ideology, such as ""conservative politics bred conservative policies"" or ""American individualism precludes government investment in housing."" This did not explain homelessness sufficiently, especially given all the advocacy and research that had occurred in the 1980s and 1990s. Examining these ""claimsmaking activities,"" as constructionists call them, however, is a daunting task because the activities engaged in by people in the attempt to persuade others are fluid, subtle, and complicated as are the responses to these social actions. This raised a second set of issues that the author is concerned with: How can we adequately represent and sociologically examine this very complicated human activity of social problems construction? Who does the construction, and to what effect? Bogard's answer to these questions is a book that can be read in two ways and on multiple levels. For those who are interested in the story of the career of homelessness as a social problem in America's two ""national"" cities, the book should be read from the beginning through the conclusion as a straight narrative. The technical matter in the appendix can be ignored. But for those readers with an interest in social problems constructionism, however, this book is meant as a ""cook-book"" of sorts. Each chapter emphasizes a feature of constructionism, such as an important group of claims makers or an important aspect of the claims making process. The work highlights a major feature in advanced societies: the intersection of interests and claims. Social constructions may be real, but they are comprised of no less real social interests. The work marks a real departure and advance over the original formulations of construction theory in social research. Cynthia J. Bogard is associate professor of sociology at Hofstra University.

As the global population heads toward 9 billion by 2050, decisions made today will lock countries into growth patterns that may or may not be sustainable in the future. Care must be taken to ensure that cities and roads, factories and farms are designed, managed, and regulated as efficiently as possible to wisely use natural resources while supporting the robust growth developing countries still need. Economic development during the next two decades cannot mirror the previous two: poverty reduction remains urgent but growth and equity can be pursued without relying on policies and practices that foul the air, water, and land. Inclusive Green Growth: The Pathway to Sustainable Development makes the case that greening growth is necessary, efficient, and affordable. Yet spurring growth without ensuring equity will thwart efforts to reduce poverty and improve access to health, education, and infrastructure services. Countries must make strategic investments and farsighted policy changes that acknowledge natural resource constraints and enable the world's poorest and most vulnerable to benefit from efficient, clean, and resilient growth. Like other forms of capital, natural assets are limited and require accounting, investment, and maintenance in order to be properly harnessed and deployed. By maximizing co-benefits and avoiding lock-in, by promoting smarter decisions in industry and society, and by developing innovative financing tools for green investment, we can afford to do the things we must.| The poor health of today's roads--a subject close to the hearts of motorists, taxpayers, and government treasurers around the world--has resulted from faulty incentives that misdirect government decision-makers, according to the contributors to Street Smart. During the 1990s, bad government decision-making resulted in the U.S. Interstate Highway System growing by only one seventh the rate of traffic growth. The poor maintenance of existing roads is another concern. In cities around the world, highly political and wasteful government decision-making has led to excessive traffic congestion that has created long commutes, reduced safety, and caused loss of leisure time. Street Smart examines the privatization of roads in theory and in practice. The authors see at least four possible roles for private companies, beyond the well-known one of working under contract to design, build, or maintain governmentally provided roads. These include testing and licensing vehicles and drivers; management of government-owned facilities; franchising; and outright private ownership. Two chapters describe the history of private roads in the United Kingdom and the United States. Contemporary examples are provided of road pricing, privatizing, and contracting out are evident in environs as diverse as Singapore, Southern California, and Scandinavia, and cities as different as Bergen, Norway, and London, England. Finally, several chapters examine strategies for implementing privatization. The principles governing providing scarce resources in free societies are well known. We apply them to such necessities as energy, food, and water so why not to "road space"? The main obstacle to private, or semi-private, ownership of roads is likely to remain the reluctance of the political class to give up a lucrative source of power and influence. Those who want decisions about road services to be controlled by the interplay of consumers and suppliers in free markets, rather than by politicians, will have to explain the need for change. Street Smart makes a powerful case for the need for change and sheds light on the complex issues involved. Gabriel Roth is a transport and privatization consultant and a research fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, California.

Africa Development Indicators 2012/13 is the most detailed collection of data on Africa available. It contains macroeconomic, sectoral, and social indicators for 53 countries. The companion CD-ROM has additional data, with some 1,700 indicators covering 1961-2010. National and fiscal accountsExternal accounts and exchange ratesMillennium Development GoalsPrivate sector developmentTrade and regional integrationInfrastructureAgriculture, rural development, and the environmentLabour, migration, and populationHIV/AIDS and malariaGovernance and policyDesigned as both a quick reference and a reliable dataset for monitoring development programs and aid flows in the region, Africa Development Indicators 2012/13 is an invaluable tool for analysts and policymakers who want a better understanding of Africa's economic and social development.

