Global Economic Prospects 2008: Technology Diffusion in the Developing World examines the state of technology in developing countries and the pace with which it has advanced since the early 1990s.It reveals both encouraging and cautionary trends. On the one hand, the pace of technological...

Workers' remittances have become a major source of financing for developing countries and are especially important in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), which is at the top of the ranking of remittances receiving regions in the world. While there has been a recent surge in analytical work on...

Looking for accurate, up-to-date data on development issues? World Development Indicators is the World Bank's premier annual compilation of data about development. This indispensable statistical reference allows you to consult over 900 indicators for some 150 economies and 14 country groups in...

This study reviews aid flows to the health sector in Somalia over the period 2000-2006. In close collaboration with the Health Sector Committee of the Coordination of International Support to Somalis the authors collected quantitative and qualitative data from twenty-six international agencies...

Kenyan women are making a large - although frequently unseen - contribution to the country's economy, particularly in the agricultural and informal business sectors. But women face more severe legal, regulatory, and administrative barriers to starting and running businesses than do their male...

Poor people derive most of their income from work; however, there is insufficient understanding of the role of employment and earnings as a linkage between growth and poverty reduction, especially in low income countries. With the objective of providing inputs into the policy discussion on how...

For humanitarian reasons and the concern for households' economic and health security, the health sector is at the center of global development policy. Developing countries and the international community are scaling up health systems to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and are...

Disability is an important issue for the transition countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Not only is a significant portion of their population either in poor health or disabled - with implications for labor force participation and productivity - but their aging demographics...

The last 10 years have seen a resurgence in interest and research around inequalities in the health sector. While a disproportionate share of the new research has focused on measuring inequality in the health sector, work is emerging on how to understand the causes of inequality and on...

Vietnam's successes in the health sector are legendary. Its rates of infant and under-five mortality are comparable to those of countries with substantially higher per capita incomes. Vietnam continues to be an over-achiever in the health sector according to data assembled in this book. Like...