Most people agree that a good investment climate is essential for growth and poverty reduction. Less clear is how to achieve it. Many reforms are complex, involving more than technical design and content. They are both political, facing opposition from organized and powerful groups - and...

South Asia has a huge need to create more and better jobs for a growing population – especially in the manufacturing industries where it is underperforming as compared to East Asia. The report examines three critical and relatively understudied drivers of competitiveness: Economies of...

As a small and open economy, Georgia's growth prospects are directly linked to its ability to produce and sell goods and services competitively in the global marketplace. The World Bank Georgia Competitive Industries Technical Assistance Project has been launched in February 2013 in response to...

Drawing from more than 25 case studies, this book shows that reform often requires paying as much attention to dealing with the politics and institutional dimensions as to designing policy substance. While there is no single recipe or manual for reform, the authors highlight three broad lessons....

Most people agree that a good investment climate is essential for growth and poverty reduction. Less clear is how to achieve it. Many reforms are complex, involving more than technical design and content. They are both political, facing opposition from organized and powerful groups-and...

This note is about reform teams.They belong to an exclusive group of economies that grew out of poverty in less than 30 years. They also initially relied on a small, dedicated team of experts to get the job done. These teams brought to bear world-class skills along with direct access to the top...

By some estimates more than 30 percent of the developing world's GDP and 70 percent of its workers are outside the official economy. The implications: Most small firms are trapped in low-productivity operations with little access to finance, key government services, and formal customers. Workers...

The fall in foreign direct investment (FDI) since 1999 and China's growing share, worry most developing countries. But an in-depth look reveals new and promising trends. The decline is largely a one-time adjustment following the privatization boom of the 1990s. FDI is coming from more countries...

The World Bank's strategy for Africa's future recognizes the central importance of industrialization in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the consequent creation of productive jobs for Africans, which have long been a preoccupation of African leaders and policy makers. This book represents an attempt to...