Why are carefully designed, sensible policies too often not adopted or implemented? When they are, why do they often fail to generate development outcomes such as security, growth, and equity? And why do some bad policies endure? This book addresses these fundamental questions, which are at the...

Africa’s urban population is growing rapidly. Between 2000 and 2015, the urban population increased by more than 80 percent from 206 million to 373 million people. Although access to piped water increased over the period (from 82 million urban dwellers with piped water in 2000 to 124 million...

Public procurement is one of the main cross-sectoral reforms that the Government of Lebanon committed to at the "Conference economique pour le developpement, par les reformes et avec les entreprises" (CEDRE) held in Paris in April 2018, in order to improve fiscal governance and the quality of...

“Building and operating successful public institutions is a perennial and long-term challenge for governments, which is compounded by the volatile conditions found in fragile settings. Yet some government agencies do manage to take root and achieve success in delivering results earning...

This paper studies periods of prolonged contractions in output per capita in a sample of 145 countries from 1950 to 2014. Economic slumps are defined as abrupt interruptions of a period of growth by several regime switches. Slumps start with a sharp contraction along with a trend break, which is...

The April 2016 issue of the Brief provides an update of the detailed estimates of remittances for 2015 and new projections for 2016-18. A special topic for this brief is a discussion of how migration outflows, temporary return, and remittances help households and societies cope with natural...