LAC Occasional Paper Series

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The LCSSD Occasional Paper Series is a publication of the Sustainable Development Department (LCSSD) in the World Bank’s Latin America and the Caribbean Region. The papers in this series are the result of economic and technical research conducted by members of the LCSSD community. The series addresses issues that are relevant to the region’s environmental and social sustainability; water, urban, energy and transport sector development; agriculture, forestry and rural development; as well as cross-cutting topics related to sustainable development such as climate change; logistics; crime and violence; and spatial economics. While all papers in this series are peer reviewed and cleared by the LCSSD Economics Unit on behalf of the Director of LCSSD, the findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper, as in all publications of the LCSSD Occasional Paper Series, are entirely those of the authors and should not be attributed in any manner to the World Bank, to its affiliated organizations or to members of its Board of Executive Directors or the countries they represent. The World Bank does not garantee the accuracy of the data included in this paper and accepts no responsibility for any consequences of their use.

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Environmental Health Costs in Colombia : The Changes from 2002 to 2010

2014-06, Golub, Elena, Klytchnikova, Irina, Sanchez-Martinez, Gerardo, Belausteguigoitia, Juan Carlos

Despite considerable progress in the area of environmental management over the last decade, Colombia still faces significant impacts from population exposure to urban air pollution, inadequate access to water supply and sanitation, and indoor air pollution from solid fuel use. This study estimates that the total health cost attributable to these three factors amounts to about 10.2 trillion Colombian Pesos (COP) annually, or about 2 percent of GDP in 2010. In terms of mortality, about 7,600 annual premature deaths can be attributed to these environmental factors. This study updates some of the estimates of environmental health costs reported in the 2005 Colombia Country Environmental Analysis environmental priorities and poverty reduction . Specific policy recommendations and targeted interventions can be derived from future analysis of environmental health costs at subnational level, cost-benefit analysis of specific policy interventions, and an analysis of the burden of health costs disaggregated by population groups and poverty levels. Disaggregated statistics on health outcomes, fuel use, and access to infrastructure services, epidemiological studies, and air quality models (urban and industrial areas) are required for such analysis. Disaggregated assessments and cost benefit analysis, recommended for future studies, will facilitate an evaluation of policy and investment outcomes in terms of their impacts on the most vulnerable groups and the extent to which they are well targeted and benefit the poor.

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Restoring the Coastal Environment in Cartagena, Colombia

2014, World Bank

Cartagena, the historic city where the '1983 Cartagena convention for the Protection of the Caribbean' was signed, is meeting its responsibilities to protect the public health of its citizens as well as the costal marine environment through improved wastewater management. Cartagena's experience can serve as an inspiration to the wider Caribbean region and provide a model for other developing coastal cities. Water pollution control is a key issue for the world's coastal cities. Pollution emanating from domestic and industrial wastewater can not only contaminate the ocean environment but also damage highly productive estuaries and bays that provide a critical ecological connection to the marine environment. Inadequate wastewater management can also pollute urban beaches, potentially threatening public health and undermining tourism. This technical note summarizes Cartagena's experience in wastewater management for international dissemination and was jointly prepared by the World Bank, the Colombian Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, the Cartagena water utility (ACUACAR), and the Global Partnership for the Oceans (GPO).

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Inclusive Green Growth in Latin America and the Caribbean

2013-01, World Bank

Argentina has expanded the use of its portion of the Parana-Paraguay waterways system for the transportation of soy and other bulk commodities through an innovative tolling system that self-finances the dredging and maintenance of the rivers. Brazil, in turn, is pursuing a 'green trucking' strategy to improve efficiency of its cargo haulage industry, reduce petroleum usage, and curb pollution from trucking. For the entire hemisphere, the expansion of the Panama Canal will bring post-Panama vessels and introduce greater scale economies in shipping. The following sections of this paper provide a more detailed review of the sectoral objectives, challenges, and way forward in making Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) growth greener and more inclusive. It looks back over the achievements of the demand sectors of urban development and infrastructure services, energy, urban transport, and water and sanitation, as well as natural resources and rural development since Rio 1992. It highlights the achievements in those areas, and the ability of those accomplishments to establish a robust path for the region to inclusive green growth.

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Improving Agricultural Productivity and Market Efficiency in Latin America and the Caribbean : How ICTs Can Make a Difference?