What conditions determine the success of Medium Term Expenditure Frameworks (MDTFs)? How should the implementation of MTEFs be sequenced and coordinated with other budget reforms? What role should organizations such as the World Bank, bilateral development partners, and other international agencies play in supporting MTEF adoption? How can country authorities implement a new MTEF or strengthen an existing one? Beyond the Annual Budget provides a comprehensive review of global experience with Medium Term Expenditure Frameworks (MTEFs). Looking at countries both with and without MTEFs over the period 1990 to 2008, the authors adopt a systematic methodological approach and rely on multiple analytical techniques—including event studies and econometric analysis—to obtain results about the impact of MTEFs on fiscal performance. The authors then draw on case studies and other material to determine whether MTEFs should be a common element of public financial management systems given differences in country circumstances. Guidance is also provided on the design and implementation of MTEFs in the context of broader public financial management systems reform. This volume will be of interest to multilateral and bilateral providers of technical assistance in the public financial management area, and to country authorities seeking to introduce or strengthen MTEFs.|This study shows how power was constructed, enacted, and contested by discursive and non-discursive strategies and practices. It emphasizes the local and historic divergence of these processes and illustrates how Germans and Africans were able to produce exclusive power arenas but also engaged in a reciprocal extraversion of the respective power of the other.

Societal Dynamics and Fragility aims to address the social dimensions of fragility. Prepared as a complement to the 2011 World Development Report, this book frames fragility as a problem not only of state capacity, but also of relationships in society. Drawing on analytical work in Liberia, Central African Republic, Yemen, Indonesia (Aceh) and Haiti, it recommends placing social cohesion at the center of development efforts in fragile environments by cultivating an in-depth understanding of the societal dynamics at play in each context and adapting programs to address the sources of division that hinder state building. Specifically, the book advocates a focus on perceptions of injustice at least as much as measurable inequalities, and for creating space to facilitate constructive connections between institutions, especially between customary and state structures as well as often-nascent civil society institutions.

The 1997 Bank reforms that introduced the matrix management concept aimed to adapt the organization to changing circumstances and address concerns among external stakeholders about the role of aid in development. The reforms were motivated largely by widespread recognition that the Bank’s development programs were excessively driven by a culture of lending, with insufficient attention to client needs and the quality of results, which are crucial to development effectiveness. A previous round of reforms in 1987 had strengthened the country focus, but quality remained a concern. Furthermore, access of developing countries to development finance from the private sector had increased significantly, leading to a decreasing share of official development aid, including Bank financing, in total flows to developing countries. By the mid-1990s, pressure for change was acute. The 1997 reforms tried to address these challenges through a new set of organizational arrangements, increased decentralization, and matrix management. The most frequent rationale for a matrix structure is to balance competing priorities, combine capabilities for market advantage, share resources for efficiency, and retain flexibility to redeploy resources in the face of changing priorities and a diversified client base. The matrix system - a dual matrix, Bank-wide between the six Regions and four networks, and in each Region between Country Management Units and Sector Management Units - was to be facilitated by dual accountability for technical quality and an internal labor market for staff renewal and mobility. It has been more than a decade since the 1997 reorganization, and concerns that the matrix system is not delivering on its promise persist. This evaluation assesses the extent to which the dual objectives of the matrix system - enhancing client responsiveness and establishing strong technical networks to deliver quality services - have been attained and have enhanced the Bank’s development effectiveness. The evaluation focuses on implementation of the current matrix system rather than on the 1997 matrix design and follows an objectives-based approach to assess the relevance and effectiveness of the matrix reform until 2010. To the extent feasible, the evaluation also examines the efficiency of matrix arrangements.

