According to the Ministry of Finance of Azerbaijan Republic, the external public debt of the country constituted $ 7,651 billion US (12,402 billion manat) in October 2016. The ministry has reported that the debt to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio stands at 20.1 percent. The external public debt consists of direct obligations of the state as well as contingent liabilities emanating from sovereign guarantees. Meanwhile, the ministry has underlined that the external public debt is predominantly attracted from the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Japanese International Cooperation Agency and other financial institutions to finance projects in the economy as well as the issuance of bonds in the international capital markets. The CESD calculations show that the foreign debt of Azerbaijan is higher than the figure has reported by the Ministry of Finance of Azerbaijan. Based on the anonymous survey among CESD's contacts in the government show that Azerbaijani real foreign debt is double digit billions dollar. That also means that the foreign debt's share in the GDP in reality is higher than the official figure.
This document presents findings from a study conducted to identify and document ongoing public-private partnerships (PPPs) for improving access to quality laboratory services, especially for the poor, in the East Africa region. The East, Central, and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC) coordinated the study along with the partner states in the East African Community participating in the World Bank funded East Africa Public Health Laboratory Networking Project (EAPHLNP). The authors implemented key informant interviews in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, and analyzed the information gathered from the interviews which is presented in this report. The study finds that while there are numerous examples of public-private collaboration across all four countries, the number of formals PPPs remains scarce. The most common form of PPP is placement, whereby privately owned laboratory equipment in leased by public facilities. Most other instances of collaboration between public and private partners, did not meet the formal definition of a PPP. Key stakeholders from both public and private institutions showed a keen interest in learning about and setting up more, diverse kinds of PPPs. The numerous informal and semi-formal arrangements that currently exist all represent opportunities for establishing formal PPPs in accordance with global best practices.
Uruguay currently stands out in Latin America for its higher per capita income, low inequality, low poverty, and virtual absence of indigence. As a proportion of the total population, the size of Uruguays middle class is the largest in Latin America, encompassing well over half the population. The country ranks at or near the top of Latin America on many measures of well-being. The stability of its institutions and low levels of corruption are reflected in a high degree of trust in government by citizens. The countrys smallness and openness, and its strong and deeply rooted social compact – help explain Uruguays achievements in the areas of growth, poverty reduction and shared prosperity as well as future opportunities and challenges. The World Bank has two goals for Uruguay to sustain the social compact by strengthening inclusion and equality of opportunity and to sustain growth with productivity and competitiveness.
For many developing countries, natural resource exports such as oil, diamonds and copper continue to be important drivers for economic growth and provide a unique opportunity for generating revenues for much-needed infrastructure and human development. Dependence on extractive resources, however, may also increase the likelihood of underdevelopment, fragility and conflict. The challenges for managing these resources efficiently are likely to expand, as a growing number of developing countries and fragile states emerge as oil and mineral producers. Thus, there is a need to gain a better understanding of the factors that may help prevent violent conflict in resource rich countries. This paper proposes that one way of gaining such understanding and insight is to "conflict-sensitize" the Extractive Industries Value Chain (EIVC), and use it as a framework for conflict prevention in resource-rich countries. In this context, the report's main objective is to examine the potential opportunities for conflict prevention along the extractive industries value chain. Such a body of knowledge can help the World Bank, the UN and EU, as well as client countries and other partners, in their planning and coordination of complementary activities when implementing their programmes and projects, particularly when working in the same resource-rich countries. This paper aims to demonstrate the feasibility and challenges faced by adopting a conflict-sensitive approach within the World Bank's EI Value Chain. The methodology used was a combined desk review and in-depth interviews with regional and country specialists, especially in governance/conflict prevention and extractive industries (Annex 1). The emphasis is on qualitative analysis. The four countries that were desk reviewed for the project, including Chile, Peru, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and Zambia, are all copper producers and were selected due to their heavy dependence on revenues from mining. This book is arranged as follows: (i) part one explains extractives, conflict prevention and the value chain; (ii) part two is about the EI value chain as framework for conflict prevention; (iii) part three talks about emerging themes and recommendation; and (iv) part four describes the four country examples and the emerging lessons.
