Europe and Central Asia Knowledge Brief

67 items available

Permanent URI for this collection

http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9405

This is a regular series of notes highlighting recent analyses, good practices, and lessons learned from the development work program of the World Bank’s Europe and Central Asia Region.

Items in this collection

Now showing 1 - 10 of 21

Mainstreaming Governance in Tajikistan through its Energy, Extractives, and Public Procurement Sectors

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-07) Mikulova, Kristina ; Johns, Kimberly ; Kunicova, Jana

The governance partnership facility (GPF) supported program mainstreaming governance in Tajikistan portfolio (FY2010-14) was a landmark achievement in applying governance analysis and looking for entry points to improve transparency and accountability in key sectors in Tajikistan. This brief provides recommendations from its energy-efficiency audit, the extractive industries sector, and public procurement authority pilot program. In the long run, the government's goal is to use procurement performance measurement framework (PPMF) generated procurement performance assessments and annual procurement performance reports (APPRs) as feedback that inform policy design. If the reform momentum can be sustained, Tajikistan has a potential to gradually converge to good practices in public procurement and improve its good governance ratings over time.
Tajikistan : Reinvigorating Growth in Khatlon Oblast

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-06) Carneiro, Francisco ; Bakanova, Marina

This report supports a joint World Bank-IFC initiative to review and evaluate economic growth prospects for Khatlon oblast in order to develop a private sector-driven strategy for accelerating the region's growth over the medium term.
A New Model for Job Creation in Armenia: Promoting More Effective Accumulation, Competition, and Connectivity

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-11) Bartsch, Ulrich

In Armenia, more effective accumulation, together with greater competition and better connectivity with the rest of the world, will increase pressures on firms to compete and innovate and will thus reinvigorate job creation. In order to more effectively channel savings into investment in those industrial sectors with the best potential for growth and employment creation, a more sophisticated financial system is required. A recently released World Bank report1 finds that Armenias State Commission for the Protection of Competition (SCPEC) needs to be given better tools to carry out its work, and it also needs to shift its focus from price levels to more vigorously pursuing anticompetitive conduct. A liberalization of aviation would boost growth and job creation by better connecting people, ideas, and markets.
Croatia : A Strategy for Smart, Sustainable and Inclusive Growth

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-02) Madzarevic-Sujster, Sanja

Croatia`s current economic challenges include sluggish growth, excessive public spending, high unemployment, and a deteriorating external environment. Croatian economy was making a fragile recovery and dealing with slow export growth, low investment, and persistent unemployment. At the end of 2011, Croatia gross domestic product (GDP) per capita (in purchasing power terms) declined to 61 percent average, a loss of 2 percentage points since 2008.The country incomplete structural reform agenda needs attention and action to promote greater competitiveness and a shift to productivity-based, private sector-led growth. It also faces the strategic challenge of maximizing the benefits of European Union (EU) membership, especially in terms of access to markets and the use of EU structural funds, requiring structural changes in the social sectors, education system, and business environment. Accelerating economic recovery requires Croatia to complete its currently unfinished structural reform agenda and shift to productivity-based, private sector-led growth. The government could also do more to: (i) reform product market regulation; (ii) remove administrative barriers to investments; (iii) reduce the logistics costs in trade; (iv) make the bankruptcy process more efficient; and (v) modernize contract enforcement and property rights.
FYR Macedonia Policy-Based Guarantee : Supporting the Development Agenda and Strengthening Access to Capital Markets

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-01) Najdov, Evgenij

The ongoing global economic turmoil is seriously impeding client countries access to capital markets, with relatively little regard for the fundamentals of the countries involved. Growing risk aversion among investors has triggered a flight-to-quality that is affecting all but the safest assets (AAA-rated). Small, open, and developing economies in Europe and Central Asia, including FYR Macedonia, are being exceptionally hurt. Despite its history of prudent macroeconomic policies and progress on structural reforms, FYR Macedonia s access to capital markets has been virtually closed or available only on very unfavorable terms. Policy-Based Guarantees (PBG) help well-performing clients with a track record of macro stability and structural reforms mitigate market access risks while advancing a country s development policy dialogue. PBGs also have the added benefit of catalyzing private capital flows by alleviating critical risks. The PBG extended by the World Bank to FYR Macedonia ensured the country s access to markets in a virtually closed market environment and at highly competitive terms.
Russian - Strengthening Access to Justice : A JSDF Grant to Empower Vulnerable Groups

