Publication: From Connectivity to Opportunity: Leveraging regional corridors to support growth and development in Guinea
Loading...
Date
2023-11-06
ISSN
Published
2023-11-06
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
The objectives of this study are to (1) assess the impact of regional and internal connectivity on jobs and access to services and (2) to provide recommendations for policy reforms and investments. This analysis uses quantitative and qualitative approaches to understand the opportunities that better connectivity provides for secondary cities in Guinea,what factors might constrain the potential for growth and,how policy makers at different levels of government should respond to maximize the benefits of economic corridors. This analysis also aims to provide a better understanding of the relative impact of transport improvements and direct trade facilitation reforms. Finally, the study assesses complementary reforms, investments, and overall policies to develop practical and implementable recommendations that could be deployed to enhance the returns to better trade and connectivity to urban areas in Guinea.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2023. From Connectivity to Opportunity: Leveraging regional corridors to support growth and development in Guinea. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/40575 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Unlocking Global Opportunities : The Aid for Trade Program of the World Bank Group(Washington, DC, 2009)Aid for trade is a means to help developing countries, especially low-income countries, integrate into the world economy as a way to spur growth. The recent financial crisis and global recession have, if anything, made aid for trade more urgent. Trade worldwide is likely to contract in 2009. It has become a main channel through which recessionary impulses from the United States and Europe are transmitted to developing countries. But these forces will sooner or later reverse: when growth does resume, trade is likely to be a leading source of demand. Helping countries to take full advantage of the global recovery, whenever it comes, has become a priority for rekindling growth, as well as sustaining rising incomes into the future. The aid-for-trade program of the World Bank Group, as with other donors, is multifaceted. It goes beyond concessional lending commitments to low-income countries (the conventional definition used by the OECD/WTO). It also involves World Bank non-concessional trade-related lending to middle-income countries. Promoting trade-led growth in middle-income countries creates market opportunities for neighboring low-income countries, to say nothing of the benefits such opportunities entail for trade creation worldwide. Moreover, investments by the World Bank's private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), in private sector activities can also generate trade and growth by expanding productive capacity in tradable goods. IFC private investments in the financial sector have also been instrumental in overcoming crisis induced constraints on trade finance. Finally, focusing solely on financial flows would miss the important role of policy advice and technical assistance embodied in studies and capacity-building efforts of donors.Publication Uruguay - Trade and Logistics : An Opportunity - Main Report(World Bank, 2010-04-15)Globalization has brought about a rapid expansion of international trade and a dramatic change in trade structure. The liberalization of trade in goods and services, containerization, new integrated transport networks, advances in information communication technology and modern business logistics have created unprecedented business opportunities for the trade and transport industries, as firms increasingly rely on global supply chains for production and distribution. In response to the government's request, this study assesses Uruguay's potential as a logistics hub and as a regional distribution center. The competitiveness of Uruguay's logistics system is assessed from an international perspective and policy recommendations towards further efficiency gains are provided. The study focuses on policies related to enhancing domestic and regional trade facilitation and assesses the wider economic impact of such reforms on logistics costs and trade.Publication The Eurasian Connection : Supply-Chain Efficiency along the Modern Silk Route through Central Asia(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2014-06-19)Central Asia is often associated with the silk route or road, the longest overland trade route connecting China to Europe and one of the oldest in history. Growth opportunities and the future prosperity of the region are highly dependent upon the efficiency of its internal and external supply-chain connections, which is the focus of this report. Supply-chain connectivity depends on the quality of the infrastructure on specific routes. This study explains how supply chain fragmentation remains a serious obstacle to economic development of Central Asia and to Eurasian integration more generally. It provides a comprehensive assessment of the various factors that yet impede supply-chain integration, including weak transport and communications infrastructure, but as important, and perhaps more so, critical weaknesses in policy, institutions, and governance. Based on this assessment this report provides an insightful set of recommendations that, if taken up by the governments of Central Asia and by their key neighbors, will go a long way in promoting the effective integration of Central Asia into an increasingly connected Eurasian continental economy and with that into the global economy.Publication Improving Trade and Transport for Landlocked Developing Countries : World Bank Contributions to Implementing the Almaty Programme of Action(Washington, DC, 2013-06)A ministerial intergovernmental conference in pursuit of these commitments was held in August 2003 in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The conference agreed to the Almaty Programme of Action (APoA), calling for joint efforts by transit and landlocked countries-with substantial technical and financial assistance from other countries-to revise their regulatory frameworks affecting trade movements and to improve their trade-related infrastructure. The two World Bank strategies and the APoA have the same overarching objective: to support the countries targeted by the proposed objectives and actions, in order to achieve inclusive and sustainable development. The report is divided into six sections. Section one provides a comparison of Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs) and transit countries in terms of trade performance. It particularly focuses on the growth of total trade and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita in light of trade openness and