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

The Tunisia Systematic Country
Diagnostic (SCD) seeks to identify the challenges and
opportunities to achieve the twin goals of reducing poverty
and boosting shared prosperity in a sustainable way. This
SCD takes into account Tunisia’s historical sociopolitical
context and the political economy of past reforms to provide
the context for the challenges and opportunities that exist
today to make progress toward the twin goals. The economic

In mid-2014, the Government of Ukraine
(GoU) requested technical assistance and financial support
from the inter¬national community to assess and plan
priority recovery and peacebuilding efforts in the
conflict-affected regions of eastern Ukraine. Following
these requests, and within the framework of the 2008 Joint
Declaration on Post-Crisis Assessments and Recovery
Planning, the EU, UN, and WBG agreed to support the

The geo-economy presents Lebanon with
challenges associated with being a nexus for regional fault
lines and risks from its dependence on capital inflows.
Despite markedly improved security conditions since the
start of 2015, anxiety over regional turmoil and potential
spillover effectspersist. All the while, Lebanon continues
to be, by far, the largest host of Syrian refugees (in
proportion to the population). In addition, the economy’s

Between 2002 and 2012-13, most of the
reduction in poverty was due to increased earnings, as
opposed to higher employment or higher transfers. Although
it is hard to be certain, increases in earnings are
associated with: (i) a slow structural transformation away
from agriculture and into industry and services that led to
productivity increases; (ii) agglomeration around key urban
areas that supported this structural transformation; (iii)

After several years of strong economic
performance, Zambia now confronts several important
challenges that must be managed carefully to ensure
sustained and inclusive growth in the future. On the one
hand, the economy grew by an estimated 5.5–6.0 percent in
2014, somewhat above the average for African economies.
Monthly copper production increased by an average of 8
percent during the second half of 2014, reversing the sharp

Sustainable development goals (SDGs)
placed access to basic services at the center of
international development in 2016-2030. Out of 17 goals,
five address the access of poor people to basic services: to
health in SDG3, to education in SDG4, and SDG5, to water and
sanitation in SDG6, to energy in SDG7, and to urban services
in SDG11. The mutually reinforcing relationship between
electricity access, economic development, and poverty

Seventy years after independence and
more than a decade of political and institutional reforms,
Indonesia has emerged as a stable democracy. Indonesia’s
achievements are now under stress, with a slowdown in its
commodity driven economy, stagnant rates of poverty
reduction, and rapidly rising inequality. The development
policy review, completed in 2014, and the systematic country
diagnostic (SCD), completed in 2015, explain the limited

During the past decade, Georgia’s
pursuit of economic reforms led to impressive economic
growth, capital inflow, and investments. It helped improve
the business environment and infrastructure, strengthened
public finances, and liberalized trade. Georgia achieved
most of the human development targets of the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs). This progress did not result,
however, in improved environmental governance or better

This Country Partnership Framework (CPF)
presents the World Bank Group (WBG) program and the
associated results framework for Lebanon for the period
FY17-FY22. In a fragile and conflict-prone environment, this
CPF aims at mitigating the immediate, and potentially
long-lasting impact of the Syria crisis on Lebanon, while
strengthening state institutions, addressing existing
vulnerabilities, and bolstering efforts on longer term

This document details the scope and the
main elements of the Country Partnership Framework (CPF)
with the Republic of Botswana for FY16-20. The previous
Country Partnership Strategy (CPS), considered by the Board
on May 21, 2009 and completed in 2013 has built a solid
foundation to design the new World Bank Group (WBG) program.
The CPF supports the government’s ongoing National
Development Plan (NDP10) that has recently been extended

Natural resources offer opportunities,
but also bring challenges. They have generally been linked
to a series of negative outcomes like economic decline,
corruption, and conflict. Oil and minerals reserves, in
particular, are often very spatially concentrated, and their
discovery becomes a potential source of conflict between the
governments, the people of the producing areas, and those of
the rest of the country. But can this increased risk of