Publication:
Towards a More United and Prosperous Union of Comoros: Systematic Country Diagnostic

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (5.08 MB)
816 downloads
English Text (618.08 KB)
372 downloads
Published
2019-05-31
ISSN
Date
2019-06-05
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) – the first for the country - takes stock of Comoros’ development progress since the early 2000s and reflects on the constraints and opportunities that the country encounters on that path. The report provides elements to answer three main questions: (1) What are the main constraints hampering output and productivity growth? (2) What are the critical factors that determine poverty reduction and inclusion? and (3) How sustainable are the current trends in growth and inclusion? As the SCD investigates these questions it identifies three main pathways which if followed could accelerate progress towards the World Bank’s twin goals of poverty reduction and shared prosperity.
Link to Data Set
Citation
World Bank. 2019. Towards a More United and Prosperous Union of Comoros: Systematic Country Diagnostic. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31787 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    From the International Financial Crisis towards Inclusive Growth in the Dominican Republic
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2010-01-01) Tsikata, Yvonne M.; Senderowitsch, Roby; Senderowitsch, Roby; Tsikata, Yvonne M.
    During the second half of the year 2008, the world experienced the worst worldwide economic crisis in over 70 years. The effects deriving from this crisis can still be felt over most of the planet. Low or negative economic growth in developed nations and emerging economies, high levels of unemployment and millions of persons below the poverty line, are some of the starkest examples. In the Dominican Republic, the effects of this international crisis are manifested in the reduction in international trade, the drop in tourism and in remittances, and an economic growth rate lower than expected. In this regard, the Dominican Republic asked the World Bank to prepare nine policy notes which are presented in this volume. These notes focus on the following topics: 1) long run economic growth in the Dominican Republic; 2) ease of doing business; 3) logistics for competitiveness; 4) access to financial services with emphasis on financing for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs); 5) the electricity sector; 6) climate change and the Dominican Republic, 7) the health sector, 8) territorial development, and 9) accountability and performance system. The policy notes presented here argue that an inclusive development is possible in the Dominican Republic. However, great challenges must be faced to meet this goal. From the analysis presented in this volume four challenges emerge which must be faced head-on in order to achieve sustainable and inclusive development.
  • Publication
    Regional Initiative in Support of the Horn of Africa
    (Washington, DC, 2014-10-23) World Bank
    The Horn of Africa (HoA) region has many security and development challenges whose origins and consequences go well beyond the borders of individual countries. It is also a region with many human assets and resource endowments, and some of the most dynamic economies in the world. Despite its numerous challenges, the Horn of Africa offers significant potential to address cross-border issues that can help transform its countries and the region. This paper describes a World Bank Group (WBG) initiative to address some of the key drivers of instability in the HoA and promote development in the area. The initiative is intended to build on and complement the large country and regional programs the WBG and other partners are already supporting in the HoA, bringing value by addressing a number of issues which demand cross-border collaborative solutions to reducing fragility and instability. The central rationale to this initiative is that WBG cannot effectively support the elimination of extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity in the region without engaging more intensively and creatively in addressing very difficult development problems, including those linked to insecurity and vulnerability. The WBG package totals $1.8 billion to be committed over approximately 24 months, with about $600 million investments from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and an estimated $200 million in guarantees from the Multilateral Guarantee Investment Agency (MIGA). The initiative builds on two previous programs aimed at similar issues in the Great Lakes Region (May 2013) and the Sahel (November 2013), efforts that recognize the link between security and development, and the importance of giving hope to vulnerable citizens, including women and children, that they can overcome poverty and deprivation.
  • Publication
    Africa Development Indicators 2007
    (Washington, DC, 2008) World Bank
    The Africa Development Indicators 2007 essay explores the patterns of growth in Sub- Saharan Africa over the past three decades. It finds that the volatility of growth-an outcome of conflict, governance, and world commodity prices-has been greater than in any other region. Volatility has dampened expectations and investments-and has obscured some periods of good performance for some countries. The essay shows that pickups in growth were seldom sustained- indeed, that they were often followed by ferocious declines, and hence, Africa's flat economic performance over 1975-2005. The essay shows that avoiding economic declines is as important as promoting growth. Indeed, it may be more important for the poor, who gain less during the growth pickups and suffer more during the declines. The essay discusses a key question for economic policymakers in Africa: how best to sustain pickups in growth and its benefits. The Africa Development Indicators suite of products is designed to provide all those interested in Africa with a set of indicators to monitor development outcomes in the region and is an important reference tool for those who want a better understanding of the economic and social developments occurring in Africa.
