International Development in Focus – serie

The agriculture sector can play an important role in poverty reduction and sustained growth in Afghanistan, primarily through productive and inclusive job creation. Using an "agricultural jobs lens" and multidimensional approach, this report explores the sector's direct and indirect roles in explaining the dynamics of rural employment.

This book is a practical exploration of the three interdependent dimensions of trade connectivity in the Mediterranean: maritime networks, port efficiency, and hinterland connectivity. Understanding how trade connectivity works is important to policy makers concerned with the economic benefits of large investments in infrastructure.

To address these challenges, this report proposes measures in the areas of trade, investment and competition policy and presents a set of robust empirical analyses to assess the potential impacts from reforms in these three policy areas.

This book aims to improve our understanding of the labor market conditions, behaviors, and outcomes of Nepalese youth. It examines these aspects in relation to both Nepal's domestic labor market and labor migration to international destinations. It seeks to present insights and implications for research and public policy.

This book analyzes Liberia's transport connectivity and identifies existing bottlenecks and possible growth potentials, using spatial techniques and data, including the first-ever georeferenced detailed road network data in Liberia.

Vietnam has experienced impressive growth and rapid urbanization. This has resulted in a significant gap in local infrastructure investment finance and a need to shift toward a more market-driven financing model. This report explores the potential of setting up a city infrastructure financing facility that could contribute to such a transition.

This report focuses on the challenge of youth engagement in school and at work. It shows that youth prospects in the labor market are dimmed by policies favoring existing workers. Also, youth are often ill equipped to meet an increasingly challenging labor market. The report discusses new policies, targeted at youth, that Brazil could prioritize.

With growing global water scarcity and projections that indicate the need to increase both agricultural production and agricultural water use, it is increasingly advocated to focus efforts on improving agricultural water productivity and efficiency - and thus achieve more crop per drop.

This book brings together public financial management and public sector reform experiences from eight countries in East Asia. It examines how reforms have been implemented in those countries and explores key lessons that can help reformers to further advance their endeavors.

Brazil enters the election year 2018 with an economy that is gradually recovering from the deepest recession in its recent economic history. However, for many Brazilians, the recovery has not yet translated into new and better jobs, or rising incomes. This book is motivated by the need to understand the possible drivers of future income and employment growth. Its key finding: Brazil needs to dramatically improve its performance in terms of productivity if the country is to generate lasting gains in incomes and provide better jobs for its citizens. This is all the more important, because Brazil is aging rapidly and the boost the country has enjoyed thanks to its young and growing labor force in the past three decades will disappear in just a few years’ time.

Brazil approaches its 2018 election with an economy that is gradually recovering from the deepest recession in its recent economic history. However, for many Brazilians, the recovery has not yet translated into new and better jobs, or rising incomes. This book explores the drivers of future employment and income growth. Its key finding: Brazil needs to dramatically improve its performance across all industries in terms of productivity if the country is to provide better jobs for its citizens and generate lasting gains in incomes growth for all. This is particularly important as Brazil is aging rapidly and the boost the country has enjoyed thanks to its young and growing labor force in the past decades will disappear in just a few years time. The book recommends a change in the relationship between the state and business, from rewarding privileged incumbents to fostering competition and innovation together with supporting workers and firms to adjust to the demands of the market.The book is addressed to all scholars and students of Brazil s economy, especially those interested in why the country s economic performance has not kept up with earlier achievements since the reintroduction of democracy in the mid-1980s. Its conclusions are urgent and pertinent but also optimistic. With the right policy mix, Brazil could enter the third century of its independence in 2022 well on track to join the ranks of high income countries.

The benefits of including work-based learning (WBL) as part of vocational education and training (VET) are widely recognized. But little is known about how school-based systems can best incorporate WBL. This report provides recommendations and international examples for expanding the use of WBL in VET.

This study looks at the current social and economic conditions in the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka. Based on primary and secondary data and literature, the study shows that growth and convergence are visible, but pockets of extreme poverty and social vulnerabilities remain.

This book presents key activities, promising practices, and lessons learned from the World Bank Tuberculosis in the Mining Sector Initiative-a multisectoral, multicountry, public-private regional initiative in southern Africa. It examines how ministries, sectors, and partners have been brought together to address the epidemic's varied dimensions.

Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula faces growing risks from environmental hazards. Oil spills, hurricanes, coral bleaching, extreme flooding, and erosion have all been experienced over the past decade. This report explores selected topics that aim to inform decision-making in the region.

This report provides actionable advice on how to design and implement fiscal policies for both development and climate action. Building on more than two decades of research in development and environmental economics, it argues that well–designed environmental tax reforms are especially valuable in developing countries, where they can reduce emissions, increase domestic revenues, and generate positive welfare effects such as cleaner water, safer roads, and improvements in human health. Moreover, these reforms need not harm competitiveness. New empirical evidence from Indonesia and Mexico suggests that under certain conditions, raising fuel prices can actually increase firm productivity. Finally, the report discusses the role of fiscal policy in strengthening resilience to climate change. It provides evidence that preventive public investments and measures to build fiscal buffers can help safeguard stability and growth in the face of rising climate risks. In this way, environmental tax reforms and climate risk-management strategies can lay the much-needed fiscal foundation for development and climate action.

