This study reviews the African Region of the World Bank's current thinking on cost sharing and the poor as apllied in Sub-Saharan Africa. It inventories country experiences and Bank activities in cost sharing for education and health, reviews African experiences with the implementation of cost...

This paper presents a framework for evaluating the level and composition of public expenditures, illustrated by sectoral and country examples.

This World Bank Discussion Paper brings together two contributions on external debt issues. The first paper discusses the insurability of sovereign debt against default. The second paper reviews numerous studies that have been conducted over the years to identify the variables that could predict...

Almost half the population remain poor, but the proportion has increased in rural areas and decreased in urban areas. Poverty stands at 48.6 percent nationally and almost 70 percent in rural areas; 21.3 percent are extreme poor, rising to 32.2 percent in rural areas5. The poverty rate hasn't...

A key challenge in Nepal is the intersection of predictable chronic or seasonal poverty andvulnerability, with rapid-onset and acute shocks. Nepal in the last few decades has epitomized the'perfect storm' in which a number of different factors-disasters, conflict, political uncertainty, and...

Kosovo is one of the poorest countries in Europe, and a growing proportion of the population is at risk for social exclusion and long-term poverty. Overall spending on social protection has increased significantly over recent years, largely because of increases in pensions and war related...