  • Publication
    The Internal Geography of Trade : Lagging Regions and Global Markets
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2013-04-08) Farole, Thomas; Farole, Thomas
    Economic theory, including endogenous growth, the role of institutions, and, most importantly, the New Economic Geography (NEG), have made significant progress in explaining the emergence of core-periphery patterns behind this divergence. They point to the critical role of agglomeration, which confers benefits to metropolitan cores that have the advantages of large markets, deep labor pools, links to international markets, and clusters of diverse suppliers and institutions. Regions relatively near the metropolitan core are likely to benefit from spillovers and congestion-related dispersion. Regions further outside the core however, are not only less able to take advantage of spillovers, but also more likely to be far removed from key infrastructural, institutional, and interpersonal links to regional and international markets. As a result, they face significant challenges to becoming competitive locations to host economic activity. Thus the geographical pattern of core and peripheral regions is increasingly manifest in an economic pattern of 'leading' and 'lagging' regions
  • Publication
    Growth and Poverty Reduction : Case Studies from West Africa
    (Washington, DC : World Bank, 2007) Wodon, Quentin
    The objective of this volume is to assess the relationships between growth and poverty reduction on the basis of a number of case studies, all but one of which are based on recent household survey data. The first part of the volume presents data on Ghana and Senegal, two countries that have benefited from high levels of growth over the last dozen years. The analysis suggests that growth led to substantial reductions in the share of the population in poverty. Yet growth could not be said to be "pro-poor" because the gains in consumption for better off households were proportionately larger than the gains for poorer households. In the second part of the volume, case studies for Burkina Faso and Cape Verde are presented to solve the paradox of high growth without poverty reduction. It was initially believed in both countries that there had been no poverty reduction despite high growth during the 1990s. Yet a closer examination of the data suggests that this paradox was actually due to measurement errors: more careful work confirmed that poverty reduction was substantial. The third and last part of the volume presents case studies for Guinea-Bissau and Nigeria on the impediments to growth, with a focus on the negative impact of conflict and macroeconomic volatility on growth, and thereby on poverty. Overall, this volume makes a strong case for the positive impact of growth for the reduction in income and consumption poverty in West Africa but it also points to the need to pay close attention to changes in inequality as such changes have limited the gains from growth for the poor in several of the countries considered here.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    Empowerment in Practice : From Analysis to Implementation
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2006) Alsop, Ruth; Bertelsen, Mette; Holland, Jeremy
    This book represents an effort to present an easily accessible framework to readers, especially those for whom empowerment remains a puzzling development concern, conceptually and in application. The book is divided into two parts. Part 1 explains how the empowerment framework can be used for understanding, measuring, monitoring, and operationalizing empowerment policy and practice. Part 2 presents summaries of each of the five country studies, using them to discuss how the empowerment framework can be applied in very different country and sector contexts and what lessons can be learned from these test cases. While this book can offer only a limited empirical basis for the positive association between empowerment and development outcomes, it does add to the body of work supporting the existence of such a relationship. Perhaps more importantly, it also provides a framework for future research to test the association and to prioritize practical interventions seeking to empower individuals and groups.
  • Publication
    Economics of Climate-Smart Agriculture
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-06-27) World Bank
    Climate change poses a major threat to food systems and livelihoods all over the world. Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) addresses these challenges. CSA stands for including climate change into the planning and implementation of sustainable agricultural strategies. More specifically, CSA has three objectives to achieve these overarching goals: (1) sustainably increasing agricultural productivity to support equitable increases in incomes and food security; (2) adapting and building resilience to climate change from the farm to national levels; and (3) developing opportunities to reduce GHG emissions from agriculture (FAO 2013). The report is structured as follows: the report starts with a brief overview of the framework for economic and financial analyses in section two; section three, provides an overview of benefit and cost categories that are relevant for CSA; section four, provides descriptions of 10 salient features of CSA as may be relevant for EFAs; section five, presents findings of the review of 10 EFAs of agriculture lending projects; section six, provides a brief overview of techniques or tools that could support the presentation of CSA in EFAs; and section seven concludes.
  • Publication
    Global Economic Prospects, January 2025
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-16) World Bank
    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
    Digital Progress and Trends Report 2023
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-05) World Bank
    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.
  • Publication
    Environmental, Social, and Governance Investing
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-03-01) Bouye, Eric; Klingebiel, Daniela; Ruiz, Marco
    This primer responds to central banks’ growing demand for knowledge on social, governance, and environmental considerations (ESG) in the investment process. This area has gained traction in the last two decades. More recently, central banks’ interest in ESG has increased, but much of the information available is aimed at investors with different investment objectives and broadly diversified portfolios. The authors fill that information gap by reviewing the definitions of ESG and the main ESG investment approaches, including their applicability to asset classes. The authors then examine how foreign reserve managers can apply ESG investing in their reserve management operations. The authors find limited scope for implementing ESG strategies in reserve management, given that most central banks still invest primarily in sovereign bonds of major economies. Yet, the authors also identify opportunities and critical considerations for central banks interested in implementing ESG investing in their reserve management operations.