The unanticipated spike in international food prices in 2007–08 hit many developing countries hard. International prices for food and other agricultural products increased by more than 100 percent between early 2007 and mid–2008. Prices for food cereals more than doubled; and those for rice doubled in the space of just a few months. The food price increases were particularly hard on the poor and near–poor in developing countries, many of whom spend a large share of their income on food and have limited means to cope with price shocks. An estimated 1.29 billion people in 2008 lived on less than $1.25 a day, equivalent to 22.4 percent of the developing world population. In addition, the Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that 923 million people were undernourished in 2007. Simulation models suggested that poverty rose by 100–200 million people and the undernourished increased by 63 million in 2008.The World Bank organized rapidly for short-term support in the crisis, launching a fast-track program of loans and grants, the Global Food Crisis Response Program (GFRP). The GFRP mainly targeted low-income countries, and provided detailed policy advice to governments and its own staff on how to respond to the crisis. The Bank also scaled up lending for agriculture and social protection to support the building of medium-term resilience to future food price shocks. The International Finance Corporation responded by sharply increasing access to liquidity for agribusinesses and agricultural traders in the short and medium term, as well as new programs to improve incentives for agricultural market participants.This evaluation assesses the effectiveness of the World Bank Group response in addressing the short-term impacts of the food price crisis and in enhancing the resilience of countries to future shocks.

Melting glaciers, loss of seasonal snow, and precipitation changes pose significant risks to the stability of water resources in the South Asia region. Glaciers help to moderate river flows in the region's major rivers by providing a source of meltwater in hot, dry years and storing water during colder, wetter years. The dependence on glaciers and snow makes these rivers particularly vulnerable to climate change. In addition to threats from global climate change, black carbon produced and circulated within the region is both increasing the absorption of solar radiation by the glaciers through decreasing the glacier surfaces’ reflectance and raising air temperatures, which also increases melt. In these ways, black carbon is becoming a significant factor in the retreat of some Himalayan glaciers.The purpose of this study is to identify the causes of potential changes to the glacier and snow dynamics in the Himalaya, Karakoram, and Hindu Kush mountain ranges, present scenarios of possible glacier and snow changes under different climate change and black carbon scenarios, and determine implications for water resources within the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra basins. Since changes in regional climates are largely linked to global-scale actions and processes, the response of glaciers and snow changes must be approached in the context of the need to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions; however, there are local actions that may reduce or offset the impacts in the short term. The overall objective is to provide sound analytical underpinnings for policy making, investments, and other initiatives that could be further supported by Bank-financed operations.

IEG's evaluation shows that the World Bank Group remained an important partner for the government in addressing many key policy challenges. The World Bank adapted its program effectively to meet shifting country needs, which shifted to subnational government support in the mid-2000s. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) provided useful advisory support for structuring public-private partnership projects and trade finance during the 2008-09 global financial crisis. The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) concentrated its activities on the electricity transmission subsector.IEG rates the overall outcome of the Bank Group program as moderately satisfactory, with some important variability across themes. The Bank Group made significant contributions when it served as an advisor, providing analytical input and exchanging views on relevant policy issues. Advisory support for structuring public-private partnership projects leveraged IFC's global expertise in project financing. The Bank Group's convening power provided diverse stakeholders with a platform to examine issues and trade-offs that cut across organizational boundaries. In addition, the Bank helped reduce deforestation in the Amazon through support for a major expansion of protected areas and indigenous territories, as well as for building the capacity of national and state environmental agencies.Results were less satisfactory in addressing infrastructure bottlenecks, particularly in logistics and the cost of doing business. These areas remained critical constraints to Brazil's growth and a key government concern. A question regarding the overall country strategy is whether the use of a few very large operations with opportunity cost relative to the IBRD exposure limit was appropriate.The strong demand for Bank Group financial and knowledge support in Brazil is likely to continue. To ensure efficient use of operational resources, the Bank Group must maximize its contribution per dollar loaned and per dollar of Bank Group budget resources. IEG recommends that the Bank Group make catalytic impact a major criterion in the design of its future strategy in Brazil. This means that in selecting the programs and projects to support, the emphasis should be on those with benefits beyond the individual intervention.

