The international community is committed to helping partner countries meet the Millennium Development Goal of halving global poverty by 2015. Providing more effective aid and increasing its impact on development is one important contribution to this end. This report takes stock of progress made...

European Council approved the Europe 2020 strategy, an economic growth and wellbeing improvement plan for the European Union (EU) in the ensuing decade. The strategy includes five interrelated headline targets to be achieved by the year 2020, encompassing employment, innovation, education,...

The Department for International Development (DFID)-Funded Energy Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) Program was created to support SMEs by helping countries unblock the factors that prevent their potential in the delivery of energy services. With thirteen energy projects in twelve countries and...

The Thailand Country Development Partnership for Social Protection (CDP-SP) is a collaborative program of policy development and technical assistance between the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection and the Bank and was launched in July 2001. CDP-SP operates in three key policy areas: labor...

While LAC continues its progress towards becoming a middle-class region, in 2013 poverty reduction was slower than in previous years. The bottom 40 percent of the population has also seen decelerating income growth since the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. Driving the lower gains in shared...

Fourteen years of civil conflict (1989-2003) have destroyed Liberia's social and economic infrastructure and brought the economy nearly to a halt. Workers who came of age during the conflict are largely unskilled, and the supply of workers exceeds demand by a substantial margin. The negative...

This report, which has been prepared by the World Bank in cooperation with the National Statistical Committee, provides an assessment of poverty in the Kyrgyz Republic using the most recent data available. The objective of this report is to understand to what extent economic growth has reduced...

This report documents the emergence of a group of long-term poor in Hungary. While growth will continue to be necessary to create well-paying jobs that would enable people to escape poverty, the long term poor are not likely to benefit from growth since they are detached from the labor market,...