"Madagascar's textile and apparel industry has been among the fastest growing in Sub-Saharan Africa. Fueled by low labor costs, a fairly productive labor force, and preferential access to industrial countries, Madagascar's exports of textile and apparel products grew from about US

Apparel production is especially labor intensive, with low start-up investments and easily transferable technology. Furthermore, the labor requirements can be easily met with low and semi-skilled workers, especially women. As a result, many countries with competitive labor costs, especially in...

"Past research into the determinants of international trade highlighted the importance of the basic spatial gravity model augmented by additional variables representing sources of friction. Studies modeled many sources of friction using various proxies, including indices based on expert judgment...

Transport and logistics services in Myanmar have been substantially hit by the impacts of the February 2021 coup and the surge in Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases. Logistics companies have been affected by rising fuel prices, border closures, and a shortage of shipping containers. While...

Plastics have been a development driver for decades but have turned into a development problem due to their omnipresence in the environment. Marine litter and plastic pollution have attracted much attention and commitments from governments and the private sector alike in the past few years....

This report concerns two streams of Technical Assistance provided by the World Bank Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) to the Government of Vietnam. They are: strengthening the enabling environment, capacity building systems and evidence-based learning and lesson sharing. Strengthening demand...

Cocoa is by far Ghana's most important crop. It dominates the agricultural sector and is a major source of income for approximately 800,000 farmers and many others engaged in trade, transportation, and processing of cocoa. Cocoa holds a unique position in Ghana's economy. It has long played a...

Biomass is the most important source of energy in Rwanda, especially for domestic cooking. Today approximately 86 percent of primary energy comes from biomass, mainly in the form of wood that is either used directly as a fuel (57 percent), or converted into charcoal (23 percent) together with...