Other Public Sector Study
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Publication
Pakistan - Tax Policy Report : Tapping Tax Bases for Development - Full Report
(World Bank, 2009-07-01)The main message of this report is that Pakistan can take measures to increase the tax to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio by around 3.5 percentage points over the next five years. In order to ensure a healthy long-run economic development, Pakistan needs to embrace substantial changes in tax policy aimed at increasing the buoyancy of the tax system, broadening the tax bases, reducing distortions and phasing out exemptions. Such tax reforms are also required to deal with the risks stemming from sustained large budget deficits. Failing to act sooner rather than later, only makes the problem more difficult to address without considerable instability, raises the probability of fiscal and financial disarray at some point in the future, and runs the risks of further constraining policy flexibility in future. This report highlights design ingredients for a comprehensive reform of tax policy in Pakistan. In the final analysis, the success of tax reform will depend less on the mechanism of taxation and more on the politics of taxation. Beyond adequate administrative resources and an implementation strategy, this will require a clear political recognition of the importance of the task and the willingness to persist with tax reform over the long haul. -
Publication
Pakistan - Tax Policy Report : Tapping Tax Bases for Development - Summary Report
(World Bank, 2009-07-01)The main message of this report is that Pakistan can take measures to increase the tax to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio by around 3.5 percentage points over the next five years. In order to ensure a healthy long-run economic development, Pakistan needs to embrace substantial changes in tax policy aimed at increasing the buoyancy of the tax system, broadening the tax bases, reducing distortions and phasing out exemptions. Such tax reforms are also required to deal with the risks stemming from sustained large budget deficits. Failing to act sooner rather than later, only makes the problem more difficult to address without considerable instability, raises the probability of fiscal and financial disarray at some point in the future, and runs the risks of further constraining policy flexibility in future. This report highlights design ingredients for a comprehensive reform of tax policy in Pakistan. In the final analysis, the success of tax reform will depend less on the mechanism of taxation and more on the politics of taxation. Beyond adequate administrative resources and an implementation strategy, this will require a clear political recognition of the importance of the task and the willingness to persist with tax reform over the long haul. -
Publication
Procurement Monitoring and Social Accountability: Curriculum Development Program
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009)The devolution of procurement responsibilities to local levels of government is increasingly occurring across South Asia. This trend is significant because increasingly localized decision-making better enables communities to hold government authorities accountable for the effectiveness of public spending, which can lead to various improved development outcomes, such as improvements in quality of service delivery; greater empowerment and understanding by end-users services supplied through public procurement processes; and improved oversight and accountability of service delivery agencies. The objective of this report is to set out an overview of the strategic approach developed by World Bank Institute (WBI) as a component of the Norwegian governance trust fund (NTF) program `procurement and service delivery: establishing effective collaboration between government and beneficiaries on monitoring procurement outcomes`. WBI received funds under the NTF to facilitate the development of context and audience-specific knowledge products by recognized practitioners and civil society organizations in South Asia as part of a broader effort to create a practical curriculum on social accountability in procurement. -
Publication
India - Orissa in Transition : Challenges for 2006-2010
(Washington, DC, 2008-11)This report assesses the ongoing transition in Orissa. It examines how and why the successes were achieved. It attempts to outline the dimensions of the challenge ahead, as Orissa marches forward into the second phase of policy and institutional reforms, building on its improved fiscal position to deliver rapid and inclusive growth. It highlights key issues and binding or soon-to-be binding constraints. The concluding section identifies priorities for public expenditure and public policy outcomes in the immediate, medium-term, and long-term future. The report is intended as a contribution to the public debate and consultation initiated by Government of Orissa on the state's long-term vision and development strategy until 2020. The first two chapters focus respectively on economic growth performance and fiscal performance during the past 5-6 years. The subsequent three chapters focus respectively on key aspects of the outstanding challenge facing the state, namely: infrastructure, human development, and public accountability for service delivery. The final chapter summarizes the main findings and recommendations and poses considerations about priorities and sequencing. -
Publication
Afghanistan : Economic Incentives and Development Initiatives to Reduce Opium Production
( 2008-02)This report is about how to progressively reduce over time Afghanistan's dependence on opium - currently the country's leading economic activity - by development initiatives and shifting economic incentives toward sustainable legal livelihoods. Specifically, the report identifies additional investments and policy and institutional measures to support development responses that can counterbalance the economic advantages of opium. It analyzes ways to change the relative incentives between licit and illicit cropping and to help enhance rural livelihoods for the poor, under better governance and security conditions. The report puts forward concrete recommendations and the expected impacts on growth, poverty reduction and the opium economy are assessed. The report first briefly discusses the policy context (Chapter 1) and provides an overview of the opium economy (Chapter 2), focusing on how different segments of the rural population interact with it. The report then analyzes the scope for increasing value added, competitiveness and productivity in agriculture (Chapter 3) and for promoting enterprise development and off-farm employment (Chapter 4). The complementary role of further investments in rural infrastructure is examined in Chapter 5, and measures for strengthening governance are analyzed in Chapter 6. In Chapter 7 issues that cut across all counter narcotics efforts are examined. A final chapter looks at implementation, and at issues of prioritization, synergies and phasing (Chapter 8). The recommendations of the report are encapsulated in a matrix at the end of the Executive Summary. -
Publication
Afghanistan : Economic Incentives and Development Initiatives to Reduce Opium Production
