Publication: Maldives: Identifying Opportunities and Constraints to Ending Poverty and Promoting Shared Prosperity
Loading...
Date
2015-09-01
ISSN
Published
2015-09-01
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Maldives is an island nation scattered in the Indian Ocean comprising 1,190 small coral islands of which 190 are inhabited by a local population of 341,000. Maldives’ unique archipelagic coral island provides the country with an extremely rich and diverse marine ecological system. With more territorial sea than land, marine resources have played a vital role shaping the contours of economic development, with nature-based tourism being the key driver of economic growth and fisheries an important sector of employment for the local population. Maldives developed a successful high-end tourism sector, whose sizeable rents have been redistributed to the population to address its development challenges. This systematic country diagnostic for Maldives aims at identifying the most critical constraints and opportunities facing the country as it works towards promoting sustainable growth, reducing poverty and boosting shared prosperity. In addition to serving as a public good for the government, civil society, research and academic community, and local and international development partners, the findings of the SCD will be used as key inputs in the preparation of the WBG strategy, the Country Partnership Framework, which will outline how the Bank Group’s engagement in Maldives can best contribute towards achieving the twin goals.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank Group. 2015. Maldives: Identifying Opportunities and Constraints to Ending Poverty and Promoting Shared Prosperity. Systematic Country Diagnostic;. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/23118 License: CC BY 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 Country Partnership Framework for the Republic of Indonesia for the Period FY16 - FY20(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-11-03)Seventy years after independence and more than a decade of political and institutional reforms, Indonesia has emerged as a stable democracy. Indonesia’s achievements are now under stress, with a slowdown in its commodity driven economy, stagnant rates of poverty reduction, and rapidly rising inequality. The development policy review, completed in 2014, and the systematic country diagnostic (SCD), completed in 2015, explain the limited window of opportunity for Indonesia to reach high per capita income levels. This country partnership framework (CPF), covering the period FY2016-20, builds on the previous country partnership strategy (CPS) FY2013-15 and the long-term operational and policy-based support that has been a hallmark of World Bank Group’s (WBG’s) engagement with the Government of India (GoI) for the past decade. The CPF concentrates on areas of infrastructure necessary to better connect the economy, provide sustainable energy, help the country reap benefits from the rapid pace of urbanization, and improve equality of opportunity through better access of the poor and vulnerable to essential water and sanitation services. The CPF will seek to maximize synergies across the WBG and take advantage of all instruments in support of the CPF goals. The CPF will require a larger financing package than the previous CPS, although WBG’s total contribution will still be a very small percentage of overall borrowing needs.Publication Transforming Vietnamese Agriculture(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-04)Over the past quarter century, Vietnam’s agricultural sector has made enormous progress. Vietnam’s performance in terms of agricultural yields, output, and exports, however, has been more impressive than its gains in efficiency, farmer welfare, and product quality. Vietnamese agriculture now sits at a turning point. The agricultural sector now faces growing domestic competition - from cities, industry, and services - for labor, land, and water. Rising labor costs are beginning to inhibit the sector’s ability to compete globally as a low cost producer of bulk undifferentiated commodities. Going forward, Vietnam’s agricultural sector needs to generate more from less. That is, it must generate more economic value - and farmer and consumer welfare - using less natural and human capital and less harmful intermediate inputs. The strategic shift was highlighted in the government’s agricultural restructuring plan (ARP), approved by the Prime Minister in June 2014. The ARP defines sector goals in terms of the triple bottom line of economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable development. It lays out expected changes in the roles and spending patterns of the government in the sector and discusses the need to work with other stakeholders, including in the private sector. It calls for an ambitious and ongoing process of learning and experimentation, and several potential directions are offered in this report.Publication Indonesia Systematic Country Diagnostic(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-09)The systematic country diagnostic (SCD) is designed to identify the most critical binding constraints and opportunities facing Indonesia in ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity. In line with the World Bank Group’s (WBG’s) new country engagement model, the findings of the SCD will provide inputs for the preparation of the country partnership framework (CPF), which will outline the WBG’s engagement with Indonesia to achieve the twin goals. This SCD has four main conceptual elements. First, analyze past trends in growth, poverty, and inequality to highlight the deep drivers. Second, identify the key channels for reducing poverty and boosting the prosperity of the Bottom 40 percent. Third, highlight the major challenges and opportunities along each of the key channels, and finally identify prioritized areas of intervention to accelerate progress toward ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity for each of the channels identified.Publication