World Bank: 627 books

Small scale producers in developing countries lack easy access to efficient logistics services. They are faced with long distances from both domestic and international markets. Unless they consolidate their trade volumes they face high costs which diminish their ability to trade. However the process...

Risk-Based Supervision of Pension Funds provides a review of the design and experience of risk-based pension fund supervision in countries that have been leaders in the development of these methods. The utilization of risk-based methods originates primarily in the supervision of banks. In recent years...

The performance of tertiary institutions is heavily influenced by their governance arrangements, management structures, accountability mechanisms, and the regulatory environments in which they operate. Institutional performance can be enhanced or diminished by the legal frameworks that condition institutional...

Back in the early 1990s, economists and policy makers had high expectations about the prospects for domestic capital market development in emerging economies, particularly in Latin America. Unfortunately, they are now faced with disheartening results. Stock and bond markets remain illiquid and segmented....

Women's earnings are a fraction of male's earnings in several African countries. It is tempting to conclude that this wage gap is a sign of discrimination against women in the labor market. Yet this book uses new datasets to show that the gap is not simply the result of discrimination in the...

This volume addresses the issues of financing urban growth of the African continent -- which has the highest urban growth rate on the planet -- in the next decades. Considerable investment will be needed to sustain this level of growth and to clear up accumulated backlogs. At the same time, decentralization...

The East Asia and Pacific region has made great progress, relative to other regions, with regard to both economic development and, specifically, economic opportunities for women. However, aspiring female entrepreneurs continue to face unequal barriers to starting, operating, and growing their businesses....

Action against malnutrition is needed more than ever. An additional US10.3 billion a year is required from public resources to mount a successful attack against undernutrition on a worldwide scale. This would benefit over 360 million children in the 36 countries with the highest burden of undernutrition...

The use of matching contributions to enhance the participation and level of savings in pensions system has now been in use for nearly three decades in a number of high income countries. Increasingly, countries across the full range of economic development are looking to the design as a means of addressing...

The history of debt relief goes back several decades. It reveals that a country's accumulation of unsustainable debt stems from such factors as deficiencies in macroeconomic management, adverse terms-of-trade shocks, and poor governance. Debt-relief initiatives have provided debt-burdened countries with...

This book aims to raise awareness of how the International Benchmarking Network of Water and Sanitation Utilities (IBNET)can help utilities identify ways to improve urban water and wastewater services. It provides an introduction to benchmarking and to the objectives scope and focus of IBNET and describes...

Integrity in Mobil Phone Financial Services explores strategies to identify and manage potential money laundering and terrorist financing risks in mobile financial services. The paper provides guidance on the best means of assessing perceived versus actual risks and identifies specific measures to mitigate the actual risks.

This book is a case study of Vietnam's efforts to fight poverty using market-oriented land reforms. In the 1980s and 1990s, the country undertook major institutional reforms, and an impressive reduction in poverty followed. But what role did the reforms play? Did the efficiency gains from reform...