export diversification. This is followed in section two by an assessment of logistics performance and trade costs of landlocked countries, and their transit and coastal neighbors, on the basis of the Logistics Performance Index (LPI). The operational challenges for traders in LLDCs, including unreliable supply chains and delays, as well the underlying causes, are discussed in section three. Section four then focuses on the various activities of the World Bank to address the key priorities of the Almaty programme, with a focus on regional integration and trade facilitation. In continuation, section five highlights some of the regional integration and trade facilitation projects and initiatives that are being implemented. The report concludes by re-emphasizing the continued validity of several of the original APoA priorities for financial and technical assistance, in the context of the World Bank's overall strategic goals (section six).Publication Growth without Borders : A Regional Growth Pole Diagnostic for Southern Africa(Washington, DC, 2013-10)Several countries in Southern Africa have enormous potential to expand trade and mutually benefit from regional integration, and thus truly achieve 'growth without borders'. At the same time, several African countries are adopting growth pole strategies in order to deepen the economic linkages around the development of their natural resources and improve their competitiveness and connectivity to domestic and international markets. This report stems from economic sector work whose purpose was to identify potential growth poles across Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe in three industries, agribusiness, mining, and tourism, that might benefit from improved regional integration. This report used geographic information systems (GIS) to identify potential growth poles based on the spatial distribution of foreign direct investment (FDI), market connectivity, revenue sources, and other input factors and then selected from that list those areas which might benefit from regional cooperation. This report provides background information, elaborates the concepts, details the spatial analysis framework, selects specific areas for a rapid assessment, summarizes findings, and outlines future work. The overarching purpose is not to explain or quantify the links between identified factors, but rather to find spatial correlation between factors in order to begin a discussion about defining a data driven way of finding suitable regional growth poles.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Global Economic Prospects, January 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-16)Global growth is expected to hold steady at 2.7 percent in 2025-26. However, the global economy appears to be settling at a low growth rate that will be insufficient to foster sustained economic development—with the possibility of further headwinds from heightened policy uncertainty and adverse trade policy shifts, geopolitical tensions, persistent inflation, and climate-related natural disasters. Against this backdrop, emerging market and developing economies are set to enter the second quarter of the twenty-first century with per capita incomes on a trajectory that implies substantially slower catch-up toward advanced-economy living standards than they previously experienced. Without course corrections, most low-income countries are unlikely to graduate to middle-income status by the middle of the century. Policy action at both global and national levels is needed to foster a more favorable external environment, enhance macroeconomic stability, reduce structural constraints, address the effects of climate change, and thus accelerate long-term growth and development.Publication Interoperability Between Central Bank Digital Currency Systems and Fast Payment Systems(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-02)Central banks around the world are actively researching and investigating the benefits, challenges, and design options of wholesale and retail central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Since CBDCs are one of the most critical components of a national payment system (NPS), it is important that their interoperability with other payment systems is one of the key considerations in the design process. The ITS Technology and Innovation (ITSI) team, in collaboration with the World Banks’s Finance Competitiveness and Innovation (FCI) Global Practice, has conducted technology design experiments on two specific scenarios regarding CBDC system interoperability with fast payment systems (FPS). In the first scenario, the experiment investigated the option of settling FPS obligations in a wholesale CBDC system, including the option to reserve funds to guarantee the settlement of FPS net obligations. In the second scenario, the team investigated the interoperability between users within the FPS and retail CBDC users, including the transfer of funds among both types of users, using common services such as address resolution services. This experiment illustrated how CBDC systems can interoperate with retail payment systems through an interlinking bridge that was used to route messages and application programming interface (API) calls among different systems. The programmability features of distributed ledge technology (DLT) were used to link the settlement in CBDC to the transfer of funds in the FPS. The technical applicability for this type of interoperability was demonstrated through the experiments, with the caveat that these experiments do not take into account complexities that may be involved with live systems.Publication The Container Port Performance Index 2023(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-18)The Container Port Performance Index (CPPI) measures the time container ships spend in port, making it an important point of reference for stakeholders in the global economy. These stakeholders include port authorities and operators, national governments, supranational organizations, development agencies, and other public and private players in trade and logistics. The index highlights where vessel time in container ports could be improved. Streamlining these processes would benefit all parties involved, including shipping lines, national governments, and consumers. This fourth edition of the CPPI relies on data from 405 container ports with at least 24 container ship port calls in the calendar year 2023. As in earlier editions of the CPPI, the ranking employs two different methodological approaches: an administrative (technical) approach and a statistical approach (using matrix factorization). Combining these two approaches ensures that the overall ranking of container ports reflects actual port performance as closely as possible while also being statistically robust. The CPPI methodology assesses the sequential steps of a container ship