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Publication
Future Drivers of Growth in Rwanda: Innovation, Integration, Agglomeration, and Competition
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020)A strong and widely acknowledged record of economic success—including a three-and-ahalf- fold increase in per capita income since 1994—places Rwanda among the world’s fastest-growing economies. Traumatic memories of the 1994 genocide are gradually fading, as associations begin to take a more positive form—of a nation on the rise, powered by human resilience, a sense of common purpose, and a purposeful government. Past successes and a sense of frailty have fueled aspirations for a secure, prosperous, and modern future. Sustaining high rates of economic growth is at the heart of these ambitions. Recent formulations of the nation’s Vision 2050 set a target of achieving upper-middleincome status by 2035 and high-income status by 2050. Future Drivers of Growth in Rwanda: Innovation, Integration, Agglomeration, and Competition, a joint undertaking by experts from Rwanda and the World Bank Group, evaluates the country’s possibilities and options in this endeavor. The report identifies four essential drivers of growth—innovation, integration, agglomeration, and competition—and reforms in six priority areas: human capital development, export dynamism and regional integration, well-managed urbanization, competitive domestic enterprises, agricultural modernization, and capable and accountable public institutions. -
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The Africa Competitiveness Report 2015
(Geneva: World Economic Forum, 2015-06-01)The Africa Competitiveness Report 2015 comes out at a promising time for the continent: for 15 years growth rates have averaged over 5 percent, and rapid population growth holds the promise of a large emerging consumer market as well as an unprecedented labor force that - if leveraged - can provide significant growth opportunities. Moreover, the expansion of innovative business models, such as mobile technology services, is indicative of the continents growth potential. However, Africa continues to be largely agrarian, with an economy that is underpinned by resource-driven growth and a large and expanding informal sector. Indeed, more than a decade of consistently high growth rates have not yet trickled down to significant parts of the population: nearly one out of two Africans continue to live in extreme poverty, and income inequality in the region remains among the highest in the world. What is more, across sectors - from agriculture to manufacturing and services - productivity levels remain low. It will be necessary to raise productivity across all sectors of the economy to achieve higher growth and create quality employment, and turn this progress into sustainable inclusive growth. -
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Intensifying the Fight Against Malaria : The World Bank's Booster Program for Malaria Control in Africa
(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2009)This document describes the purpose and context of the Booster Program, its first three years of operation and the proposed design of phase two of the program. Phase two seeks to build on the successes of and lessons learned from phase one and to enable the World Bank to play its expected role in scaling up and sustaining malaria control interventions to reach the new ambitious but achievable global goal set by the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership, of eliminating malaria as a major public health problem in Africa by 2015. The Bank has subscribed fully to this agenda, as illustrated by statements made by senior management in several public forums. -
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Namibia: Country Brief
(World Bank, 2009)Namibia is a large country in Southern Africa that borders the South Atlantic Ocean, between Angola to the north and South Africa to the south. With a surface area of 824,290 square kilometers, it is similar in size to Mozambique and about half the size of the U.S. state of Alaska. Namibia has a small population of approximately 2.1 million people. It is also one of the least densely populated countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, with an average density of approximately 2.5 people per square kilometer, compared to 34 people per square kilometer for the region as a whole. Namibia was the last colonized country in Sub-Saharan Africa to become independent. After nearly 70 years of South African rule, Namibia gained its independence on March 21, 1990. Until 1990, Namibia's official languages were German, Afrikaans, and English. Following independence, English became the official language, although it is the first language of only a very small percentage of Namibians. Oshiwambo dialects are the mother tongue of approximately half of the population. Namibia, a lower-middle-income country, has one of the highest levels of per capita income in Sub-Saharan Africa. Namibia is one of very few countries in Sub-Saharan Africa that maintains a social safety net for the elderly, the disabled, orphans and vulnerable children, and war veterans. It also has a social security act that provides for maternity leave, sick leave, and medical benefits. Namibia has one of the most productive