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...

This edition of the Tajikistan Country Economic Update (CEU) is part of a semi-annual series designed to monitor socio-economic developments in Tajikistan. In the first half of 2017, total investment was down by over seventeen percent year on year. However, investment picked up markedly in the...

This first systematic country diagnostic (SCD) for Timor-Leste identifies key priorities to sustainably achieve the World Bank Group (WBG) twin goals of eradicating extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity in Timor-Leste. The Timor-Leste SCD presents a key set of priorities towards...

This document presents the Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) for the Republic of Burundi (Burundi). The SCD identifies the key challenges and opportunities for Burundi to accelerate progress in poverty reduction and shared prosperity in a sustainable manner, while acknowledging: (i) the need...

The economies of the GCC recovered in 2018 despite signs of weakness in the global economic outlook, reinforcing the perception that GCC economies' fortunes are still inextricably tied to oil. Global growth slowed in 2018, as trade tensions be-tween the U.S. and China escalated, and goods trade...

The Iraq Economic Monitor provides an update on key economic developments and policies over the previous six months and presents findings from recent World Bank work on Iraq, placing them in a longer-term and global context and assessing the implications of these developments and other changes...

Kazakhstan's economy in 2019 is expected to grow at a modest rate. But growth is expected to ease in 2020, with greater risks from the external environment and vulnerability to shocks. Recently, the economy expanded amid the slacking external environment. Policy stimulus has helped domestic...

This report uses innovative data to investigate the economic impacts of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Timor-Leste is a relatively data-scarce country, which poses a considerable challenge for real-time evidence-based policymaking. Data on overall economic activity is published on an...

The 10th economic update comes at an important juncture for Rwanda. The country has entered the third decade of uninterrupted economic growth and social progress. Rwanda's global income ranking improved from the seventh poorest in 2000 to the 20th in 2015, on the back of Rwanda's strong...