The Country Opinion Survey in Costa Rica assists the World Bank Group (WBG) in gaining a better understanding of how stakeholders in Costa Rica perceive the WBG. It provides the WBG with systematic feedback from national and local governments, multilateral/bilateral agencies, media, academia,...

This brief provides an overview of tobacco control legislation, use, and taxation in the country. Costa Rica ratified the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2008. General Law for the Control of Tobacco and its Harmful Effects on Health was adopted in March 2012, and it regulates...

The Country Opinion Survey in Costa Rica assists the World Bank Group (WBG) in gaining a better understanding of how stakeholders in Costa Rica perceive the WBG. It provides the WBG with systematic feedback from national and local governments, multilateral/bilateral agencies, media, academia,...

The purpose of this poverty assessment is to shine a new light on poverty, inequality, and its drivers in Costa Rica. The report provides a descriptive overview of poverty trends in the country and examines why the poorest do not reap the benefits of economic growth. It provides high-level...

This urbanization review "Connecting the Greater Metropolitan Area of Costa Rica" focuses on the South Corridor, a lagging (sub)region within Costa Rica's Greater Metropolitan Area (Gran Area Metropolitana, GAM), and the challenges facing the subregion as a result of rapid and unplanned...

The aim of this report is to document the fidelity of the implementation of the RIPSS in the Huetar-Atlantica Region in Costa Rica. Implementation fidelity seeks to assess the extent to which an intervention is implemented as planned and, for this, the PIPs were contrasted with what was...

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...

The Social Assistance Scheme (SAS) is the main social assistance program in Kosovo and the sole program targeted at poverty reduction in Kosovo and, importantly, the only program in which household income and assets are used to identify beneficiaries. In the absence of SAS, the overall poverty...

The 18th Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan shifted the administrative paradigm from centralized to decentralized structures. The added obligations require major policy and institutional reforms in an otherwise weak social protection (SP) sector at provincial levels, generally...

This report presents the results of a diagnostic study on the targeting of social protection programs in Uzbekistan with a specific focus on low-income family allowances. The objective is to determine the extent to which current programs are reaching the poor and can reduce poverty, and...