Self-help groups (SHGs) are the most common form of microfinance in India. The authors provide evidence that SHGs, composed of women only, undertake collective actions for the provision of public goods within village communities. Using a theoretical model, this paper shows that an elected official, whose aim is to maximize re-election chances, exerts higher effort in providing public goods when private citizens undertake collective action and coordinate their voluntary contributions towards the same goods. This effect occurs although government and private contributions are assumed to be substitutes in the technology of providing public goods. Using first-hand data on SHGs in India, the paper tests the prediction of the model and shows that, in response to collective action by SHGs, local authorities tackle a larger variety of public issues, and are more likely to tackle issues of interest to SHGs. The findings highlight how the social behavior of SHGs can influence the governance of rural Indian communities.
Voters commonly face a choice between competent candidates and those with policy preferences similar to their own. This paper explores how electoral rules, such as district magnitude, mediate this trade-off and affect the composition of representative bodies and policy outcomes. The paper shows formally that anticipation of bargaining over policy causes voters in elections with multiple single-member districts to prefer candidates with polarized policy positions over more competent candidates. Results from a unique field experiment in Afghanistan are consistent with these predictions. Specifically, representatives elected in elections with a single multi-member district are better educated and exhibit less extreme policy preferences.
This report aims at identifying the particular needs and constraints faced by the poorest women and men when accessing the judicial system. Similarly to the Judicial Functional Review,6 the scope of this report focuses primarily on the courts because they are the main vehicle for justice service delivery and the primary institutions of justice in Serbia. The scope includes all types of services and covers litigious and non-litigious aspects of civil, commercial, administrative, and criminal justice. The focus is on the actual implementation and day-to-day functioning of the sector institutions that deliver justice to people, rather than the law on the books . The scope includes other institutions in the sector to the extent that they enable or impede service delivery by the courts, including: the Ministry of Justice (MOJ), the High Judicial Council (HJC), the State Prosecutorial Council (SPC), the courts, the Public Prosecutor Offices (PPOs), the Judicial Academy, the Ombudsperson s Office, the police, prisons, and justice sector professional organizations (such as the Bar, notaries, bailiffs, and mediators). The focus of this report is on access to justice services, including relevant financial, informational, and geographic barriers to such access.
The demand for energy in East Asia Summit (EAS) countries led mostly by their power and transport sectors has been growing substantially. The energy demand in the transport sector is mainly on oil, of which imports have been growing rapidly as the demand surpasses domestic production, causing concerns on energy supply security. Some EAS countries subsidise oil products to ensure affordable price levels for social considerations, but this exacerbates their fiscal balance. In addition, the upsurge in motorised vehicles in their cities has worsened the air quality. As these incidents prove, increases in transport demand and thus oil demand have great socio economic impact, and the improvement in the efficiency in the transport sector's oil demand is an important policy agenda across EAS countries. The growth in the transport sector's oil demand has been caused by the motorisation in cities where income levels have been rising rapidly. Particularly in urban areas, such rise in passenger vehicle ownership has been causing a number of socio economic issues, including chronic traffic congestion. In fact, the average travel speed in some urban areas in Asia is low for example, Jakarta's travel speed is at 15 km per hour, and Bangkok's is at 12 km per hour. This incurs energy waste, lost time in economic activities, and poor air quality. It is thus necessary for EAS countries to take on a growth pattern different from that of developed countries. For a sustainable socio economic development, emerging Asian countries are required to meet three objectives: enhance energy security improve environmental quality and stabilise economic growth and create smart communities''. Unlike conventional economic development paths these three objectives have to be achieved simultaneously. Smart communities aim to simultaneously achieve efficiency in the transport sector and lower the environmental burden by optimising transport infrastructure such as roads and railways , introducing next generation vehicles (hybrid, plug in hybrid vehicle , and electronic vehicle), and managing the transport. In other words, a smart community for the transport sector can cope with various transport issues in Asian urban areas. A number of studies had considered the energy saving potential in Asia's transport sector by shifting towards fuel efficient vehicle units. However, this particular study is unique in that its approach focuses on the interrelationship between energy demand and traffic flow. It utilises a simulation model that will be able to analyse the impact of infrastructure development on traffic flow and the subsequent impact of the transport sector's energy efficiency improvements. The outcomes from the study are expected to provide new insights that will contribute to the sustainable development in EAS cities with urban transport improvements.
This Newsletter of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) Pakistan Resident Mission (PRM) aims to enhance communications between ADB and its client groups. News from Pakistan disseminates information on ADB activities and provides a forum on development issues related to ADB s work in Pakistan.
