Bøger i International development in focus serien

Liberia has been influenced by the Ebola crisis since 2014, but the economy is now recovering quickly. Still, significant challenges lie ahead. Agriculture, an important sector that employs approximately half of the labor force, still has a weak growth trajectory. Many rural people are not well connected to markets and live below the poverty line. To use limited resources effectively, strategic planning and prioritization of public investment are essential. Particularly, the Ebola crisis revealed the vulnerability of the country's transport connectivity and health systems. This book analyzes the country's transport connectivity, identifying the existing bottlenecks and possible economic potentials. By taking advantage of the country's first-ever georeferenced road network data, the analysis casts light on various aspects of connectivity, such as rural accessibility, market access, access to port and health facilities and multimodal connectivity, including cabotage. It is shown that transport connectivity is crucial to increasing agricultural production, stimulating agglomeration economies, and supporting people's access to health care services. Significant resources are likely to be required to meet the existing gap. The book estimates the financial needs by development objective and discusses important policy issues, including the possibility of public-private partnerships to finance transport infrastructure.

Focuses on the challenge of youth engagement in school and at work. This report shows that youth prospects in the labor market are dimmed by policies favoring existing workers. Also, youth are often ill equipped to meet an increasingly challenging labor market. It discusses new policies, targeted at youth, that Brazil could prioritize.

With growing global water scarcity and projections that indicate the need to increase both agricultural production and agricultural water use, it is increasingly advocated to focus efforts on improving agricultural water productivity and efficiency - and thus achieve more crop per drop.

Brings together public financial management and public sector reform experiences from eight countries in East Asia. This book examines how reforms have been implemented in those countries and explores key lessons that can help reformers to further advance their endeavors.

This book is motivated by the need to understand the possible drivers of future income and employment growth. Its key finding: Brazil needs to dramatically improve its performance in terms of productivity if the country is to generate lasting gains in incomes and provide better jobs for its citizens.

Brazil approaches its 2018 election with an economy that is gradually recovering from the deepest recession in its recent economic history. This book explores the drivers of future employment and income growth. Its key finding: Brazil needs to dramatically improve its performance across all industries if the country is to provide better jobs.

The benefits of including work-based learning (WBL) as part of vocational education and training (VET) are widely recognized. But little is known about how school-based systems can best incorporate WBL. This report provides recommendations and international examples for expanding the use of WBL in VET.

Focuses on the problem of at-risk, out-of-school youth. The book synthesizes the evidence for what works, how, and why to reengage youth in education, exploring for whom and in what contexts interventions can be effective. It provides guidance to build theories of change for local policy - and programming-related design processes.

This report assesses and analyses the state of child nutrition in largely ethnic populations, and identifies gaps in policies and programmes aimed at reducing inequities in malnutrition in these areas.

While Moroccan cities are the engines of today's demographic and economic growth, they face persistent challenges. This note identifies priority actions to be taken to allow public authorities help urban development boost economic growth and promote shared prosperity for all.

PEFA, Public Financial Management, and Good Governance

Reviews China's high-speed rail experience and highlights key factors in the areas of planning, capacity building, markets, service design, construction and operations, finances, and economics. Countries considering investment in high-speed rail may find many aspects of China's experience relevant and useful.

Using rich data collected from the OECD School User Survey (LEEP) and the "Trends in Mathematics and Science Study" (TIMSS), this book analyzes how the physical characteristics and psychological climates of Russian Federation schools, in conjunction with the teaching methods used, may affect the progress and success of students.

This book provides a granular diagnostic of Bangladesh's logistics system, its demand and associated costs, and the actions needed to improve its performance. It provides insights on chokepoints and makes a case for a comprehensive yet strategic approach to addressing them.

Unleashing E-Commerce for South Asian Integration

Transition to Payment by Diagnostic Related Groups Payment: How Did They Do It?

This book begins with an extensive descriptive account of villagers' dealings in the markets for labor, tenancies, credit, and crops, drawing on interviews and household surveys from the early 1980s. The book subsequently analyzes various alternative contractual arrangements and villagers' choices among them.

Although Romania's income per capita has increased, its economic growth has been uneven and rests on the foundations of ineffective institutions, unfavorable demographics, and weak human capital. In this context, this Country Economic Memorandum focuses on competitive markets and on educated and skilled workers as drivers of future growth.

This book discusses the impacts of population aging and technological change on Uruguay's labor markets and economic growth potential, focusing on the need to increase the level and quality of investment in human and physical capital in order to improve welfare and reduce inequality.

Learning outcomes in Lebanon have been lower than the international average and with a declining trend since 2007. This volume uses a political economy approach and a system-level analysis to uncover why the education system in Lebanon is not reaching its full potential.

Adaptive social protection (ASP) helps to build the resilience of poor and vulnerable households to the impacts of large, covariate shocks, such as natural disasters, economic crises, pandemics, conflict, and forced displacement. Through the provision of transfers and services directly to these households, ASP supports their capacity to prepare for, cope with, and adapt to the shocks they face--before, during, and after these shocks occur. Over the long term, by supporting these three capacities, ASP can provide a pathway to a more resilient state for households that may otherwise lack the resources to move out of chronically vulnerable situations. Adaptive Social Protection: Building Resilience to Shocks outlines an organizing framework for the design and implementation of ASP, providing insights into the ways in which social protection systems can be made more capable of building household resilience. By way of its four building blocks--programs, information, finance, and institutional arrangements and partnerships--the framework highlights both the elements of existing social protection systems that are the cornerstones for building household resilience, as well as the additional investments that are central to enhancing their ability to generate these outcomes. In this report, the ASP framework and its building blocks have been elaborated primarily in relation to natural disasters and associated climate change. Nevertheless, many of the priorities identified within each building block are also pertinent to the design and implementation of ASP across other types of shocks, providing a foundation for a structured approach to the advancement of this rapidly evolving and complex agenda.

Unemployment and underemployment are global development challenges. The situation in Ghana is no different. In 2016, it was projected that, given the country's growing youth population, 300,000 new jobs would need to be created each year to absorb the increasing numbers of unemployed young people. Yet the employment structure of the Ghanaian economy has not changed much from several decades ago. Most jobs are low skill, requiring limited cognitive or technology know-how, reflected in low earnings and work of lower quality. An additional challenge for Ghana is the need to create access to an adequate number of high-quality, productive jobs. This report seeks to increase knowledge about Ghana's job landscape and youth employment programs to assist policy makers and key stakeholders in identifying ways to improve the effectiveness of these programs and strengthen coordination among major stakeholders. Focused, strategic, short- to medium-term and long-term responses are required to address current unemployment and underemployment challenges. Effective coordination and synergies among youth employment programs are needed to avoid duplication of effort while the country's economic structure transforms. Effective private sector participation in skills development and employment programs is recommended. The report posits interventions in five priority areas that are not new but could potentially make an impact through scaling up: (1) agriculture and agribusiness, (2) apprenticeship (skills training), (3) entrepreneurship, (4) high-yielding areas (renewable energy-solar, construction, tourism, sports, and green jobs), and (5) preemployment support services. Finally, with the fast-changing nature of work due to technology and artificial intelligence, Ghana needs to develop an education and training system that is versatile and helps young people to adapt and thrive in the twenty-first century world of work.

Fostering Human Capital in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries

Technology Transfer and Innovation for Low-Carbon Development