This engagement note provides education sector policymakers with an overview of the status of education across the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and offers insight into the World Bank's strategies and approaches to supporting education reform in the GCC region. While the Gulf...

The cities of Japan are an exceptional source of learning on competitiveness of cities. They have recovered from disaster, dealt with population influx, industrialized at a rapid pace, responded to environmental challenge, reached the technological frontier, undergone a housing bubble and its...

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...

In the context of Romania's push toward sustainable and inclusive development, the government has asked the World Bank to support the harmonization of public investments financed by the European Union and the state budget. The current report describes the national program for local development...

The 2014-2015 Romania Regional Development 2 Program is the continuation of the World Bank's technical assistance to the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Administration (MRDPA). Building on the previous engagement, the current work addresses a fundamental question: given Romania's...

This report examines the role of infrastructure in explaining why the region lags so far behind the rest of the country. More importantly, it looks at how improved infrastructure may help the region catch up. Infrastructure is examined here through its impact on social as well as economic...