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-01) Mukherjee, Amit ; Poznanskaya, Ljudmilla ; Rosha, Anjum ; Schwartz, Olga

Despite Russia's strong economic growth, over 14 percent of its population, more than 20 million people, still live in poverty. In 2008, the Japan Social Development Fund (JSDF) provided a grant of US$1.98 million to help make the justice system in Russia more accessible and accountable to the poorest and most vulnerable groups in two regions of the country, Leningrad Oblast and Perm Krai. The grant was strongly supported by the Embassy of Japan and Russian regional authorities, who were involved from conceptualization to completion. The grant piloted two models of legal aid in these two areas, and it launched a collaborative initiative that enabled local executive and judicial branch officials and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to work together to achieve common goals. This JSDF grant has yielded some promising results. However, the sustainability of the legal aid networks established under the grant depends on ongoing support from the local authorities in each region.
Reforming Corporate Financial Reporting : Lessons from REPARIS for Other Technical Assistance Programs

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-12) Owen, James ; Sekiguchi, Juri

The recent financial crisis brought to light the importance of transparent and effective corporate financial reporting to a country s economic recovery and subsequent growth. The Road to Europe: Program of Accounting Reform and Institutional Strengthening (REPARIS) program, supported with technical assistance from the World Bank, was designed to assist its eight participating member countries in improving their institutional frameworks for corporate financial reporting and fostering the adoption of European Union (EU) standards for business reporting and auditing. This program has been used to build the kind of broad stakeholder support, both public and private, that is vital for the successful implementation of financial reporting reforms. The emphasis on peer learning, through such tools as communities of practice, helps promote the effective implementation of reforms. In-country engagement is also critical to ensure that changes are implemented on the ground.
A New Jobs Data Tool : Introducing BuDDy--A Business Diagnostics and Dynamics Tool

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-10) Merotto, Dino ; Boccardo, Jessica

The Business Diagnostics and Dynamics Tool (BuDDy) tool uses formal sector business data that governments already collect to analyze patterns and trends in employment and diagnose constraints to growth and job creation. BuDDy gives governments the understanding of business dynamics needed to develop policies that help businesses create jobs. BuDDy quickly and robustly identifies the types of firms that are growing, hiring, investing, raising productivity, and raising real wages, and does this at the national or regional level, or by product. BuDDy is simple and adaptable; it has been developed with varying data sets, and can been linked to spatial information, trade data, and household data sets.
Accountability in State Noncommercial Organizations in Armenia : An Approach

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-09) Vatyan, Arman

A World Bank-supported project in Armenia was successful in developing a control framework that balances the need to increase the transparency and accountability of the country s state noncommercial organizations (SNCOs), while also recognizing their financial, administrative, and managerial independence. An innovative approach involving the use of earlier results to guide later ones was used to address the dire need for SNCOs, which account for 70 percent of the total number of state organizations, to make greater efforts to responsibly administer and safeguard the government s assets. The aim was to reduce the market distortions caused by SNCOs that are engaged in significant commercial activities by addressing SNCOs heterogeneity and the need for specific fiduciary control requirements for distinct groups.
Spatial Data Infrastructure and INSPIRE

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-09) Tonchovska, Rumyana ; Stanley, Victoria ; De Martino, Samantha

Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) is defined as a framework of policies, institutional arrangements, technologies, data, and people that enables the sharing and effective usage of geographic information by standardizing formats and protocols for access and interoperability. The goals of SDI are to: 1) reduce duplication of efforts among governments, 2) lower costs related to geographic information while making geographic data more accessible, 3) increase the benefits of using available spatial data, and 4) establish key partnerships between states, counties, cities, academia, and the private sector. SDI should be seen as part of wider e- Government initiatives. Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE) is a European Union (EU) directive that came into force on May 15, 2007, binding EU members to establish a spatial data infrastructure via the Internet that facilitates the sharing of geographic information in a standardized way. INSPIRE addresses technical and nontechnical issues, ranging from standards, organizational and procedural issues, and data policies, to the creation and maintenance of electronic services. INSPIRE is a legal framework for developing SDI throughout the EU in order to facilitate interoperability, that is, the improvement and sharing of information across various levels of government in all EU countries.