(Washington, DC, 2008-02)This report is about how to progressively reduce over time Afghanistan's dependence on opium - currently the country's leading economic activity - by development initiatives and shifting economic incentives toward sustainable legal livelihoods. Specifically, the report identifies additional investments and policy and institutional measures to support development responses that can counterbalance the economic advantages of opium. It analyzes ways to change the relative incentives between licit and illicit cropping and to help enhance rural livelihoods for the poor, under better governance and security conditions. The report puts forward concrete recommendations and the expected impacts on growth, poverty reduction and the opium economy are assessed. The report first briefly discusses the policy context (Chapter 1) and provides an overview of the opium economy (Chapter 2), focusing on how different segments of the rural population interact with it. The report then analyzes the scope for increasing value added, competitiveness and productivity in agriculture (Chapter 3) and for promoting enterprise development and off-farm employment (Chapter 4). The complementary role of further investments in rural infrastructure is examined in Chapter 5, and measures for strengthening governance are analyzed in Chapter 6. In Chapter 7 issues that cut across all counter narcotics efforts are examined. A final chapter looks at implementation, and at issues of prioritization, synergies and phasing (Chapter 8). The recommendations of the report are encapsulated in a matrix at the end of the Executive Summary. -
Publication
Afghanistan : Building an Effective State, Priorities for Public Administration Reform
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-01-23)This report looks at the implications for public administration reform over the next 5-10 years, and proposes a priority agenda for action by the Government of Afghanistan (GOA) and the donor community. The report reviews the prospects and priorities for public administration reform in three key areas: building an effective civil service, improving local governance and service delivery, and making government accountable to the people. This report has made the case that public administration reform in Afghanistan is both very important and very difficult: very important because it will provide the Government o f Afghanistan with the capacity to respond to popular demands for good governance and improved service delivery; very difficult, because of the inherent challenges o f institutional change, especially in the current political and security situation in Afghanistan. Public Administration Reform (PAR) is a long-term task -This will require persistent effort over time, as well as innovative approaches to improve service delivery in the short and medium terms. Afghanistan's experience over the past five years, as well as lessons from other fragile states, provide some clues about how to go about public administration reform. -
Publication
Afghanistan - Building an Effective State : Priorities for Public Administration Reform
(Washington, DC, 2008-01)This report looks at the implications for public administration reform over the next 5-10 years, and proposes a priority agenda for action by the Government of Afghanistan (GOA) and the donor community. The report reviews the prospects and priorities for public administration reform in three key areas: building an effective civil service, improving local governance and service delivery, and making government accountable to the people. This report has made the case that public administration reform in Afghanistan is both very important and very difficult: very important because it will provide the Government o f Afghanistan with the capacity to respond to popular demands for good governance and improved service delivery; very difficult, because of the inherent challenges o f institutional change, especially in the current political and security situation in Afghanistan. Public Administration Reform (PAR) is a long-term task -This will require persistent effort over time, as well as innovative approaches to improve service delivery in the short and medium terms. Afghanistan's experience over the past five years, as well as lessons from other fragile states, provide some clues about how to go about public administration reform. -
Publication
Public Enterprise Reform in Andhra Pradesh (1999-2005): Issues and Challenges
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-05)This note aims to document Andhra Pradesh's experience in reforming its State Level Public Enterprises (SLPE's) since the last seven years and the main issues going forward. The note is organized in seven sections. Section one discusses the backdrop of state-wide reforms, in particular public enterprise reforms, undertaken by the state of Andhra Pradesh in late nineties. This section lays the rationale and importance of the reform program in the light of deteriorating performance of PEs in the state. Section two discusses the approach taken by the government, the key element of which was 'carrying all stakeholders along'. The next section discusses the design of the program: a phased approach with all the essential building blocks like the legal and institutional structures, a social safety net program, a good communications strategy and factoring in environmental issues through audits upfront. Section four and five discuss the implementation arrangements and the definitions of reforms respectively. Section six documents the achievements and progress of the program under phase one and two in the last seven years. Section seven discusses the implementation issues; challenges faced during various stages of the program and the government's response to the same. The last section concludes with a review of key challenges going forward. -
Publication
Subnational Administration in Afghanistan, Volume 2. A Guide to Government in Afghanistan
(Washington, DC, 2004-04-01)This report proposes a two-pronged strategy of government action for securing progress in sub-national administration, using the structures, and discipline that form the distinctive heritage of the Afghan state. One strand calls for the center to commit itself to delivering some basic support for provinces, districts, and provincial municipalities, in their functional role as service provider or commissioner, and in their political role as local representative of the unitary state. The second strand of the strategy is comprised of tailored incentives for sub-national administrations, that reflect their institutional and historical roots. The task is to make this de-concentrated system work, through effective incentives at the sub-national level that will entail the provision of valued resources that are triggered by simple measures of administrative effort, not performance, and tailoring the incentives to suit the specific situation of the administration, with distinct differences between the incentives provided to provinces, districts, and provincial municipalities. To this end, the report proposes unconditional commitments from the Government in Kabul to: complete the pension reform, i.e., build, and strengthen capacity within the central administration entities, increasing Treasury authority, and establishing procedures to strengthen the budgetary process. Likewise, it proposes to restore provincial infrastructure, and priority support for provincial health and education departments. By designing specific project support, it is intended to help shift the focus towards pro-province and pro-service delivery objectives.