A competitive city is a city that successfully facilitates its firms and industries to create jobs, raise productivity, and increase the incomes of citizens over time. Worldwide, improving the competitiveness of cities is a pathway to eliminating extreme poverty and to promoting shared...

The Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC), which consists of Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, is one of the oldest regional groupings in Africa. The main objectives for achieving this are: (i) the creation of a...

Slavonia's economy is now amongst the poorest in the European Union (EU) and has been growing more slowly than comparable regions. Some Polish and Romanian counties were less advanced until 2013 but have now overtaken Slavonia. Achieving a turnaround is difficult: only 9 percent of lagging...

Latin America and the Caribbean suffered the largest death toll from Covid?19 across developing regions and the sharpest decline in economic activity. With fewer school days and lower employment rates, with higher public debt and more firms under stress, the effects could be long?lasting. The...

Croatia's high degree of municipal fragmentation has been consistently recognized as a weakness and one of the main problems of its intergovernmental fiscal system. The report argues that the problem of fragmentation is in essence a problem of capacity. The objective of this report is to review...

Bolivia made substantial progress in reducing poverty and inequality during the commodity boom, and despite the adverse external context of the past five years, poverty reduction continued, albeit more slowly. Expansionary policies allowed the country to continue growing and reducing poverty...

This poverty assessment aims to strengthen the analytical foundation for poverty-reduction policies and interventions in Mali. In recent years, important gains have been made across multiple dimensions of household welfare, but poverty in Mali remains widespread and extreme. The COVID-19 induced...

The Indonesia Economic Prospects (IEP) is a bi-annual World Bank report that assesses recent macroeconomic developments, outlook and risks, as well as specific development challenges for the Indonesian economy. In doing so, the IEP aims to inform the public policy debate and is geared towards a...

Sao Tome and Principe (STP), a small island nation of 215,000 people in the Gulf of Guinea off the coast of Central Africa, is in many ways a country of great untapped wealth. One of Africa's least known countries, its striking volcanic landscape is home to virgin rainforests with rich...