Bangladeshi women are increasingly economically empowered, yet their choices remain limited. Gender gaps persist in employment, financial assets, land, and entrepreneurship. Sexual harassment, limited mobility, costs, and limited childcare need to be addressed, and sex-disaggregated data need to be collected so that progress can be monitored.

This book focuses on how school facilities can affect children's learning outcomes, identifying parameters that can inform the design, implementation, and supervision of future educational infrastructure projects. It reflects on aspects for which the evidence could be strengthened, and identifies areas for further exploratory work.

How can policy makers and senior officials in railway organizations support the movement of more cargo by rail rather than by road? This report highlights specific interventions and investments that are critical.

This study focuses on the problem of at-risk, out-of-school youth. It synthesizes the evidence for what works, how, and why to reengage youth in education, exploring for whom and in what contexts interventions can be effective. It provides guidance to build theories of change for local policy- and programming-related design processes.

Unleashing the potential of African cities and towns to deliver services and employment in a livable and environmentally friendly environment will require empowering land markets, strengthening urban planning and regulatory functions, and providing financing for public assets and infrastructure investments.

This volume presents selected applications of the new methodologies developed by the World Bank's Trade and Regional Integration Unit to assess the competitiveness of countries services sector, discern the types of barriers to services that exist in the regulatory environment, and identify the resulting policy implications.

This book assesses the capacity expansion needs, operating efficiency, and landside access gaps of the 15 main ports in East and Southern Africa. For each port, it provides policy recommendations regarding needed port and access infrastructure, port sector regulations, and institutional and management approaches to port operation and development.

Over the past decade, China has built 25,000 km of dedicated high-speed railway — more than the rest of the world combined. What can we learn from this remarkable experience? China’s High-Speed Rail Development examines the Chinese experience to draw lessons for countries considering investing in high-speed rail. The report scrutinises the planning and delivery mechanisms that enabled the rapid construction of the high-speed rail system, and highlights the role of long-term planning, consistent plan execution, and a joint venture structure that ensures active participation of provincial and local governments in project planning and financing. The study examines the characteristics of the markets for which high-speed rail is competitive in China. It discusses the pricing and service design considerations that go into making high-speed rail services competitive with other modes and factors, such as good urban connectivity, that make the service attractive to customers. One of the most remarkable aspects of the Chinese experience is the rapid pace of high-quality construction. The report looks at the role of strong capacity development within and cooperation among China Railway Corporation, rail manufacturers, universities, research institutions, laboratories, and engineering centres that allowed for rapid technological advancement and localisation of technology. It describes the project delivery structures and incentives for delivering quality and timely results. Finally, the report analyses the financial and economic sustainability of the investment in high-speed rail. It finds that a developing country can price high-speed rail services affordably and still achieve financial viability, but this requires very high passenger density. Economic viability similarly depends on high passenger density.

The report proposes a framework to integrate climate change and local economic opportunity activities in natural resource-rich, developing countries.

This report assesses and analyses the state of child nutrition in largely ethnic populations and identifies gaps in policies and programs aimed at reducing inequities in malnutrition in these areas.

By 2050, three-quarters of Morocco's population will be urban. While Moroccan cities are the engines of today's demographic and economic growth, they face persistent challenges. This note identifies priority actions to be taken to allow public authorities help urban development boost economic growth and promote shared prosperity for all.

How can countries make sustainable gains in student learning at scale? This is a pressing question for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) – and the developing world more broadly – as countries seek to build human capital to drive sustainable growth. Significant progress in access has expanded coverage such that nearly all children in the region attend primary school, but many do not gain basic skills and drop out before completing secondary school, in part due to low-quality service delivery. The preponderance of evidence shows that it is learning – and not schooling in and of itself – that contributes to individual earnings, economic growth, and reduced inequality. For LAC in particular, low levels of human capital are a critical factor in explaining the region's relatively weak growth performance over the last half century. The easily measurable inputs are well-known, and the end goal is relatively clear, but raising student achievement at scale remains a challenge. Why? We propose that part of the answer lies in management – the processes and practices that guide how inputs into the education system are translated into outputs, and ultimately outcomes. While management (and related concepts, such as institutions, governance, or leadership) is often mentioned as an important factor in education policy discussions, relatively little quantitative research has been done to define and measure it. And even less has been done to unpack how and how much management matters for education quality. In this study, we begin filling these gaps, with new conceptual and empirical contributions that can be synthesized in four key messages:(1) Student learning is unlikely to improve at scale without better management.(2) Management affects how well every level of an education system functions, from individual schools to central technical units, and how well they work together.(3) Management quality can be measured and should be measured as a catalyst for improvement. (4) Several pathways to strengthening management are open to LAC countries now, with the potential for significant results. The study elaborates on each of these messages, synthesizing recent data and research and presenting the results of six new papers written to inform this report. The target audience for the Executive Summary is policymakers across LAC (and beyond) who are seeking approaches to strengthening their systems at scale. The target audience for the study overall includes the researchers and technical advisors who work on topics related to education management in development organizations, governments, think tanks, and other institutions across LAC.