The orientation of social spending is a decisive element for the creation and allocation of opportunities for all because it reveals, to some degree, the priorities and relative importance a government assigns to directly and indirectly tackling poverty, inequality and their consequences....

To date, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has considered the impact of its projects on community health and safety on an ad hoc basis. Although the IDB's 2006 Environmental and Safeguards Compliance Policy (OP-703) requires that project teams consider health and safety issues in the...

The World Economic Forum (WEF) views competitiveness as the potential of a country to grow in a sustained way over the medium to long term and thus create prosperity for its citizens. The Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), developed by Professor Xavier Sala-i-Martin of Columbia University...

This paper presents the National Health Accounts (NHA) methodology and its relevance in policy making in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region. After presenting the concept of NHA and highlighting recent results of LAC data collection activities, the paper will focus on policy...