The Republic of Congo is the third-largest crude oil producer in Sub-Saharan Africa after Nigeria and Angola and is heavily dependent on oil production and oil exports. With a population of 5.5 million, Congo is a lower middle-income economy, endowed with abundant natural resources. The economy...

The World Bank Group (WBG) has been active in public and private sector pollution management for the past several decades. The Bank has mainstreamed environmental health concerns into its rural and urban services through projects that improved the management of solid and hazardous waste and...

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 inform poverty-focused policymaking in Chad. The report examines recent trends in poverty, inequality, and other social indicators and identifies key constraints on poverty reduction. Although agriculture, pastoralism, and related activities provide livelihoods...

Liberia's status as a fragile state is deeply rooted in the political and economic exclusion practiced by the country's founders. Although they constituted just 5 percent of the population, freed American slaves and their descendants dominated the country's intellectual and ruling class from...

This systematic country diagnostic is structured in two main parts, one backward looking and the other forward looking. The backward-looking analysis aims to draw lessons on the determinants of poverty and sustainable and inclusive growth from (a) stakeholder consultations; (b) a poverty profile;...

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...

Systematic Country Diagnostics (SCDs) analyze the most critical constraints and opportunities to ending extreme poverty and promoting shared prosperity in a sustainable manner. The first SCD for Egypt was published in 2015. A lot has happened since then, so this SCD Update takes advantage of a...

One of the key objectives of this first SCD of the Republic of Congo is to serve as an essential input to the Country Partnership Framework. The SCD is not intended to carry out substantial new analytical work, but rather to draw upon and synthesize the existing evidence. A substantial amount of...