Report Series: Directions in Development
This series was discontinued in 2019. This series of well-developed essays and studies highlights current development issues, based on research output related to Bank operations. In recent years these have been subdivided into subseries covering the operational sectors: Agriculture and Rural Development; Energy and Mining; Environment and Sustainable Development; Finance; Human Development; Information and Communication Technologies; Infrastructure; Poverty; Private Sector Development; Public Sector Governance; Science, Technology, and Innovation; and Trade. The Countries and Regions subseries encompasses those books in the series that cover several sectors. The titles in this series are peer-reviewed and produced by units of The World Bank.
Published titles
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1 - 10 of 415
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Publication
A Primer on Policies for Jobs
(World Bank, 2012)A primer on policies for jobs is based on materials and input provided during the labor market courses conducted during the past 10 years. Its objective is to provide government policy makers, researchers, and labor market practitioners and other specialists with a practical guide on how to strengthen labor market institutions, especially in light of the global financial crisis. This primer emphasizes six pillars of labor market institutions: global trends, job creation, labor market policies, education, entrepreneurship, and globalization. Chapter one addresses current labor market trends and job creation, particularly in tough conditions. Chapter two examines channels of job creation and ways to strengthen labor market institutions to ensure sustainable job growth, considering factors such as investment climate, job policy, industrial policy, social protection, and other labor market issues. Chapter three focuses on labor market policies in developing countries. Chapter four highlights the impact of education and skills on labor market outcome. Chapter five discusses entrepreneurship along three key dimensions: development and growth, job creation, and female entrepreneurship. Finally, chapter six addresses the relationship between jobs and globalization. -
Publication
Government Guarantees : Allocating and Valuing Risk in Privately Financed Infrastructure Projects
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2007)Government guarantees can help persuade private investors to finance valuable new infrastructure. But because their costs are hard to estimate and usually do not show up in the government's accounts, governments can be tempted to grant too many guarantees. Drawing on a diverse range of disciplines, including finance, history, economics, and psychology, Government Guarantees : Allocating and Valuing Risk in Privately Financed Infrastructure Projects aims to help governments give guarantees only when they are justified. It reviews the history of government guarantees and identifies the cognitive and political obstacles to good decisions about guarantees. It then develops a framework for judging when governments should bear risk in an infrastructure project (seeking to make precise the oft-invoked principle that risks should be allocated to those best placed to manage them); explains how guarantees can be valued; and discusses how aspects of public-sector management can be modified to improve the likely quality of government decisions about guarantees. -
Publication
Knowledge, Productivity, and Innovation in Nigeria : Creating a New Economy
(World Bank, 2010)Harnessing knowledge for development is not a new concept. Knowledge has always been central to development and can mean the difference between poverty and wealth. The knowledge economy is not just about establishing high-tech industries and creating an innovative and entrepreneurial culture. Economic literature indicates that simply adopting existing technologies widely available in developed countries can dramatically boost productivity and economic growth. This paper highlights the knowledge economy (KE) issues that confront Nigeria and offers policy prescriptions that will allow the country to take advantage of the opportunities available in moving toward a knowledge-based economy. The Knowledge Assessment Methodology (KAM) developed by the World Bank considers four pillars: a) skills and education, b) business environment, c) information and communications infrastructure, and d) innovation system. -
Publication
Understanding and Measuring Social Capital : A Multidisciplinary Tool for Practitioners
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2002-06)The importance of social capital for sustainable development, is by now well recognized. Anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, and economists have in their own ways, demonstrated the critical role of institutions, networks, and their supporting norms and values, for the success of development interventions. This success often hinges on accurate assessments of social capital in target communities. But the nature, and impact of social capital - the institutions, relationships, attitudes, and values that govern interactions among people - are not easily quantified. "Understanding and Measuring Social Capital" provides a conceptual review, and measurement tools, in a form readily available for development practitioners. The book discusses the respective value of quantitative, and qualitative approaches to the analysis of social capital, illustrating the discussion with examples, and case studies from many countries. It also presents the Social Capital Assessment Tool, which combines quantitative, and qualitative instruments to measure social capital at the level of household, community, and organization, drawing on multidisciplinary, empirical experiences, an application which can provide project managers with valuable baseline, and monitoring information about social capital in its different dimensions. -
Publication
Building a Sustainable Future : The Africa Region Environment Strategy
(Washington, DC, 2002)This environment strategy outlines the current thinking in the World Bank Group Africa Region about priorities and actions for the institution in the environmental arena. The Africa Region Environment Strategy (ARES) outlines the Bank's commitment to help its clients achieve sustainable poverty reduction through better environmental management. It identifies the most urgent issues at the interface of environment and poverty and discusses targeted actions for addressing them. It reviews the lessons from experience to date and proposes new approaches. The strategic context in which the ARES has evolved and will be implemented is defined by the Bank's mission statement and operational policies, the World Bank Environment Strategy (WBES), and by the Bank's broader objectives, priorities, and strategies in the Africa Region. Like the WBES, the ARES approaches environment through a "poverty lens" and targets four main objectives: a) ensuring sustainable livelihoods, b) improving environmental health, c) reducing vulnerability to natural disasters, and d) maintaining local, regional, and global ecosystems and values. Key elements of the ARES include integrating environment into development and poverty reduction strategies; building an enabling environment and the institutional and human capacity for sustainable environmental management; promoting environmentally sustainable and equitable private sector-led economic development; improving governance; and encouraging decentralization. -
Publication
Agriculture, Trade, and the WTO : Creating a Trading Environment for Development
