Twenty years of rapid economic development in Ghana has done little, if anything, to reduce the historical North, South divide in standards of living. While rural development and urbanization have led to significant poverty reduction in the South, similar dynamics have been largely absent from...

Mozambique has staged a dramatic recovery from the damage of the civil war, improving infrastructure nearly to pre-war levels; reducing poverty from 69 to 54 percent; growing the economy by 8 percent annually between 1996 and 2003; expanding the agricultural, tourism construction and manufacturing...

This Country Economic Memorandum (CEM) finalized as the implementation period of the Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRSP) began, undertaken in a context of other significant investigations on PRSP themes. One of the main macroeconomic variables affecting growth and competitiveness of the Senegalese...

This is the first Economic Report on Afghanistan by the World Bank in a quarter-century. It is intended to contribute to a better understanding of the core challenges that lie ahead for the country and key strategic priorities for national reconstruction. It focuses on the conceptual frameworks,...

The report has three main messages. First, the economy is expected to achieve higher growth targets in 2013 (5.7 percent) and 2014 (6 percent) over what it achieved in 2012 (4.6 percent), as a result of the smooth election process. However, the government will need to make a concerted effort, if...

This report aims to inform the discussion by summarizing recent World Bank analysis on the performance of the social safety net on the basis of the 2007 Multi-Topic Household Survey. It reviews the effectiveness of the main social safety net transfer programs in reducing poverty and assesses how...