fishing grounds in the world. The fishing industry is an important source of foreign exchange and a significant employer. The tourism industry in Namibia is similar in size to that in Botswana and is the country's third-largest foreign exchange earner. Namibia is one of the largest producers of gem quality diamonds in the world. It is estimated that 98 percent of its mined diamonds are gem quality. In 2006, almost half of total production was recovered from offshore sources. Namibia is the driest country in Sub-Saharan Africa, with deserts occupying much of the country. It has no perennial rivers or any other permanent water bodies. Due to the low and erratic rainfall and scarce ground and surface water, less than five percent of the country is arable, including through irrigation. Namibia was the first country in the world to incorporate environmental protection into its constitution. Nearly six percent of its land is nationally protected, including large portions of coastal areas within the Namib Desert. -
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Tanzania: Country Brief
(World Bank, 2009)The name Tanzania is a portmanteau of Tanganyika, the mainland, and Zanzibar, the nearby archipelago in the Indian Ocean. The two united to become the United Republic of Tanzania in 1964. With a surface area of 947,300 square kilometers, Tanzania is comparable in size to Nigeria and is slightly more than twice the size of the U.S. state of California. Tanzania's population of approximately 40.4 million (as of 2007) is the second largest in East Africa, after Ethiopia's. Dar es Salaam, the most populous city, contains approximately 2.7 million people and accounts for most commercial activity. Swahili (or Kiswahili) and English are the two official languages of Tanzania. A large number of local languages are also spoken. In Zanzibar, Arabic is commonly used. Agriculture remains the mainstay of Tanzania's economy, accounting for one-quarter of gross domestic product (GDP) and approximately 80 percent of employment. Tanzania is endowed with mineral and natural resources, including gold, diamonds, and several other precious and semiprecious stones. The blue gemstone tanzanite is found only in Tanzania. Tanzania accounted for almost two percent of world gold production as of 2006. Tanzania has a long history of hosting refugee's fleeing civil wars in nearby countries. As of January 2008, there were more than 380,000 refugees living in Tanzania, predominantly from Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Tanzania is an up-market tourism destination. The country is endowed with a variety of tourism assets, including seven United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) world heritage sites and numerous wildlife parks, beach resorts, coral reefs, and spectacular scenic mountain views. -
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Sustaining Reforms for Inclusive Growth in Cameroon : A Development Policy Review
(World Bank, 2009)Cameroon faces a challenging policy agenda over the next few years. The Government has been implementing its comprehensive poverty reduction strategy since April 2003. The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) set an ambitious agenda for broad-based economic development with specific medium-term targets as well as detailed sector policies and programs for accelerating economic growth, strengthening the social sectors, and halving poverty over the following ten years. Despite a strong start, implementation of the PRSP slowed during the 2003-04 presidential election period, when fiscal discipline was relaxed and the restructuring of key public enterprises slowed. This faltering progress translated into much lower fiscal performance relative to program targets, higher government spending to prop up distressed key public enterprises, and the accumulation of domestic arrears. These developments led the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to declare Cameroon's Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) program off track in the third quarter of 2004, delaying attainment of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) completion point by nearly two years. In the aftermath of the election, the Government developed an ambitious medium-term investment program intended to accelerate economic transformation and propel Cameroon into the group of fast-growing emerging countries. The Government is set to launch preparation of a new PRSP in early 2007. The new generation of the PRSP is expected to center on economic transformation and inclusive growth and to articulate a policy agenda that could pave the way for Cameroon to take off and get back on track to attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. -
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Africa at a Turning Point? : Growth, Aid, and External Shocks
