Institutional and Governance Review

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CPIA Africa, June 2024: Structural Reforms for a Vibrant Private Sector
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-15) World Bank
The CPIA Africa report highlights policy trends, best practices, and key changes in Sub-Saharan Africa, following the World Bank's annual Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA). The analysis is designed to assess the elements of policies and institutional arrangements within a country's control for promoting sustainable growth and poverty reduction. Discussion is limited to countries eligible for financing from the International Development Association (IDA), the part of the World Bank that supports the world’s poorest countries. With government investment and spending in Sub-Saharan Africa currently constrained, there is an urgent need for the private sector to accelerate. This year's CPIA Africa report focuses on reforms across policy areas that bolster private sector growth and highlights the policy trends that have been instrumental in supporting business development in 2023. The CPIA 2024 report for Africa underscores several key developments. First, the region has made significant strides in economic management and policies for social inclusion and equity, surpassing the global IDA average. However, the slower improvement in the governance cluster remains a concern. Second, the region has implemented reforms to enhance resilience to international economic shocks, particularly in central bank independence and transparency. Nonetheless, exchange rate pressures have posed challenges for countries actively managing exchange rate fluctuations. Third, the growing debt service obligations in the region limit the amount of resources available for public-sector investment. Public spending is especially constrained in countries with heightened concerns about external debt distress with some countries resorting to increased arrears and monetary financing. Finally, the report highlights two major trends offering hope for private sector growth: digital technology and increased intraregional trade. These trends have the potential to be transformational and provide significant opportunities for increased competition, FDI inflows, and economic diversification.
CPIA Africa, September 2023: Policies for Economic Resilience in a Turbulent World
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-09-12) World Bank
The Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) for Africa is an annual diagnostic tool for Sub-Saharan African countries that are eligible for financing from the International Development Association (IDA), the part of the World Bank that helps the world’s poorest countries. The CPIA Africa 2023 report provides an assessment of the quality of policies and institutions in all 39 IDA-eligible countries in Sub-Saharan Africa for calendar year 2022. The average overall CPIA score for Sub-Saharan Africa remained unchanged at 3.1 in 2022. Economic and social resilience continues to be tested in all countries in Sub-Saharan Africa amid tight global credit markets, as institutional capacity for restoring stability and delivering sustained growth remains a challenge. Such resilience is also fundamental to responding to global climate change and the expected market shifts as the world economy transitions to green energy. The recovery of economic activity in the region following the slowdown caused by COVID-19 has been multispeed, with wide variation across countries. Global events that diverted attention away from longer-term development priorities marked 2022. Inflation was the predominant form in which international pressures translated to domestic economies in Sub-Saharan Africa, resulting in stress on social policies and government budgets, on account of divergent responses by governments and private sector competition. In some countries, this has led to significant stress on debt sustainability, highlighting the importance of debt management, budgetary oversight, and financial soundness. An opportunity for regrouping on policy reforms arose in the second half of 2022, as gas prices declined after a mild European winter and China lifted health-related restrictions. Despite global economic challenges, more countries in Sub-Saharan Africa saw improvements in their overall CPIA scores compared to the previous year. In Western and Central Africa (AFW), the overall score increased for eight countries—Benin, Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, the Republic of Congo, and Togo. The overall score increased for four countries in Eastern and Southern Africa (AFE)—Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, and Zambia. In contrast, the overall score decreased for eight countries—Chad, the Comoros, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Sudan. The countries with improved scores made notable advancements in the economic management, policies for social inclusion, and governance clusters. Conversely, the countries with declining scores faced economic management and governance challenges. For the most part, the countries that received downgrades were positioned toward the lower end of the scale, while the upgraded countries generally had overall scores above 3, indicating a growing divergence in scores across the region in 2022.
