Climate change is a major threat to the sustainability and inclusiveness of our societies, and to the planet's habitability. A just transition to a low-carbon economy is the only viable way forward. This paper reviews the climate change challenge. It stresses the criticality of systems changes...

Going forward, Korea faces two closely related challenges: sustaining economic growth against the backdrop of a rapidly aging population and ameliorating income inequality. This paper argues that a gradual increase in social spending could promote more sustainable and inclusive growth in Korea....

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 paper discusses the main challenges faced by resource-rich nations in promoting equity; describes policy tools available for managing exhaustible natural resources; and analyzes the relationship between resource wealth and state fragility. It is argued that human capital accumulation,...

The 2015 Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) concluded that El Salvador was "trapped" in vicious cycles of low poverty reduction and growth and argued for a "big push" in six priority areas. Three mutually reinforcing cycles hampered growth and shared prosperity: (i) low growth and violence,...

This paper investigates the dynamic impact of natural resource discoveries on government debt sustainability. We use a 'natural experiment' framework in which the timing of discoveries is treated as an exogenous source of within-country variation. We combine data on government debt, fiscal...

Bleak short-term economic outlook raises the risk that social and environmental achievements may not be sustained. The changed economic circumstances have exposed shortcomings in Brazil's development model, epitomized by the struggle to achieve a sustainable fiscal policy. Against this...

This Systematic County Diagnostics is organized into six parts. The first part presents a brief overview of the country's recent socio-political and economic context. The second part examines the links between poverty, income distribution and economic growth, through the labor market, against...

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...