(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2008)This book is a collection of essays that seeks to answer three interrelated sets of questions about Africa's recent growth recovery. The first set of essays addresses questions about the drivers and durability of Africa's growth. How different is current economic performance compared to Africa's long history of boom-bust cycles? Have African countries learned to avoid past mistakes and pursued the right policies? How much of the current performance depends on good luck such as favorable commodity prices or the recovery of external assistance and how much depends on hard-won economic policy reforms. A second set of essays looks at the role of donor flows. External assistance plays a larger role in Africa's growth story than in any other part of the developing world. As a result, the economic management of external assistance is a major public policy challenge, and donor behavior is a significant source of external risk. The third set of essays looks at questions arising from commodity price shocks especially from changes in the price of oil. Relative to factors such as policy failures, conflicts, and natural disasters, how important are commodity price shocks in explaining output variability in African countries? Compared to the oil price shocks in the 1970s, why have recent higher oil prices apparently had less impact on Africa's growth? Oil is also now an important source of revenue for several oil exporting countries in Africa; what are the economic challenges faced by those countries? How should one analyze the macroeconomic and distributional impact of external and oil price shocks? As the essays in this volume show, laying the policy and institutional basis for longer-term growth, managing volatile commodity prices and aid flows, and turning growth in average incomes into growth in all incomes remain formidable but manageable challenges if Africa is to reach its turning point. -
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The World Bank's Commitment to HIV/AIDS in Africa : Our Agenda for Action, 2007-2011
(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2008)The World Bank is committed to support Sub-Saharan Africa in responding to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. This Agenda for Action (AFA) is a road map for the next five years to guide Bank management and staff in fulfilling that commitment. It underscores the lessons learned and outlines a line of action. HIV/AIDS remains and will remain for the foreseeable future an enormous economic, social, and human challenge to Sub-Saharan Africa. This region is the global epicenter of the disease. About 22.5 million Africans are HIV positive, and AIDS is the leading cause of premature death on the continent. HIV/AIDS affects young people and women disproportionately. Some 61 percent of those who are HIV positive are women, and young women are three times more likely to be HIV positive than are young men. As a result of the epidemic, an estimated 11.4 million children under age 18 have lost at least one parent. Its impact on households, human capital, the private sector, and the public sector undermines the alleviation of poverty, the Bank's overarching mandate. In sum, HIV/AIDS threatens the development goals in the region unlike anywhere else in the world. -
Publication
Making Finance Work for Africa
(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2007)Making Finance Work for Africa presents a coherent policy approach that addresses African priorities and can work in African conditions. It challenges the applicability of some conventional views on a range of issues from securities markets and banking regulation to the organization of microfinance institutions. The authors identify promising trends from across sub-Saharan Africa and pinpoint shortcomings. The book will be useful to policy makers, bankers, financial analysts, and economists working in Africa. -
Publication
Sustaining and Sharing Economic Growth in Tanzania : Contents of CD Rom
(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2007)This book is designed to contribute to the government's thinking on how best to translate broad MKUKUTA (the government of Tanzania's National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty) policy objectives into practical tactics and programs well suited to Tanzania's economic priorities and to the removal of key institutional and infrastructure bottlenecks. The book aims to respond to three fundamental questions: (a) what factors explain Tanzania's recent acceleration in economic growth, (b) how well has the accelerated growth translated into reduced poverty, and (c) what needs to be done to sustain growth that is also pro-poor. This book focuses on three issues that are central to the success of Tanzania's poverty reduction efforts: What factors explain Tanzania's recent acceleration in economic growth? Has the accelerated economic growth translated into reduced poverty? What must be done to sustain economic growth that is pro-poor? The book presents evidence from the macroeconomic, sectoral, firm, and household levels that shed light on these questions. In addition, the book examines the effectiveness of measures that support the poor in efforts to accumulate human and physical capital, which would enhance their prospects of contributing to economic growth. Finally, it is important to mention that this book is a compilation of chapters written by authors from the African Development Bank (Peter Mwanakatwe), COWI Consultants (Kerstin Pfliegner), independent consultancies (Marianne Simonsen and Annabella Skof), and the World Bank (Jean-Eric Aubert, Vandana Chandra, Louise Fox, Henry Gordon, Johannes Hoogeveen, Pooja Kacker, Ying Li, Allister Moon, Philip Mpango, Ravi Ruparel, Anuja Utz, Robert J. Utz, and Michael Wong).