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2003)Developing countries have an enormous stake in the new round of World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations, taking place now, and scheduled to be completed by January 1, 2005. Their full participation in the global trading system could lift and additional 300 million people our of poverty by 2015. Since 1970, these countries have increased their share in all trade, from one-quarter to one-third. Most of these gains, however, have come from increased exports of manufactured goods, which primarily benefit the middle-income developing countries. Agricultural products, historically the more important exports for poor countries, have lagged far behind. The main reason for this is the protection - in the form of subsidies and other support, running at roughly U$S 1 billion per day - afforded agriculture in industrial countries. This is more than six times all development assistance. This report contains results of region-specific studies that will prove a vital resource for policymakers, analysts, and others working in the development field. It provides answers to questions such as, What lessons were learned from the Uruguay Round? What is the relationship between trade liberalization, and rural poverty? And, What is the role of the international development community in fostering a trading system that will result in development? The authors argue that only by reshaping the world's trading system, and reducing the barriers to trade, can truly global expansion take place. -
Publication
Buildings Market Institutions in South Eastern Europe : Comparative Prospects for Investment and Private Sector Development
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2004)This report studies impediments to investment and private sector development in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, and Serbia and Montenegro. It aims to yield fundamentally new insights for improving the region's business environment, economic development, and prospects for growth. It focuses on four core topics: 1) Business competition and economic barriers to entry and exit; 2) Access to regulated utilities and services; 3) Corporate ownership, transparency of business accounts, and access to finance; and 4) Mechanisms for commercial dispute resolution. Each topic is empirically investigated across all eight South Eastern European countries through the systematic use of data from multiple sources: Official data from each country in the region; results from two annual rounds of quantitative, firm-level surveys covering 1,600 firms; and results from 40 originally developed enterprise-level business case studies. The result is an innovative analysis of cross-country comparisons and the development of key policy challenges from a regional perspective. The report ends by making concrete recommendations for reforms that would ease the constraints on domestic and foreign investment, an essential step in sustaining growth and reducing poverty in the region. -
Publication
Tackling Noncommunicable Diseases in Bangladesh : Now is the Time
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2013-08-21)This report is organized in such a way that the key policy options and strategic priorities are based on the country context, including the burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and associated risk factors and the existing capacity of the health system. Chapter one describes the country and regional contexts and the evidence of the demographic and epidemiological transitions in Bangladesh; chapter two outlines the disease burden of major NCDs, including the equity and economic impact and the common risk factors; chapter three provides an assessment of the health system and its capacity to prevent and control major NCDs; chapter four summarizes ongoing NCD interventions and activities in Bangladesh and highlights the remaining gaps and challenges; and chapter five presents key policy options and strategic priorities to prevent and control NCDs. -
Publication
Fostering Entrepreneurship in Armenia
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2013-08-21)A dynamic and vibrant private sector is crucial to economic growth, with firms making new investments, creating jobs, improving productivity, and promoting growth. Entrepreneurial activity is pivotal to the continued dynamism of the private sector, with the generation of new businesses fostering competition and economic growth. This study uses data from the new 2012 World Bank entrepreneurship survey conducted to gauge new firm growth in the formal sector in Armenia and data from World Bank enterprise surveys to analyze innovative activity in existing firms. Armenia has by far the highest level of entrepreneurial activity among the three South Caucuses countries that were studied. Armenia's entrepreneurial culture is built largely on the very strong math and science foundation established during the Soviet era. However, several factors hinder business growth and entrepreneurship. The government could remove bottlenecks from the general business environment that impede able entrepreneurs with good ideas from starting a new venture and creating jobs. This would include strengthening the business environment to allow failure and company exit as a necessary part of entrepreneurial learning, company incentives that favor entrepreneurs with good ideas, instruments that enable entrepreneurs to access capital for startups, and flexible labor market policies that enable firms to expand by attracting the best talent from outside the firm or the country. The ease of paying taxes index and other business surveys continue to cite weaknesses in the country's tax administration, and arbitrary, corrupt behavior by tax officials is a major impediment to the formation and success of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The Armenian law on bankruptcy prohibits a bankrupt natural person from starting or partnering in a new business for five years, thus hampering the fresh start that should be the goal of a personal insolvency regime. Further, it requires the bankrupt debtor and 'affiliated persons' to submit property and income statements for three years, according to a regulation to be issued, which can serve as a disincentive to follow through with an insolvency proceeding. -
Publication
Sustaining Trade Reform : Institutional Lessons from Argentina and Peru
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2013)Trade reform in Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s was in significant part a reform of policy-making institutions. The institutions that existed when the reforms began had been created in response to particular protectionist pressures at particular times, and afterward they were controlled by the interests on whose behalf they had been created. This book was prompted by preliminary evidence suggesting that the reforms have been better sustained in Peru than in Argentina. Peru has continued its liberalization whereas Argentina has imposed a number of new trade restrictions. Moreover, decisions on many of Argentina's restrictions have not gone through the new mechanisms. The objective of this book is to draw lessons from Peruvian and Argentine experience that will be useful to governments that want to maintain an open trade regime. From a positive perspective, the authors want to identify what the Peruvian government has done that has kept its liberalization moving forward. The Peru study focuses on how reform leaders in that country have reinforced the evolution of a new management culture and how they have disseminated widely in Peruvian society a positive vision of Peru in the international economy.