2012-03, Goyal, Aparajita

Agricultural growth rates in the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region have been much slower than the rest of the developing world. In the regions of East Asia, South Asia and Middle East and North Africa, the annual growth of agricultural Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 1980-2004 exceeded 3 percent, while growth in Sub- Saharan Africa averaged almost 3 percent. This paper attempts to present an overview of the agricultural sector in LAC, discuss its distinctive features, and the potential role of Information and Communication Technology's (ICTs) in improving agricultural productivity and market efficiency in this region. The discussion in this paper will refer to the evidence provided by studies that evaluate the impact of ICTs interventions. While the emphasis will be put on the studies that evaluate interventions in the LAC region, there will also be references to studies in other developing economies whenever these are pertinent to the LAC context. The commercialization of agricultural products has suffered important transformations in recent decades, posing big challenges for farmers in the LAC region. Finally, the adoption of agricultural technologies will also be constrained by insecure land rights. Investing in technologies with long-run returns will not be attractive if farmers are uncertain about their property rights in the future (Jack, 2011). This is certainly an issue in several countries in LAC, where land conflicts, expropriation and de facto ownership are common.

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Framework for Conducting Benefit-Cost Analyses of Investments in Hydro-Meteorological Systems

2014-06, Malik, Arun S., Amacher, Gregory S., Russ, Jason, Esikuri, Enos E., Ashida Tao, Keiko

The whitepaper is organized as follows: section two provides an overview of the types of benefits associated with hydromet investments, the process by which the benefits are generated, and their expected development impacts; section three explains the rationale for public sector investment in hydromet systems and involvement by the World Bank; section four discusses the wide range of factors that influence the magnitude of benefits generated by hydromet systems, in particular the value of weather and climate forecasts. The discussion is supplemented by a stylized example presented in annex one; section five provides an overview of approaches that have been used to estimate the value of improved forecasts of routine climate to specific user groups or sectors of an economy; section six then turns to an overview of approaches that have been used to estimate the net benefits of hydromet investments at the country level. The primary benefits estimated by these approaches are those associated with improved forecasts of extreme meteorological events; section seven contains a discussion of the costs of hydromet investments, with particular attention given to the challenges faced in estimating these costs in developing countries; section eight lays out a framework for estimating the expected net benefits of hydromet investments at a country level. The framework builds on existing approaches and is designed to be used with data available from secondary sources. This section will be of central interest to those tasked with conducting economic evaluations of hydromet investments; section nine describes data that can be collected to conduct interim and ex-post evaluations of hydromet investments that supplement and refine ex-ante evaluations of these investments; and section ten offers conclusions and recommendations.

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Agricultural Support Policies and Programs in Jamaica 2006-2011

2013-11, Arias, Diego, Gurria, Martin, Pena, Hector, Brown-Knowlton, Mildred, Boyce, Rachel, Smikle, Conrad

An analysis of Jamaica's agriculture support policies and programs shows that Jamaican consumers are financing the bulk of supports to the agriculture sector. This report estimates the agriculture public support policies and programs of Jamaica between 2006 and 2011. This analysis of the agriculture programs and policies provides an understanding of the level and composition by type of support for different crops and livestock producers during 2010-2011. The estimate of total agriculture supports (measured as the total support estimate, TSE) in Jamaica in 2011 was approximately United States (U.S.) 675 million dollars (J$58.071 million), representing 4.7 percent of total gross domestic product (GDP) and 22.7 percent of agriculture GDP. Jamaica has been facing significant development challenges over the last three decades. It is in this context of fiscal restrictions and potential further economic and social stagnation, that the Government of Jamaica and the World Bank have been prompted to take action to better understand the degree and type of support Jamaican farmers are receiving. Once the level of support is understood within Jamaica's economic context, policy and program recommendations can be made to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the support structure, addressing agriculture sector competitiveness issues and constraints. In this context, the report presents introduction; supports to agriculture; and summary and conclusions.

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Agro-Logistics in Central America: A Supply Chain Approach

2012-06, World Bank

This chapter uses supply chain analysis (SCA) to identify transport and logistics bottlenecks that add costs, times and uncertainty to the exportation of perishable agricultural products from Central America. Macro-level analyses of logistics performance, including the logistics performance index, Doing Business Reports and Enterprise Surveys of the World Bank, as well as the Global Competitiveness Index of the Global Economic Forum, often leave policy-makers unclear on exactly what poor performance means for exporters and producers in Central America. How does poor road quality eat away at the profit margins of my country's producers? Extensive procedures add time to export processes, but how much time? How and to what extend does this additional time hurt the competitiveness of key industries? How does this effect vary by product type? By tracking the movement of seven carefully selected exports, these supply chains complement macro-level analyses by answering these questions for some of the region's key agricultural exports. A range of unique characteristics makes the success of perishable exports exceedingly dependent on the efficiency of the related logistics systems and the ability to connect effectively and reliably to global supply chains. Remote production zones add cost, time and variability to transport from the farm gate to the distribution, collection or processing center. Increasingly complicated international sanitary and phytosanitary standards (SPS) add institutional and procedural complexity to the supply chain. Above all, the time sensitivity of most perishable products increases the value of time and makes cold chain infrastructure and the availability of refrigerated containers essential for successful exportation.

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Developing a Program for Contaminated Site Management in Low and Middle Income Countries

2014-05, Kovalick, Walter W., Jr., Montgomery, Robert H.

