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)

This paper informs the national and
international policy discussions related to the adoption of
the United Nations Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and
Forest Degradation Programme. Effective program instruments
must carefully consider incentives, opportunity costs, and
community interactions. A choice experiment survey was
applied to rural Ethiopian communities to understand
respondents’ preferences toward the institutional structure

How much do poor rural households rely
on environmental extraction from natural ecosystems? And how
does climate variability impact their livelihoods? This
paper sheds light on these two questions with household
income data from the Poverty and Environment Network
pantropical data set, combined with climate data for the
past three decades. The study finds that extraction of wild
resources (from natural forests, bushlands, fallows, etc.)

The report Africa Can Help Feed Africa
(World Bank 2012) showed that increasing food staples1
supply can be met by better connecting African markets to
each other. That report called for a stronger focus on
removing trade barriers and building on the forces of
regional integration. This report builds on the lessons of
Africa Can Help Feed Africa by looking into the specific
circum¬stances met in West Africa, home to one-third of the

In this context, this note summarizes
the findings of a recent World Bank, SACU Secretariat
assessment of regional trade facilitation based on the Trade
and Transport Facilitation Assessment (TTFA) methodology.
The assessment looks at regional trade facilitation through
the lens of value chains, with the objective to understand
how the region’s trade and transport environment could be
improved to facilitate more extensive and deeply integrated

About 70 percent of electricity users in
Southeastern Turkey are not used to paying for electricity,
partially due to the protracted situation of conflict and
lack of trust between citizens and the government in the
region. Historic tension throughout the 1990s caused an
inability for the government to invest in electricity
infrastructure and has resulted in low service quality. A
large portion of consumers did not pay for electricity use

This Country Partnership Framework (CPF)
covers the five-year period FY16-20. Anchored in the
government’s medium-term development plan as outlined in a
January 2015 Cabinet of Ministers Program of Action, it also
reflects the analysis and recommendations of the World Bank
Group’s (WBG) 2015 Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) for
Uzbekistan and the lessons learned from the Completion
Report of the previous CPS. The CPF’s objectives and

This paper provides field
experiment–based evidence on the potential additional forest
carbon sequestration that cleaner and more fuel-efficient
cookstoves might generate. The paper focuses on the Mirt
(meaning “best”) cookstove, which is used to bake injera,
the staple food in Ethiopia. The analysis finds that the
technology generates per-meal fuel savings of 22 to 31
percent compared with a traditional three-stone stove with

This program document presents the World
Bank Group (WBG) FY17-22 Country Partnership Framework (CPF)
for Bulgaria. The timing of the new CPF follows the
preparation of theSystematic Country Diagnostic (SCD)
prepared in FY15, and informs the areas and objectives ofthe
CPF in support of the WBG’s twin goals to reduce poverty and
boost shared prosperity1 for the bottom forty percent of the
population. The CPF proposes to focus WBG support in

This report focuses on two competing forces: the Soviet industrial legacy and

The Government of Punjab, through
Government of India’s (GoI) Department of Economic Affairs
(DEA) had requested the World Bank to provide non-lending
technical assistance (NLTA) to provide high quality basic
urban civic amenities to the residents of cities of Ludhiana
and Amritsar in the areas of: water supply, sewerage, storm
water drainage, solid waste management, and modern urban
transport system. The study is expected to recommend