Government initiatives to reduce the housing deficit in Colombia go back more than a hundred years, but it was only after the creation of the Ministry of Housing as an independent agency, a decade ago, that national housing policy took on the relevance that it has today. Since then, Colombia has...

Policy makers across the Middle East and North Africa have for many years articulated plans to integrate their people spatially and economically. Wishing to bring communities together and narrow economic gaps, governments have made large capital investments in transport corridors and "new...

Addressing regional disparities is key to unlocking Russia's potential to achieve stronger gains in growth and equity outcomes as well as to improve its institutional environment. While spatial disparities have been an important policy concern in Russia for a long time, inequalities across its...

Russia's spatial disparities stem largely from its economic geography, which is unique and has no parallels even when compared to seemingly similar countries such as Australia and Canada. While Australia and Canada also have large land masses and even lower population densities than Russia, a...

On average, Vietnam has achieved remarkable improvements in nutritional status in recent decades, but improvements in national aggregates mask wide disparities and a persistent 'very high' burden among disadvantaged ethnic minority groups. Between 2000 and 2010, national stunting rates dropped...

Against the backdrop of increasing income inequality, this report uses spatial analysis to assesses whether disparities in access to basic infrastructure between Mozambique's lagging and leading regions are growing or declining and whether the public expenditure program is effective in...

Despite being an upper middle income country, South Africa's high inequality and the long-lasting legacies of apartheid mean that the country is faced with numerous development challenges, many of which are characteristic of countries with much lower incomes. This paper focuses on social...

South Africa's social assistance system represents a major intervention by government in addressing the deprivation amongst the country's population. The system is extensive in terms of both the number of people it covers, directly and indirectly, as well as in terms of the amount of scarce...

South Africa is set to emerge from the crisis weaker than it had been going into it. However, this Economic Update argues that the reasons for low growth and high unemployment do not lie in the government's crisis response, which has generally been sound. Growth is expected to reach 4 percent in...

The South African financial system has weathered the shock of COVID-19 but faces growing risks emanating from a weak macroeconomic outlook. The pandemic crisis hit South Africa hard, with nonresident capital outflows accelerating and the domestic and global slowdown precipitating a6.4 percent...