port call. ‘Total port hours’ refers to the total time elapsed from the moment a ship arrives at the port until the vessel leaves the berth after completing its cargo operations. The CPPI uses time as an indicator because time is very important to shipping lines, ports, and the entire logistics chain. However, time, as captured by the CPPI, is not the only way to measure port efficiency, so it does not tell the entire story of a port’s performance. Factors that can influence the time vessels spend in ports can be location-specific and under the port’s control (endogenous) or external and beyond the control of the port (exogenous). The CPPI measures time spent in container ports, strictly based on quantitative data only, which do not reveal the underlying factors or root causes of extended port times. A detailed port-specific diagnostic would be required to assess the contribution of underlying factors to the time a vessel spends in port. A very low ranking or a significant change in ranking may warrant special attention, for which the World Bank generally recommends a detailed diagnostic.Publication World Development Report 2014(Washington, DC, 2013-10-06)The past 25 years have witnessed unprecedented changes around the world—many of them for the better. Across the continents, many countries have embarked on a path of international integration, economic reform, technological modernization, and democratic participation. As a result, economies that had been stagnant for decades are growing, people whose families had suffered deprivation for generations are escaping poverty, and hundreds of millions are enjoying the benefits of improved living standards and scientific and cultural sharing across nations. As the world changes, a host of opportunities arise constantly. With them, however, appear old and new risks, from the possibility of job loss and disease to the potential for social unrest and environmental damage. If ignored, these risks can turn into crises that reverse hard-won gains and endanger the social and economic reforms that produced these gains. The World Development Report 2014 (WDR 2014), Risk and Opportunity: Managing Risk for Development, contends that the solution is not to reject change in order to avoid risk but to prepare for the opportunities and risks that change entails. Managing risks responsibly and effectively has the potential to bring about security and a means of progress for people in developing countries and beyond. Although individuals’ own efforts, initiative, and responsibility are essential for managing risk, their success will be limited without a supportive social environment—especially when risks are large or systemic in nature. The WDR 2014 argues that people can successfully confront risks that are beyond their means by sharing their risk management with others. This can be done through naturally occurring social and economic systems that enable people to overcome the obstacles that individuals and groups face, including lack of resources and information, cognitive and behavioral failures, missing markets and public goods, and social externalities and exclusion. These systems—from the household and the community to the state and the international community—have the potential to support people’s risk management in different yet complementary ways. The Report focuses on some of the most pressing questions policy makers are asking. What role should the state take in helping people manage risks? When should this role consist of direct interventions, and when should it consist of providing an enabling environment? How can governments improve their own risk management, and what happens when they fail or lack capacity, as in many fragile and conflict-affected states? Through what mechanisms can risk management be mainstreamed into the development agenda? And how can collective action failures to manage systemic risks be addressed, especially those with irreversible consequences? The WDR 2014 provides policy makers with insights and recommendations to address these difficult questions. It should serve to guide the dialogue, operations, and contributions from key development actors—from civil society and national governments to the donor community and international development organizations.Publication Digital Progress and Trends Report 2023(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-05)Digitalization is the transformational opportunity of our time. The digital sector has become a powerhouse of innovation, economic growth, and job creation. Value added in the IT services sector grew at 8 percent annually during 2000–22, nearly twice as fast as the global economy. Employment growth in IT services reached 7 percent annually, six times higher than total employment growth. The diffusion and adoption of digital technologies are just as critical as their invention. Digital uptake has accelerated since the COVID-19 pandemic, with 1.5 billion new internet users added from 2018 to 2022. The share of firms investing in digital solutions around the world has more than doubled from 2020 to 2022. Low-income countries, vulnerable populations, and small firms, however, have been falling behind, while transformative digital innovations such as artificial intelligence (AI) have been accelerating in higher-income countries. Although more than 90 percent of the population in high-income countries was online in 2022, only one in four people in low-income countries used the internet, and the speed of their connection was typically only a small fraction of that in wealthier countries. As businesses in technologically advanced countries integrate generative AI into their products and services, less than half of the businesses in many low- and middle-income countries have an internet connection. The growing digital divide is exacerbating the poverty and productivity gaps between richer and poorer economies. The Digital Progress and Trends Report series will track global digitalization progress and highlight policy trends, debates, and implications for low- and middle-income countries. The series adds to the global efforts to study the progress and trends of digitalization in two main ways: · By compiling, curating, and analyzing data from diverse sources to present a comprehensive picture of digitalization in low- and middle-income countries, including in-depth analyses on understudied topics. · By developing insights on policy opportunities, challenges, and debates and reflecting the perspectives of various stakeholders and the World Bank’s operational experiences. This report, the first in the series, aims to inform evidence-based policy making and motivate action among internal and external audiences and stakeholders. The report will bring global attention to high-performing countries that have valuable experience to share as well as to areas where efforts will need to be redoubled.