Afghanistan is a deeply fragile and
conflict affected state. It has been in almost constant
conflict for over 35 years since the Soviet invasion of
1979. Today the country is at a crossroads in its
development with economic growth down sharply and poverty
incidence stubbornly high. Afghanistan faces tremendous
development challenges. Gross domestic product (GDP)
per-capita is among the lowest in the world, poverty is deep

This report centers on the problems
stemming from land issues in Nicaragua. The report's
main recommendations deal with four priority actions:
institutional reform; adjustments to the legal framework;
systematic regularization of land rights; and, firmly
addressing previous land invasions, and preventing future
invasions. The issue of land distribution, and ownership is
especially critical in Nicaragua; indeed, the country

This paper estimates slum residents
willingness to pay for formalized land tenure in Pune,
India. In so doing, it offers evidence that the legal
assurance of slum residents occupancy of their lands could
benefit them. Previous studies have discussed legal and
non-legal factors that substantially influence the tenure
security of residents in informal settlements. However, it
remains unclear to what extent, and how, the assignment of

This Systematic County Diagnostics is
organized into six parts. The first part presents a brief
overview of the country’s recent socio-political and
economic context. The second part examines the links between
poverty, income distribution and economic growth, through
the labor market, against the background of large changes in
international capital flows and the unfinished structural
reform agenda. The third part, examines the sustainability

This reports focus is making global
value chains (GVCs) more inclusive. This is achieved by
overcoming participation constraints for Small and Medium
Enterprises (SMEs) and facilitation access for Low Income
Developing Countries (LIDCs).The two major points of this
report are 1) participation in GVCs is heterogeneous and
uneven, across and within countries and 2) available data
and survey-based evidence suggest that SME participation in

In 2012, the World Bank signed five
agreements with MRDPA for advisory services, out of which
one relates to the growth poles policy and to its
improvement for the programming period 2014-2020. This
agreement has three components: 1) an analysis of the growth
poles policy, 2) energy efficiency studies for each growth
pole; and 3) a review of the Integrated Development Plans
prepared by the growth poles for the period 2007-2013. In

The objective of this policy note on
land is to assist the Government of Moldova in improving the
effectiveness of land management in agriculture, with a view
to enhancing the sector's contribution to
Moldova's economic growth and poverty reduction
objectives. The note reviews the progress that has been
made to date on land reform in Moldova, and provides
rigorous economic analysis of the impacts of the reforms and

Part one of the report provides an
overview of the economy. It has one chapter (chapter one),
which provides an overview of the country’s growth and
macroeconomic performance and challenges and analyzes and
emphasizes the limited dynamism of a rent- and
hydrocarbon-cursed economy. Part II describes cross-cutting
issues that constrain policy implementation, regardless of
the sectors where they occur. In chapter two, the report

The systematic country diagnostic (SCD)
is designed to identify the most critical binding
constraints and opportunities facing Indonesia in ending
extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity. In line with
the World Bank Group’s (WBG’s) new country engagement model,
the findings of the SCD will provide inputs for the
preparation of the country partnership framework (CPF),
which will outline the WBG’s engagement with Indonesia to

Myanmar grew at an estimated 8.5 percent
in real terms in 2014-15. Economic reforms have supported
consumer and investor confidence despite business
environment and socio-political challenges. The economic
impact of the floods that hit Myanmar from July 2015 is
still being assessed, but will likely adversely affect the
main rice crop this year. According to preliminary analysis
of census data, the areas most affected by the floods are

Costa Rica stands out for being among the most politically stable, progressive, prosperous, and environmentally conscious nations in the Latin America and the Caribbean region. Its development model has brought important economic, social, and environmental dividends, with sustained growth, upward mobility for a large share of the population, important gains in social indicators, and significant achievements in reforestation and conservation. However, there are a number of development challenges that need to be addressed to maintain the country’s successful development path.

Once concentrated among a few large
economies, global flows of goods, services, and capital now
reach an ever-larger number of countries worldwide. Global
trade in goods and in services both increased 10 times
between 1980 and 2011, while foreign direct investment (FDI)
flows increased almost 30-fold. A value chain is global when
some of these stages are carried out in more than one
country, most notably when discrete tasks within a