This paper reviews Zambia’s Second Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) Implementation Progress Report. The report reviews the status of the Poverty Reducing Programs (PRPs) for July 2003–June 2004. It notes improvement in funding to priority PRPs from K140 billion in January...

This paper on the United Republic of Tanzania’s Poverty Reduction Strategy reports that increases in investments in infrastructure such as roads, telecommunications, mining, and tourism have been recorded owing to increased inflows of foreign direct investments and domestic revenue...

This is the third Annual Progress Report on the implementation of the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS). Both the budget and the GPRS propose to tackle issues including reduction in the domestic debt, reduction of inflation to single digits, increasing revenue mobilization, curtailing...

The paper presents the Annual Progress report on The Gambia’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper. This has enabled the government to substantially reduce the stock of domestic arrears that have been due to contractors, consultants, and suppliers and at the same time liquidate all loans owed...

This paper presents key findings of the assessment of progress made in the implementation of policies outlined in the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS II, 2006–2009) for Ghana. The paper provides an assessment on programs such as the Multi Donor Budget Support, the linkage...

German banks tend to be less profitable than their foreign counterparts. This paper estimates the likely effect of the phaseout of state guarantees for public sector banks, reviews the various ways in which public policy could contribute to their restructuring, and discusses the various...

In recent years, the IMF has released a growing number of reports and other documents covering economic and financial developments and trends in member countries. Each report, prepared by a staff team after discussions with government officials, is published at the option of the member country.

This paper provides an overview of the possible linkages between state-owned banks, privatization, and banking sector crises. Data on privatizations in over 65 countries is used together with data from the banking crisis literature to consider the relationship between state-owned banks and...

The purpose of this paper is to study the origins of banking crises in sub-Saharan Africa, drawing upon the experience of ten countries during the period 1985-95. It examines, in particular, which factors were the most important sources of these crises. The conclusions underscore that the...