Mauritius(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-06-25)Mauritius has been a success story since independence, moving from low income to uppermiddle-income status. Close public-private partnerships facilitated private sector-led growth in astable macroeconomic and institutional environment. The government implemented an activeindustrial policy to support private sector competitiveness while exploiting global trade nichescreated by preferential access arrangements. As a result, savings were high and reinvested indiversifying the economy. Starting as a mono-cropped, inward-looking economy, Mauritiusmoved toward an export oriented and diversified economy producing textiles, tourism, financialand ICT services. Mauritius is now at a crossroads. On the one hand, it can pursue a path where reinvigorated public investment boosts economic growth and reinforced public assistance enhancesredistribution. On the other hand, it can select a path where private sector identifies constraintsfor growth and the public sector is the enabling agent that removes them, ensuring that proceedsare adequately shared by targeted assistance and improved service delivery. The Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) is intended to assess the priorities of Mauritius to accelerate sustainable economic growth while improving the welfare of the less well off. The SCD aims to understand why income growth among the bottom 40 percent of the population has been low relative to the average income. The SCD also addresses how the rate and structure of aggregate growth can be improved to accelerate income growth among the bottom 40 percent of the population, as well as ensure that overall growth is sustainable.Publication Republic of Yemen(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-10)Part one of the report provides an overview of the economy. It has one chapter (chapter one), which provides an overview of the country’s growth and macroeconomic performance and challenges and analyzes and emphasizes the limited dynamism of a rent- and hydrocarbon-cursed economy. Part II describes cross-cutting issues that constrain policy implementation, regardless of the sectors where they occur. In chapter two, the report draws on material outlined in the rest of the report to argue that the policy problems that undermine the country’s development can be linked directly to political distortions introduced by the fragmentation among the population and the elites. While the informal elite networks are able to block reform and aggressively continue to seek rents that might otherwise be recycled into development, the population is unable to exert its rights and hold the elites accountable. Chapter three analyzes the major impediments in the business environment. Through the analysis of the de jure legal and regulatory business environment as well as the enforcement of business regulations, the chapter identifies key legal and institutional changes that can help reduce the opportunities for rent seeking that favor well-connected businesses. Chapter four discusses the opportunities to maximize the benefits of the country’s human capital by enhancing the quality of worker skills, increasing women’s labor force participation, and facilitating the migration of Yemenis to work in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. To achieve this goal, the Republic of Yemen needs to enhance the quality of the education system, especially technical education and vocational training (TEVT), and respond to the existing demand for skilled workers. Chapter five explores the constraints to realizing the potential of agriculture. It argues that a key constraint on the sector is the capture of land and water by multiple elites motivated by short-term rent extraction, which prevents the efficient management of these assets and therefore undermines any possibility of sustainable development. The chapter also discusses other constraints and weaknesses affecting the sector and proposes legal and institutional changes that could help increase transparency in the management of the sector. Chapter six analyzes the prospects for growth in the oil and gas sector and discusses key governance reforms that would help reduce rent seeking in the sector.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication The Journey Ahead(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-31)The Journey Ahead: Supporting Successful Migration in Europe and Central Asia provides an in-depth analysis of international migration in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) and the implications for policy making. By identifying challenges and opportunities associated with migration in the region, it aims to inform a more nuanced, evidencebased debate on the costs and benefits of cross-border mobility. Using data-driven insights and new analysis, the report shows that migration has been an engine of prosperity and has helped address some of ECA’s demographic and socioeconomic disparities. Yet, migration’s full economic potential remains untapped. The report identifies multiple barriers keeping migration from achieving its full potential. Crucially, it argues that policies in both origin and destination countries can help maximize the development impacts of migration and effectively manage the economic, social, and political costs. Drawing from a wide range of literature, country experiences, and novel analysis, The Journey Ahead presents actionable policy options to enhance the benefits of migration for destination and origin countries and migrants themselves. Some measures can be taken unilaterally by countries, whereas others require close bilateral or regional coordination. The recommendations are tailored to different types of migration— forced displacement as well as high-skilled and low-skilled economic migration—and from the perspectives of both sending and receiving countries. This report serves as a comprehensive resource for governments, development partners, and other stakeholders throughout Europe and Central Asia, where the richness