Fragile and conflict-affected states (FCS) have become an important focus of World Bank Group assistance in recent years as recognition of the linkages between fragility, conflict, violence, and poverty has grown. Addressing issues of recurring conflict and political violence and helping build legitimate and accountable state institutions are central to the Bank Group's poverty reduction mission.This evaluation assesses the relevance and effectiveness of World Bank Group country strategies and assistance programs to FCS. The operationalization of the World Development Report 2011: Conflict, Security, and Development (2011 WDR) is also assessed, to see how the framework has been reflected in subsequent analytical work, country assistance strategies, and the assistance programs. The evaluation framework was derived from the concepts and priorities articulated in recent WDRs, policy papers, and progress reports issued by Bank Group management, to draw lessons from FCS. The framework is organized around the three major themes emerging from the 2011 WDR: building state capacity, building capacity of citizens, and promoting inclusive growth and jobs.The evaluation focuses on International Development Association (IDA)-only countries, which are deemed to have certain characteristics such as very low average income and no access to private finance, making them eligible for special finance tools and programs. As the benchmark for measuring results, Bank Group performance is evaluated in 33 fragile and conflict-affected states against that of 31 IDA-only countries that have never been on the FCS list. Six new country case studies; analyses of Bank Group portfolios; human resources and budget data; secondary analysis of IEG evaluations; background studies including those on aid flows, gender, private sector development, and jobs; and surveys of Bank Group staffs and stakeholders are also included in the evaluation.

The World Bank Group is currently engaged in reflection and debate on how to improve the delivery of development support. Part of this debate concerns strengthening the knowledge agenda. The findings of this evaluation are particularly relevant because they speak directly to questions that the institution is deliberating. In particular, they address four key aspects of the 'science of delivery': the role of local partners or local knowledge hubs; consultation with clients and other stakeholders in the process of designing knowledge services; delivery of knowledge on issues that are relevant to the client; and improving the way the Bank Group learns from upper-middle-income countries and intermediating this knowledge to other countries.The evaluation assesses knowledge-based activities in nine country programs selected from 48 knowledge-intensive programs supported by the Bank Group. It identifies the factors in the success or failure of those activities as they contribute to policy making or development outcomes. It also identifies areas of strength for the Bank Group as well as areas of weakness or risk. The main objective of the evaluation is to learn lessons from practices in a focus group of high-income and upper-middle-income countries that have knowledge-based programs with the Bank Group. The findings have implications for the Bank Group's knowledge work, including governance and incentives.Over the past 15 years, Bank Group country programs have shifted toward more intensive delivery of knowledge services relative to lending, and this trend is expected to continue. The evaluation was done on economic and sector work and non-lending technical assistance activities selected from a purposive sample of knowledge-intensive country programs. In addition, the evaluation assessed International Finance Corporation Advisory Services for their synergy with the Bank's analytical and advisory activities. The lessons from this evaluation could help leverage the Bank Group's global knowledge to meet the needs of countries that mainly rely on knowledge services and are not pressed for financing.

This publication presents the detailed results of the 2011 International Comparison Programme (ICP). The ICP is a worldwide statistical initiative that aims to estimate Purchasing Power Parities (PPPs) to be used as currency converters to compare the size and price levels of economies around the world.The program involved 199 economies from eight geographic regions: Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Commonwealth of Independent States, Latin America, the Caribbean, Western Asia, Pacific Islands, and the countries of the regular PPP programme managed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat). The work reported herein was conducted by national implementing agencies that collected the necessary data in each economy; the regional coordination agencies that supported country activities, compiled the results and produced regional estimates; and the ICP Global Office, which coordinated and managed the work at the global level.The 2011 ICP results form a crucial information base for research in comparative analysis and policy making. They include PPPs and real expenditure values for GDP and its main aggregates for the reference year 2011 for 199 participating economies.

The evaluation of essential surgery by Disease Control Priorities, Third Edition (DCP3) focuses on a set of conditions that are primarily or extensively treated by surgery and: that have a large public health burden; for which there is a surgical procedure that is highly successful at treating the condition; and for which the surgical procedure is cost-effective and feasible to promote globally. This included injuries, obstetrical complications, abdominal emergencies, cataracts, obstetric fistula, and congenital anomalies, among others.The DCP3 evaluation of these conditions produced four key findings:There is a significant burden of death and disability from conditions that require surgical care.Many essential surgical services are among the most cost-effective of all health interventions.Human and physical resources to provide surgical care are at very low levels, especially in low-income countries and in rural areas.Critical indicators of quality, such as perioperative mortality rates and anaesthesia-related deaths, continue to show huge disparities between low- and middle-income countries and high-income countries and even among countries at same economic levels. Quality can be improved by feasible and affordable measures.Modest investments in improving capacity for delivering these essential surgical services on the part of both national governments and the international community would significantly lower the sizable burden of the global health problems that are treatable with surgery.

This policy note provides an initial assessment of Libya's labor market and discusses policy options for promoting employability as part of a broader jobs strategy. It is intended as a contribution to evidence on Libya's labor market for the benefit of policy makers, civil society and the broader international community.