Publication: Serbia: The World Bank Group Country Opinion Survey FY14
Loading...
Files in English
159 downloads
Published
2014-06
ISSN
Date
2015-06-03
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
The Country Opinion Survey in Serbia assists the World Bank Group (WBG) in gaining a better understanding of how stakeholders in Serbia perceive the WBG. It provides the WBG with systematic feedback from national and local governments, multilateral/bilateral agencies, media, academia, the private sector, and civil society in Serbia on 1) their views regarding the general environment in Serbia; 2) their overall attitudes toward the WBG in Serbia; 3) overall impressions of the WBG’s effectiveness and results, knowledge work and activities, and communication and information sharing in Serbia; and 4) their perceptions of the WBG’s future role in Serbia.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank Group. 2014. Serbia: The World Bank Group Country Opinion Survey FY14. Country Opinion Survey Program (COS);. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/22010 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Rebalancing Serbia's Economy : Improving Competitiveness, Strengthening the Private Sector, and Creating Jobs(Washington, DC, 2014-06)Serbia's economy is out of balance and performing below its potential. Since the post, Yugoslavian transition, Serbia's economy has been running on one engine, the non-tradable sector and expansion of domestic demand. This was financed with ample capital inflows, which were sharply reduced since 2008 as the global economic crisis escalated. While this consumption-led growth produced some improvements in living standards, it was not sustainable and created hardly any formal jobs. This explains why Serbia's job market is also out of balance. Less than half of the working-age population has a job at all, and among those that are formally employed, almost half are employed in the public sector. This note identifies three priority areas and a set of specific measures which complement other important reforms, especially those related to improving the country's macroeconomic and fiscal position. The reforms will make it easier to invest, operate a business, and create jobs. The measures could be implemented within a relatively short period of time, since many of them build on the existing initiatives and address well identified problems. Priority area one, making it easier to operate businesses, by reducing excessive administrative burdens and making regulatory environment predictable; priority area two, making it easier to invest and expand business, by improving planning and construction permits procedures; and priority area three, making it viable to create formal sector jobs, by reducing labor market costs and rigidities.Publication Serbia and Montenegro : Poverty Assessment, Volume 1. Executive Summary(Washington, DC, 2003-11-13)This Poverty Assessment is the first output of a multi-year program adopted by the World Bank to assist the Governments of Serbia and Montenegro in the development and implementation of their Poverty Reduction Strategies. The program relies on collaboration in joint data production and analysis. Based on data collected in 2002, the report finds that absolute material poverty affects every tenth person in both Serbia and Montenegro. From an historical standpoint, this is a very high incidence. Inequality remained moderate by regional standards, and as a result poverty is shallow. At the same time vulnerability--or exposure to negative shocks and inability to cope with them-- threatens many currently non-poor individuals. At least as many suffer from deprivation in other dimensions of well being, such as health, education, housing, social inclusion or property rights. Material poverty, therefore, is not the only challenge for the Governments. Four factors are most strongly related to poverty: low education attainment; joblessness; the location in rural areas and depressed regions, and the presence of socially disadvantaged members (such as internally displaced persons or Roma). The poor are found to face serious problems of access to public services (health, education, sanitation) and suffer disproportionately from the deterioration in the quality of public service provision. Even though some of the social assistance programs are among the best targeted programs in the region, the social protection system as a whole suffers from large exclusion errors. Given the high level of vulnerability of the population and the shallowness of poverty, a broad-based growth strategy that ensures that the benefits accrue at least proportionately to the poor is central for accelerated poverty reduction. Improvements in the business climate will stimulate private sector growth and feed into employment generation. Growth will increase fiscal revenues to remedy the problems of chronic under funding, while structural and public administration reforms will strengthen the governance and the quality of services provided to the poor. The multidimensional nature of poverty requires concerted and well coordinated action in different sectors. The report is organized in two volumes. Volume One (Executive summary) summarizes the Report content. Volume Two (Main report) provides detailed results of poverty analysis. Due to data limitations the sectoral part of the main report covers Serbia in greater details. An analysis of available data for Montenegro is presented in a