"This paper documents the prevalence of in-house generation of electric power by firms in Sub-Saharan Africa and attempts to identify the underlying causes. The analysis is based on two data sources. The UDI World Electric Power Plants Data Base (WEPP), a global inventory of electric power...

The firming of the economic recovery is putting the policy spotlight back on the longer term challenge of faster, more inclusive Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth. Modest investment rates despite attractive returns and low savings rates despite favorable demographics are important impediments....

Reliable quantitative data are essential for understanding economic, social and governance development because it provides evidence, and evidence are crucial to set policies, monitor progress and evaluate results. Africa Development Indicators 2010 (ADI) provides the most detailed collection of...

African Development Indicators 2004 provides the most detailed collection of data on Africa available in one volume. It contains more than 500 macroeconomic, sectoral, and social indicators, covering 53 African countries with data from 1970-2002. The book is grouped into 15 chapters: background...

The size, resources, and location of the Democratic Republic of Congo have an impact on all of Central Africa. The country has unexplored mining resources, massive agricultural potential, and a population of more than 60 million inhabitants. The second largest country in Sub-Saharan Africa, the...

This strategy for making development Climate-Resilient in Sub-Saharan Africa is the World Bank's operational response to climate variability and change on the continent. Grounded in a climate risk review of the Africa Region's sustainable development portfolio, it adds the climate change...

This paper looks at firm-level evidence on the African business environment from surveys undertaken for Investment Climate Assessments by the World Bank in 2000-2004. These surveys confirm a pattern of generally low "factory-floor" productivity, and show that this is partly due to business...

The country study follows a framework that examines three dimensions of capacity building in the public sector: (1) institutional capacity, the framework of goals, incentives, rewards, and sanctions within which organizations, groups, and individuals operate; (2) organizational capacity, groups...