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Economic Monitoring Report to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee

(Washington, DC, 2015-09-30) World Bank

Palestinians are getting poorer on average for the third year in a row. As evidenced in previous World Bank reports, the competitiveness of the Palestinian economy has been progressively eroding since the signing of the Oslo accords, in particular its industry and agriculture. Even though donor aid had increased government-funded services and fueled consumption-driven growth during 2007 to 2011, this growth model has proved unsustainable. Donor support has significantly declined in recent years and, in any case, aid cannot sustainably make up for inadequate private investment. Thus, growth has started to slow since 2012 and the Palestinian economy contracted in 2014 following the Gaza war. In early 2015, GDP was still lower than it was a year ago. Due to population growth, real GDP per capita has been shrinking since 2013. Unemployment remains high, particularly amongst Gaza’s youth where it exceeds 60 percent, and 25 percent of Palestinians currently live in poverty. Against the backdrop of weak economic growth, reduced donor aid, and temporary suspension of revenue payments by the Government of Israel (GoI), the Palestinian Authority’s reform efforts have not been able to prevent another year with a financing gap. The persistence of this situation could potentially lead to political and social unrest. In short, the status quo is not sustainable and downside risks of further conflict and social unrest are high.
Harnessing the Global Recovery, A Tough Road Ahead

(Washington, DC, 2014-04) World Bank

Many countries in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) will start to benefit from stronger external demand in the high-income economies, as the global economy is set for a rebound in 2014. After a marked slowdown in 2013, a recovery in high income economies is expected to boost global growth to 3.2 percent in 2014, an increase by 0.8 percentage points compared to 2013. Global output is expected to improve further in 2015 with real gross domestic product (GDP) accelerating to 3.4 percent in 2015. The World Bank estimates that growth in the United States (U.S.) will increase by 1 percentage point reaching 2.8 percent in 2014 and 2.9 percent in 2015; and the Euro Zone will improve to 1.1 percent and accelerate to 1.4 percent in 2014 and 2015 respectively, relative to negative 0.4 percent growth in 2013. The growth rebound in the Euro Zone is largely export led, with Germany and France continuing to expand at a solid pace, and Spain exiting recession. The world travel and tourism council estimates show that tourism revenues will increase by 7 percent in the MENA region in 2015 relative to 2014. To be sure, the global recovery is still fragile and downside risks, including continued low inflation in high-income economies, which can weaken demand and delay the economic recovery, and the escalation of conflict in Ukraine remain. This report presents the short-term, regional macroeconomic outlook, and economic challenges facing the countries in the MENA region. In this report, the MENA region is divided into three subgroups: the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) oil exporters, developing oil exporters, and oil importers.
Improving Food Security in Arab Countries

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009) World Bank ; FAO ; IFAD

This joint working paper lays out a rationale and strategic framework for improving food security and managing food-price shocks in the Arab countries. The paper does not provide country specific policy and project recommendations. Such recommendations will follow from the country by country application of the framework, taking into account each country's political and cultural preferences, resource endowments, and risk tolerance. In 2007 and the first half of 2008, a sharp rise in agricultural commodity and food prices triggered grave concerns about food security, malnutrition and increased poverty throughout the world. While the threat of a prolonged food-price shock receded with falling energy and commodity prices and a weakening global economy in the second half of 2008, many factors underlying the volatility in food prices appear here to stay and will require careful management if the world is to avoid future food-price shocks. This paper suggests three critical strategies that, together, can serve as pillars to help offset future vulnerability to price shocks: a) strengthen safety nets, provide people with better access to family planning services, and promote education; b) enhance the food supply provided by domestic agriculture and improve rural livelihoods by addressing lagging productivity growth through increased investment in research and development; and c) reduce exposure to market volatility by improving supply chain efficiency and by more effectively using financial instruments to hedge risk.
Conditional Cash Transfers : Reducing Present and Future Poverty

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2009) Fiszbein, Ariel ; Schady, Norbert ; Ferreira, Francisco H.G. ; Grosh, Margaret ; Keleher, Niall ; Olinto, Pedro ; Skoufias, Emmanuel

The report shows that there is good evidence that conditional cash transfers (CCTs) have improved the lives of poor people. Transfers generally have been well targeted to poor households, have raised consumption levels, and have reduced poverty, by a substantial amount in some countries. Offsetting adjustments that could have blunted the impact of transfers, such as reductions in the labor market participation of beneficiaries, have been relatively modest. Moreover, CCT programs often have provided an entry point to reforming badly targeted subsidies and upgrading the quality of safety nets. The report thus argues that CCTs have been an effective way to redistribute income to the poor, while recognizing that even the best-designed and best-managed program cannot fulfill all of the needs of a comprehensive social protection system. CCTs therefore need to be complemented with other interventions, such as workfare or employment programs and social pensions. The report also considers the rationale for conditioning the transfers on the use of specific health and education services by program beneficiaries. Conditions can be justified if households are under investing in the human capital of their children, for example, if they hold incorrect beliefs about the returns to these investments; if there is "incomplete altruism" between parents and their children; or if there are large externalities to investments in health and education. Political economy considerations also may favor conditional over unconditional transfers: taxpayers may be more likely to support transfers to the poor if they are linked to efforts to overcome poverty in the long term, particularly when the efforts involve actions to improve the welfare of children.
Annual Review of Development Effectiveness 2008 : Shared Global Challenges

(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2008) Independent Evaluation Group

