"The rationale for public investment in rural roads is that households can better exploit agricultural and nonagricultural opportunities to use labor and capital more efficiently. But significant knowledge gaps remain as to how opportunities provided by roads actually filter back into household...

Papua New Guinea (PNG) is the largest country in the Pacific region, and one of the most diverse countries in the world. The key development challenge in this lower-middle income country is how to translate macroeconomic gains from the resource sector into better opportunities and services for...

Bhutan has registered rapid economic growth in the recent past. But the private sector's contribution to this growth has not been significant. Recognizing that the private sector can play an important role as an engine of growth, the Royal Government of Bhutan (RGoB) mapped out strategies to...

The remote and sparsely populated provinces of Papua and West Papua face a time of great change. Monetary transfers from Jakarta have grown extraordinarily in recent years, by more than 600 percent in real terms and 1300 percent in nominal terms since 2000, greatly increasing demand for goods...

Papua has abundant natural and fiscal resources but also faces great development challenges. On the one hand, Papua currently has the largest per capita fiscal capacity after West Papua. Papua is rich in natural resources such as non-oil-and-gas minerals and forest products. On the other hand,...

The Enterprise Surveys (ES) focus on many aspects of the business environment. These factors can be accommodating or constraining for firms and play an important role in whether an economy's private sector will thrive or not. An accommodating business environment is one that encourages firms to...

Reflecting a strong global economic rebound, Papua New Guinea (PNG) reversed its downward economic growth trajectory in 2021. The World Bank estimates that the PNG economy contracted by 3.5 percent in 2020 before returning to positive economic growth of 1 percent in 2021. Domestic agricultural...

This joint report by the World Bank and UNICEF-PNG presents the findings from two mobile phone surveys conducted in May, June and July 2021 in Papua New Guinea. The first survey, conducted in May and June, was the third in a series, with the first round being completed in June and July 2020 and...