This Selected Issues paper reviews recent developments in growth and employment in Bulgaria and highlights key constraints to growth suggested by cross-country competitiveness studies. Bulgaria’s GDP has grown substantially since economic and financial stabilization in 1997. The global...

The Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Program (EDPRP) was developed with the active participation and support of society, executive authorities, nongovernment organizations, academia, businessmen, and donors. The study additionally provides coordinated mechanisms for bilateral and...

This Selected Issues paper highlights that the authorities in the Republic of Korea recognize the pension policy challenges ahead, and a first wave of reforms has already been launched. Despite the reforms to date, much remains to be done. Without further reforms, the public pension systems in...

This paper examines Moldova’s Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (EGPRSP) covering 2004–06. The EGPRSP has the potential to become an effective tool for continuous strategic planning, and for providing for the prioritization of strategic objectives and the...

Poverty in Dominica exhibits the following: poor households tend to be larger than nonpoor households; poor households contain proportionately fewer persons of working age, and there is no significant difference in the gender distribution of poverty in the country. The challenges of this...

This Selected Issues paper focuses on the fiscal challenge for Belgium in coping with population aging, including the sustainability of prevailing fiscal federalism arrangements across all levels of governments. The analysis demonstrates that the current strategy of upfront consolidation is...

The Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) of the Republic of Tajikistan for 2010–12 aims to serve as a medium-term program for the implementation of the National Development Strategy up to 2015. It will determine the major socioeconomic development of the country during this period, taking...

This paper reviews the Poverty Reduction Strategy Annual Evaluation Report 2005 for Moldova. Economic growth and income redistribution policies promoted in the context of Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EGPRS) implementation contributed to higher incomes and improved access of...

Cambodians have displayed tremendous resilience. The National Strategic Development Plan (NSDP) has been formulated using the comprehensive Rectangular Strategy of the Royal Government of Cambodia and synthesizes the Cambodia Millennium Development Goals (CMDG), the National Poverty Reduction...

In South Africa, long-term insurers experienced some strains during the financial crisis, but there were no crisis-related failures. The capital markets suffered sharp declines but no systemic failures. The three standards assessments have found the regulatory system fundamentally sound. The...