CPIA Africa, October 2022: Assessing Africa’s Policies and Institutions
(Washington, DC, 2022-10) World Bank
The Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) Africa 2022 report provides an assessment of the quality of policies and institutions for the calendar year 2021 in all 39 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa that are International Development Association (IDA)–eligible. The overall average score for these countries remained unchanged from the previous year at 3.1. Similarly, no changes were observed at the subregional level, where average scores were unchanged at 3.2 and 3.0 for West and Central Africa and East and Southern Africa, respectively. However, at the country level, the overall CPIA scores changed in 11 countries, including an increase in seven countries and a decline in four. Among the countries that increased their CPIA scores, nearly 70 percent has done it on account of better policies for social inclusion and equity. Among the four countries with decreased CPIA scores, three are assessed with weakened performance in macroeconomic management. Countries with below average scores (under 3.0) are mostly fragile and conflict-affected cases. Section 1 of this report evaluates the impact of the pandemic on economic performance in Sub-Saharan Africa’s IDA-eligible countries, particularly focusing on key macroeconomic outcomes. Section 2 of the report presents the CPIA assessment results by clusters, by criteria, as well as by countries, while distinguishing between fragile and non-fragile countries. Section 3 provides the individual country CPIA pages.
CPIA Africa, November 2021: Assessing Africa’s Policies and Institutions
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-11) World Bank
The Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) 2021 Africa report provides an assessment of the quality of policies and institutions of International Development Association (IDA); eligible countries in Sub-Saharan Africa in calendar year 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report analyzes the CPIA scores for 2020 to assess the extent to which the policies and institutions of the region's IDA countries are fostering sustainable growth, poverty reduction, and the effective utilization of development resources. The CPIA scores quantify the level of performance of each country against 16 criteria that represent the policy and institutional arrangements of an effective poverty reduction and growth strategy. The criteria are grouped into four clusters: economic management, structural policies, policies for social inclusion and equity, and public sector management and institutions. Countries are rated on a scale between 1 and 6, with high and rising scores signifying stronger policy and institutional frameworks.
Tanzania Education Sector Institutional and Governance Assessment
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-06-30) World Bank
The Tanzania Education Sector Institutional and Governance Assessment (hereafter referred to as the report) identifies the drivers of efficient and effective basic education service delivery in Tanzania by exploring the sector’s institutional and governance context. The assessment has four main components: i) the policy and institutional setting; ii) the public financial management (PFM) context; iii) decentralization and its impact on basic education; and iv) school autonomy and accountability in the delivery of education services. Viewing these through a ‘service delivery lens’, the report presents the key findings and recommendations for medium-term as well as immediate future programming aimed at improved learning outcomes in Tanzania. The report takes an overall systems approach where each component is viewed as part of the whole, to create a picture where interconnected systemic constraints underpin an uncertain accountability chain. This is presented as a synthesis of learnings across all four components. The picture that emerges informs the recommendations of the Report, enabling the identification of synergistic critical pathways and entry-points for effective, efficient, and accountable education service delivery and, in the longer term, improved learning outcomes.
CPIA Africa, August 2020: Safeguarding Human Capital during and beyond COVID-19
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-08-12) World Bank
The 2020 Africa Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) report covers the period from January to December 2019. The addition of Somalia brought the number of the region’s International Development Association (IDA)–eligible countries to 39. The overall CPIA score for the region’s 39 IDA-eligible countries came in at 3.1, the same as in the previous three years, in a context of moderating per capita growth. The average scores for most of the CPIA clusters trended down in 2019. While the average score for the economic management cluster was unchanged from last year’s assessment, the average scores for the other three clusters—structural policies, social inclusion, and public management and institutions—declined, indicating that the quality of policies and institutions in the region’s IDA countries weakened in 2019. The weakening of structural policies was reflected in the decline in the quality of trade policy, uneven improvements in the regulations affecting factor and product markets, and further deterioration of the financial sector performance. In the area of social inclusion, many countries experienced a decrease in the quality of service delivery that affects access to and quality of health and education services. In the broader area of governance, limited progress was made in strengthening property rights, and transparency and accountability. In addition, the quality of public administration declined, and financial management systems and revenue mobilization capacity weakened in many countries.
