In an economy driven by its vital industrial sector, tackling the advancing threats of high energy consumption and GHG emissions has been a key challenge for pursuing energy efficiency in Korea. To aid policy makers promote energy efficiency in the industry sector, this report offers a...

Bangladesh has been a star performer on fertility reduction, reducing its TFR from 6.7 in 1960 to 2.1 in 2017 (i.e. the replacement level of fertility). As a comparison, SSA countries reduced TFR by as little as 2 births per woman, on average, between 1970 and 2016 (World Bank, 2019), with...

At the moment, a child born in Uganda will be only 38 percent as productive when she grows up as she can be if she enjoyed complete education and full health, according to the human capital index (HCI) one of the lowest levels in the world. It will be necessary to ensure that the growing...

The World Bank Group (WBG) has long recognized that the restoration and preservationof cultural heritage, urban regeneration, and sustainable tourism can play a vital role in developing countries' efforts to promote local economic development, accelerate social integration, and alleviate...

Natural events are recurrent. Geophysical hazards such as earthquakes or volcano eruptions cannot be predicted, but it is known that where they have happened in the past, they will happen again. In the case of hydro-meteorological hazards, frequency and intensity are increased by the action of...

Armenia's economy is heavily reliant on domestic demand, which is itself driven by remittances that support local construction and consumption. Armenia will need to shift to an export led strategy if it is to move from middle income to high-income status. Because Armenia is a landlocked country...

Over the last two decades, successive governments and business leaders in the former Yugoslav Republic of (FYR) Macedonia have been actively working to transform the country's economy and put it on a higher, technology-based, growth trajectory. For a small, landlocked country with a limited...

The Angolan economy is at a significant juncture. The current growth model based on oil wealth is nearly exhausted and has not delivered inclusive growth and shared prosperity. Angola faces two broad policy challenges that need to be addressed urgently: macroeconomic stabilization and a more...

Between 2010 and 2018, Bhutan's economic performance in the real growth of gross domestic product (GDP) was respectable, averaging more than 5 percent a year. This was driven by hydropower, services, and agriculture. However, there is growing pressure to diversify production. Hydropower...

As a country with one of the highest male smoking rates and one of the lowest cigarette prices in the world, Korea has prioritized many tobacco control efforts, including bans on smoking in public places, regulations on tobacco advertising, and public education about the harms of tobacco use....