This year's annual review of development effectiveness focuses on assessing the World Bank's development effectiveness, with special attention to global public goods. It notes some encouraging developments. Project performance has improved over the medium term; country programs have worked relatively well in several large nations that house a majority of the world's poor; and the Bank has increased attention to collective international action on global public goods and advocated effectively on some of those important challenges. But work is required to remedy weaknesses. Notably there is a need to go beyond the Bank's country- based model when tackling issues where the perceived local and national benefits of action do not match global benefits from collective action. Attention should be paid to improving weak performance of country programs in smaller states and those with extensive poverty, and redressing shortcomings in applying monitoring and evaluation in projects and country programs. Over the next decade and beyond, the success of the international community and the World Bank Group in rising to the shared global challenges of our time will be crucial to reducing poverty and, indeed, to solving the looming challenges the world collectively faces.
The World Bank Annual Report 2005: Year in Review, Volume 1

(Washington, DC, 2005) World Bank

This World Bank Annual Report highlights the focus of the Bank activities in addressing worldwide poverty, describing the Bank work in promoting sustainable, economic growth, and in channeling needed services to poor people. Also detailed is the Bank's work toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); its institutional and global efforts toward effective development; and, its outreach to clients through Public Information Centers, and on the Web. Regional Perspectives are reviewed, through a breakdown of the Bank's lending and activities across the developing world, featuring highlights of projects in borrowing countries within each of the Bank's six regions. The Summary of Fiscal Year Activities provides a description of the Bank's development knowledge-sharing over the fiscal year 2005; a discussion of the Bank's approach to lending in low income, and middle-income countries; the Bank's resources; and a summary of the Bank's lending by region, theme, and sector, such as environmental programs and infrastructure projects. This section also describes the Bank's partnerships with public, private, and civil society stakeholders. The fiscal 2005 financial statements, organizational information, income by region, new operations approved in fiscal 2005, and various lending data are included on a CD inserted inside the back cover of this report.
Where is the Wealth of Nations? Measuring Capital for the 21st Century

(Washington, DC, 2005) World Bank

The book presents estimates of total wealth for nearly 120 countries, using economic theory to decompose the wealth of a nation into its component pieces: produced capital, natural resources and human resources. The wealth estimates aims to provide a unique opportunity to look at economic management from a broader and comprehensive perspective. The book's basic tenet is that economic development can be conceived as a process of portfolio management, so that sustainability becomes an integral part of economic policy making. The rigorous analysis, presented in accessible format, tackles issues such as growth, development and equity. This publication is organized in four sections. The first part introduces the wealth estimates and highlights the main facts on the level and composition of wealth across countries. The second part analyzes changes in wealth and how they matter for economic policy. The third part deals with the level of wealth, its composition and links to growth and inequality. The fourth part reviews existing applications of resource and environmental accounting.
Reaching the Rural Poor : A Renewed Strategy for Rural Development

(Washington, DC, 2003-08) World Bank

"From Vision to Action", the Bank's previous rural development strategy launched in 1997, had a decisive influence on global thinking - but disappointing results on the ground. In 2001, lending for agricultural projects was the lowest in the Bank's history. The new strategy is results oriented: "Reaching the Rural Poor" stresses practice, implementation, monitoring, and empowerment of the people it is designed to help. This strategy responds to changes in: the global environment; in client countries; and, in the Bank, starting with the development of regional action plans, and extensive consultations at the regional level. It also reflects, and reinforces the Bank's commitment to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals to increase rural incomes, and broaden opportunities for rural people. The key features of this strategy are to: focus on the rural poor; foster broad-based economic growth; address rural areas comprehensively; forge alliances of all stakeholders; and, address the impact of global developments on client countries. In this capacity, support for better agricultural, and trade policies, should be achieved through increased advocacy for trade liberalization, by mainstreaming agricultural trade liberalization, and trade-capacity development in the Bank's country assistance, and operations; and, by facilitating capacity building through technical assistance in the areas of standards, and sanitary and phytosanitary regulations.
The World Bank Annual Report 2003: Volume 1. Year in Review

(Washington, DC, 2003) World Bank

The World Bank Annual Report for 2003, reviews the strategy and action pursued by the Bank, based on the Strategic Framework, and Strategic Directions (and Management Action Plan), focused on meeting the development challenges embodied in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). To this end, the Bank sharpened its policies, programs, and instruments to support its central mission of reducing poverty, through improved performance monitoring, and management, and improved harmonization of operational policies, procedures, and practices among donors. The Bank also considered other issues, such as its role in the reconstruction of Iraq, the introduction of the grants component in the 13th Replenishment of the International Development Association (IDA), the Operation Evaluation Department's (OED) review of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, and, market access for exports from developing countries. Methods for combating terrorism, and money laundering were also considered during the period under review. The document presents thematic (and regional) perspectives based on two pillars - poverty reduction and economic management - and how to invest in people, towards an environmentally, and socially responsible growth, that supports private sector development, infrastructure development, financial management, and, promotes appropriate legal and judicial systems. The second Volume presents the financial statements for the period July 1, 2002 to June 30, 2003, reporting development activities (loans, guarantees, and other activities), including liquidity management, funding resources, and financial risk management.
International Public Goods : Incentives, Measurement, and Financing

(Washington, DC: World Bank and Kluwer, 2002-03) Ferroni, Marco ; Mody, Ashoka ; Ferroni, Marco ; Mody, Ashoka

Increasingly, the consequences of globalization call for the involvement, not only of national governments, but of the international development community as a whole. Such involvement needs to occur within a comprehensive framework that encompasses stakeholders from government, non-governmental organizations, and businesses acting together in partnership. This requires the leveraging of general aid and country-focused development resources along with encouraging private financing participation. The book explains different ways that this type of framework might be structured, and focuses on different financing strategies that can be developed. It acknowledges the value of country specific efforts while recommending a multi-national approach to addressing problems resulting from globalization. This book evaluates the concepts fundamental to the term "public goods" and details alternative governance structures including the role of incentives.