The SABER teacher's tool aims to help fill some of these gaps by collecting, analyzing, synthesizing, and disseminating comprehensive information on teacher policies in primary and secondary education systems around the world. The main focus of SABER teachers is on policy design/intent, rather than on policy implementation. SABER teachers analyze the teacher policies formally adopted by education systems. However, policies 'on the ground', that is, policies as they are actually implemented at school or other institutional level, often differ quite substantially from policies as originally designed. This can be due to the political economy of the reform process, lack of capacity of the organizations in charge of implementing them, and/or the interaction between these policies and other specific contextual factors. Since SABER Teachers collects limited data on policy implementation, the assessment of teacher policies presented in this report needs to be complemented with detailed information that describes the actual configuration of teacher policies on the ground. This report presents the results of the application of SABER Teachers in Kenya. It describes Kenya's performance with each of the eight teacher policy goals, alongside comparative information from education systems that have consistently scored high results in international student achievement tests and have participated in SABER teachers.
The health equity and financial protection datasheets provide a picture of equity and financial protection in the health sectors of low-and middle-income countries. Topics covered include: inequalities in health outcomes, health behavior and health care utilization; benefit incidence analysis; financial protection; and the progressivity of health care financing. The tables in this report show how health outcomes, risky behaviors and health care utilization vary across asset (wealth) quintiles and periods. The quintiles are based on an asset index constructed using principal components analysis. Benefit-Incidence Analysis (BIA) shows whether, and by how much, government health expenditure disproportionately benefits the poor. The distribution of subsidies depends on the assumptions made to allocate subsidies to households. Under the constant unit cost assumption, each unit of utilization is assumed to cost the same and is equal to total costs incurred in delivering this type of service divided by the number of units of utilization.
The health equity and financial protection datasheets provide a picture of equity and financial protection in the health sectors of low- and middle-income countries. Topics covered include: inequalities in health outcomes, health behavior and health care utilization; benefit incidence analysis; financial protection; and the progressivity of health care financing. This report show how health outcomes, risky behaviors and health care utilization vary across asset (wealth) quintiles and periods. Benefit-incidence analysis (BIA) shows whether, and by how much, government health expenditure disproportionately benefits the poor the distribution of subsidies depends on the assumptions made to allocate subsidies to households. This reports whether overall health financing, as well as the individual sources of finance, is regressive (i.e. a poor household contributes a larger share of its resources than a rich one), progressive (i.e. a poor household contributes a smaller share of its resources than a rich one) or proportional.
Doing Business in the Arab world 2012 is a regional report drawing on the global Doing Business project and its database as well as the findings of Doing Business 2012, the ninth in a series of annual reports investigating the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulation and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 183 economies, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, and over time. A clear message emerging from the political transformation of the Arab world is the demand for more inclusive, broad-based growth that creates opportunity for many who have not shared in the benefits of private sector development in the past. In most Arab economies the unemployment rate remains in double digits, and the majority of the unemployed are under the age of 30. Policies focused on promoting inclusive growth, creating incentives for the private sector to create more good jobs and improving governance can increase employment opportunities for young people in the region.
Community-Driven Development (or CDD) projects are now a major component of World Bank assistance to many developing countries. While varying greatly in size and form, such projects aim to ensure that communities have substantive control in deciding how project funds should be used. The proponents of CDD believe that giving beneficiaries the power to manage project resources will lead to more efficient and effective use of financial resources. It is also claimed that project-initiated participatory processes can have wider 'spillover' impacts, building local institutions and leadership, enhancing civic capacity, improving social relations and boosting state legitimacy. This paper briefly reviews the World Bank's experience of using CDD in conflict-affected and post-conflict areas of the East Asia and Pacific region. This paper provides a framework for assessing the impacts of CDD projects in post-conflict and conflict-affected areas. It tries to unpack the potential causal channels through which projects may have their desired, or other, impacts. The paper concludes with a short summary of what we know, what we don't, and potential future directions for research and programming.
Obsolete pesticide stocks have accumulated in most of the world's developing countries and economies in transition in recent decades. International organizations estimate that some 500,000 tons are stockpiled worldwide, about half of which are located in countries of the former Soviet Union. Across the African continent, obsolete stocks total about 50,000 tons, while Latin America has at least 30,000 tons. This report includes the following sections: section one includes overview, section two include risk assessment method for priority-setting. Section three includes setting cleanup priorities in Tunisia. Section four includes cleanup and safeguarding highlights in Africa. Finally, section five includes reducing the risk.