Contaminated sites associated with economic growth and development and increased urbanization pose a growing public health and environmental problem. Emissions and discharges, particularly uncontrolled ones, onto land can pollute the soil and the groundwater beneath, and can also affect surface water quality and sediments in nearby rivers and streams. This document is intended to summarize the rationale and the major policy, regulatory, implementation, and organizational issues involved in creating a contaminated site program, especially for low and middle income countries. The document offers alternatives regarding the design and implementation of such a program. It provides an action agenda of short- and longer-term activities to be considered when establishing a contaminated site program. In addition to providing some optional approaches for the many policy and programmatic issues, the document provides numerous references from the experience of other country programs to draw upon in considering program options. The document is intended to help support World Bank staff or other international financial institutions and assistance agencies in their dialogues with governmental officials in low and middle income countries regarding specific options and steps on developing or implementing contaminated sites programs in their countries. It is also relevant for governmental agencies in these countries responsible for site contamination and pollution management, land use planning, and site development at local and national levels. The document is organized in the following chapters: chapter one gives introduction. Chapter two is setting policy and legislative framework which highlights the development of policy and legislative purpose, principles, strategy and design, and related legislation. Chapter three is regulatory issues which presents major topics that may be the subject of regulations by a ministry or agency. Chapter four is contaminated site program management which presents management, organizational, and operational issues, including issues of coordination and partnerships within branches of government and with other stakeholders. Chapter five is action agenda for contaminated site program which provides the development of an action agenda of short- and longer-term actions to be considered in forming a contaminated site program, including creation of a national management plan for contaminated sites.

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Determinants of Agricultural Extension Services : The Case of Haiti

2013-05-24, Arias, Diego, Leguía, Juan José, Sy, Abdoulaye

The Haitian population is among the poorest in the world, with over 78 percent living on less than United States (U.S.) 2 dollar a day and over 50 percent living on less than U.S. 1 dollar a day. This paper extracts relevant lessons from historical data on factors influencing the receipt of extension services in Haiti, taking stock of the use of agricultural extension services prior to the 2010 earthquake. The goal is to influence future policies and development projects involving the provision of extension services as well as the type of extension services offered. This paper uses data from the 2010 agricultural census and examines the characteristics of farmers in Haiti receiving extension services by gender, education, agricultural training, farm size, and type of crop. Through in-depth study of each variable and a review of trends in the receipt of agricultural extension services, the study analyzes the equilibrium between the demand for and supply of extension services to particular farmer groups. The study draws the following nine key conclusions: (1) the proportion of households receiving agricultural extension services in Haiti is non-negligible; (2) location is an important determinant of the recipients of agricultural extension services; (3) there are no statistical differences between men and women in terms of receipt of extension services; however, the impact of agricultural training and farm size change when the head of household is a woman; (4) education level has a positive, yet small, effect on receiving extension services; (5) prior agricultural training is a major determinant of the recipients of extension services; (6) rehabilitation of the Ecoles Moyennes Agricoles (EMAs) for vocational and farmer field education on a nationwide scale will increase the demand for extension services, especially among small farmers; (7) farmers with larger farms receive more agricultural extension services; (8) coffee producers make more use of extension services than other farmers; and (9) promoting a hybrid system of extension may be more efficient than supporting only public or Non-governmental organizations (NGO) provided extension services.

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Freight Flows,Logistics Costs, and Efficiency: Optimal Path Analysis

2012-06, World Bank

In Central America, cargo is transported almost entirely by road. The movement of imports and exports to and from international seaports is done by truck. Rail service is almost nonexistent and air transport serves less than one percent of the cargo generated within the Central American Common Market (SIECA, 2004). Intra-regional trade is much more important in Central America than it might seem at first glance. The second largest trading partner of Central America is the region itself. In 2010, one quarter of the exports from Central America were destined for final consumption within the region. Half of the exports of Central America (54 percent in 2010) correspond to agricultural products and a large proportion of them supply markets inside the region. Nearly 40 percent of intra-regional exports consist of food, beverages, animals and plants (SIECA, 2011). Perishable food products are transported on trucks, and spatially restricted by the geography and the road infrastructure. In this context, inefficiencies in the supply chain and delays in freight flows lead to economic losses and amplify the negative impact of the distance to the markets on trade. A gravity model of trade showed that the negative effect of distance1 on total intra-regional exports is 77 percent higher in Central America than in the European Union (World Bank, 2010). More precisely, an increase in distance by 1 percent is expected to reduce intra-regional bilateral exports in Central America by 1.65 percent. In terms of volume, the negative effect of distance within the region exceeds the effect in Europe by 50 percent in grains and up to 550 percent in processed food. In the latter case, an increase in distance by 1 percent is expected to reduce intra-regional bilateral exports of processed food in Central America by 2.88 percent.