background paper.Publication Country Partnership Framework for Serbia for the Period FY16-FY20(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-05-22)This program document presents the World Bank Group (WBG) program and results framework for the Serbia country partnership framework (CPF) for FY2016-20. For the first time since 2001, when the transition to a market economy began accelerating, Serbia has a government with a solid majority in parliament, enabling it to initiate and implement the deep reforms necessary to create a competitive economy and raise the income of the bottom forty percent (B40). Notwithstanding the new momentum on economic and structural reforms, Serbia faces serious challenges, most notably in declining living standards. Poverty has increased rapidly since the start of the global economic crisis in 2008, mainly as a result of a triple dip recession. The CPF goal is to support Serbia in creating a competitive and inclusive economy and, through this, to achieve integration into the European Union (EU).Publication Realizing Rights Through Social Guarantees : An Analysis of New Approaches to Social Policy in Latin America and South Africa(Washington, DC, 2008-02)This paper examines the experiences in four Latin American countries and South Africa in the application of a human rights approach to social policy. The paper applies an analysis based on a social guarantees framework -- an innovative approach to integrate a rights-based perspective into social policy. The social guarantees approach moves beyond a purely normative framework to give concrete meaning to economic, social, and cultural rights and hence to allow for their operationalization into policies and programs. This document suggests that a social guarantee approach can be used to strengthen the delivery and monitoring of social programs. Firstly, it implies an institutional design that emphasizes synergy and coordination among agencies and providers to help social programs achieve their full potential. Secondly, this approach contributes to reducing gaps in opportunity among citizens by promoting universal access to, and a basic quality standard for, essential services. Thirdly, the social guarantee approach contributes to strengthening democratic governance, as it requires the achievement of a non-discriminatory agreement among all members of society as to the level of basic entitlements of each individual or collective. In other words, social guarantees are safeguards that society provides to all its members, ensuring their access to essential opportunities and well-being.Publication Governance in Albania : A Way Forward for Competitiveness, Growth, and European Integration(Washington, DC, 2011-06)Since its emergence from a turbulent post-communist transition, Albania has achieved remarkable progress in economic and social development. Governance improvements, especially in the effectiveness of public administration, have been instrumental to the country's impressive economic performance and improved human development outcomes. The Government has taken steps to improve public order and personal safety, particularly through efforts to crack down on violent and organized crime. Despite these positive developments, Albania continues to face significant governance challenges that will need to be overcome if the country is to achieve critical development objectives. Enduring politicization of the public administration and incomplete separation of powers, exemplified by instances of political interference in judicial processes, remain serious obstacles. The Government recognizes the need to accelerate progress on several dimensions of governance reform, particularly in light of its aspirations to European Union (EU) accession. This issue brief seeks to analyze the nature and recent evolution of Albania's governance environment, to identify the principal governance constraints to the achievement of development priorities-overall and in key sectors, and to outline recommendations for the way forward.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Argentina Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.Publication Lebanon Economic Monitor, Fall 2022(Washington, DC, 2022-11)The economy continues to contract, albeit at a somewhat slower pace. Public finances improved in 2021, but only because spending collapsed faster than revenue generation. Testament to the continued atrophy of Lebanon’s economy, the Lebanese Pound continues to depreciate sharply. The sharp deterioration in the currency continues to drive surging inflation, in triple digits since July 2020, impacting the poor and vulnerable the most. An unprecedented institutional vacuum will likely further delay any agreement on crisis resolution and much needed reforms; this includes prior actions as part of the April 2022 International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff-level agreement (SLA). Divergent views among key stakeholders on how to distribute the financial losses remains the main bottleneck for reaching an agreement on a comprehensive reform agenda. Lebanon needs to urgently adopt a domestic, equitable, and comprehensive solution that is predicated on: (i) addressing upfront the balance sheet impairments, (ii) restoring liquidity, and (iii) adhering to sound global practices of bail-in solutions based on a hierarchy of creditors (starting with banks’ shareholders) that protects small depositors.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.