CPIA Africa: Strengthening Debt Management Capacity
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-07-31) World Bank
The 2019 Africa Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) report covers the period January to December 2018. Over this period, the average quality of policies and institutions in International Development Association (IDA)-eligible countries remained unchanged, amid decelerating growth across the region. The overall CPIA score for IDA countries in Sub-Saharan Africa was 3.1 in 2018, the same as 2017, reflecting the slow progress in improving the quality of policy and institutional frameworks in the region.
CPIA Africa, July 2018: Assessing Africa's Policies and Institutions
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-07) World Bank Group
Favorable global economic conditions supported a turnaround in economic activity in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2017, easing pressure on weak policy frameworks. Output growth rebounded to an estimated 2.6 percent after decelerating to 1.5 percent in 2016 amid challenging external and domestic conditions. Notwithstanding the recent upturn in economic activity, growth remained well below its pre–financial crisis average of around 5 percent; moreover, per capita growth was negative for a second consecutive year. Important near and longer term vulnerabilities remain in many of the region's economies: eroded policy buffers constrain the scope for countries to formulate an adequate policy response to adverse shocks; public debt relative to gross domestic product (GDP) is rising, with implications for debt sustainability; employment opportunities severely lag the growing labor force, and livelihoods and economic fortunes are still tied to commodity price shocks and production disruptions, underscoring the limited economic diversification in the region; and poverty is widespread.
Actionable Regulatory Governance Indicators for UE Regions
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-06-13) World Bank
The European Union’s Cohesion Policy is its biggest investment instrument. It supports the Europe 2020 strategy of smart, sustainable, and inclusive growth. With a budget of €351.8 billion for 2014–2020, the Cohesion Policy accounts for around one-third of the EU budget. The Cohesion Policy is primarily implemented through investments in EU regions and cities. Local and regional governments in the EU are responsible for more than half of all public investment. There is a growing focus on the importance of good governance to ensure effective implementation. The European Commission’s 6th Cohesion Policy report notes that governance problems not only delay the implementation of Cohesion Policy programs but also reduce the impact of these investments. The report states: ‘a lower standard of governance can affect the impact of Cohesion Policy both directly and indirectly. In the first place, it can reduce expenditure if programs fail to invest all the funding available. Secondly, it can lead to a less coherent or appropriate strategy for a country or region. Thirdly, it may lead to lower quality projects being selected for funding or to the best projects not applying for support at all. Fourthly, it may result in a lower leverage effect because the private sector is less willing to co-finance investment.’ The purpose of this report is to develop and test a set of actionable indicators for the regulatory frameworks of EU regions. Deregulatory measures focusing on ‘fixing broken regulations’ are a necessary and important element of investment climate reforms. However, gains from one-off initiatives aimed at cutting costs and procedures are often reversed if the responsible institutions, tools, and incentives are not changed.
Managing Afghanistan’s Rangelands and Forest Resources: An Assessment of Institutional and Technical Capacity Constraints
(World Bank, Kabul, 2018-06) World Bank
Afghanistan has been in conflict and internal turmoil since the early 1970s, which has resulted in loss of life, insecurity, ethnic division, and wide-spread damage to the environment and natural resources. As citizens of one of the poorest nations in the world with an increasing poverty level that reached 55 percent in 2016-2017, 80 percent of Afghans depend on natural resources for their daily subsistence. Fodder for livestock, fuel wood for heating and cooking, water for agriculture and consumption, medicinal plants and wildlife provide scarce means for survival and limited trade. The government of Afghanistan is giving agriculture and natural resource management utmost priority for development. Current policies link natural resources management to private sector development, justice sector reform (land administration), agriculture development, mineral and resource development, and human capital development programs. This World Bank paper that highlights the importance of the rangelands and forest resources for the country’s sustainable development. The paper explains the status and role of rangelands and forest resources for the country’s mostly rural population. It describes the importance of the sector for boosting agricultural productivity, addressing climate change and weather- related natural disasters, and contributing to rural jobs creation. It further offers some recommendations on how to revitalize the natural resources management sector that is critically important in the context of rural development and Afghanistan’s economy, and is yet often overlooked and broadly neglected.