and diversity of migration experiences provide valuable insights for policy makers in other regions of the world.Publication Media and Messages for Nutrition and Health(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06)The Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) has experienced rapid and significant economic growth over the past decade. However, poor nutritional outcomes remain a concern. Rates of childhood undernutrition are particularly high in remote, rural, and upland areas. Media have the potential to play an important role in shaping health and nutrition–related behaviors and practices as well as in promoting sociocultural and economic development that might contribute to improved nutritional outcomes. This report presents the results of a media audit (MA) that was conducted to inform the development and production of mass media advocacy and communication strategies and materials with a focus on maternal and child health and nutrition that would reach the most people from the poorest communities in northern Lao PDR. Making more people aware of useful information, essential services and products and influencing them to use these effectively is the ultimate goal of mass media campaigns, and the MA measures the potential effectiveness of media efforts to reach this goal. The effectiveness of communication channels to deliver health and nutrition messages to target beneficiaries to ensure maximum reach and uptake can be viewed in terms of preferences, satisfaction, and trust. Overall, the four most accessed media channels for receiving information among communities in the study areas were village announcements, mobile phones, television, and out-of-home (OOH) media. Of the accessed media channels, the top three most preferred channels were village announcements (40 percent), television (26 percent), and mobile phones (19 percent). In terms of trust, village announcements were the most trusted source of information (64 percent), followed by mobile phones (14 percent) and television (11 percent). Hence of all the media channels, village announcements are the most preferred, have the most satisfied users, and are the most trusted source of information in study communities from four provinces in Lao PDR with some of the highest burden of childhood undernutrition.Publication Remarks at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-10-12)World Bank Group President David Malpass discussed biodiversity and climate change being closely interlinked, with terrestrial and marine ecosystems serving as critically important carbon sinks. At the same time climate change acts as a direct driver of biodiversity and ecosystem services loss. The World Bank has financed biodiversity conservation around the world, including over 116 million hectares of Marine and Coastal Protected Areas, 10 million hectares of Terrestrial Protected Areas, and over 300 protected habitats, biological buffer zones and reserves. The COVID pandemic, biodiversity loss, climate change are all reminders of how connected we are. The recovery from this pandemic is an opportunity to put in place more effective policies, institutions, and resources to address biodiversity loss.Publication South Asia Development Update, April 2024: Jobs for Resilience(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-04-02)South Asia is expected to continue to be the fastest-growing emerging market and developing economy (EMDE) region over the next two years. This is largely thanks to robust growth in India, but growth is also expected to pick up in most other South Asian economies. However, growth in the near-term is more reliant on the public sector than elsewhere, whereas private investment, in particular, continues to be weak. Efforts to rein in elevated debt, borrowing costs, and fiscal deficits may eventually weigh on growth and limit governments' ability to respond to increasingly frequent climate shocks. Yet, the provision of public goods is among the most effective strategies for climate adaptation. This is especially the case for households and farms, which tend to rely on shifting their efforts to non-agricultural jobs. These strategies are less effective forms of climate adaptation, in part because opportunities to move out of agriculture are limited by the region’s below-average employment ratios in the non-agricultural sector and for women. Because employment growth is falling short of working-age population growth, the region fails to fully capitalize on its demographic dividend. Vibrant, competitive firms are key to unlocking the demographic dividend, robust private investment, and workers’ ability to move out of agriculture. A range of policies could spur firm growth, including improved business climates and institutions, the removal of financial sector restrictions, and greater openness to trade and capital flows.Publication Economic Recovery(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-04-06)World Bank Group President David Malpass spoke about the world facing major challenges, including COVID, climate change, rising poverty and inequality and growing fragility and violence in many countries. He highlighted vaccines, working closely with Gavi, WHO, and UNICEF, the World Bank has conducted over one hundred capacity assessments, many even more before vaccines were available. The World Bank Group worked to achieve a debt service suspension initiative and increased transparency in debt contracts at developing countries. The World Bank Group is finalizing a new climate change action plan, which includes a big step up in financing, building on their record climate financing over the past two years. He noted big challenges to bring all together to achieve GRID: green, resilient, and inclusive development. Janet Yellen, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, mentioned focusing on vulnerable people during the pandemic. Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, focused on giving everyone a fair shot during a sustainable recovery. All three commented on the importance of tackling climate change.