We have long known that a person's chance of success in life is deeply influenced by early access to education, health services, safe water, and nutritious food. This in turn improves the likelihood that a child can live up to his or her human potential and pursue a rewarding life. As Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) enters its 20th year of unprecedented high economic growth and hopes continue to rise, its citizens increasingly wonder if these more hopeful economic times will translate into a better future for themselves and their families. This book - the first of its kind in SSA - documents and...

The Republic of Armenia is facing a number of emerging challenges in the water sector. Though overall water resource availability in the country is good, the country's ability to monitor groundwater and surface water is deteriorating, enforcement under the existing water permit system is weak, conflicts loom over water use in the agriculturally important Ararat valley, and climate change continues to exert pressure. The performance of the irrigation, hydropower, municipal, industrial, and environment sectors depends on the judicious and coordinated wise use of the country's water resources....

The passage of India's Electricity Act of 2003 was a signature achievement, moving the sector toward amarket-driven approach that forced potential investors to compete aggressively for generation and transmission contracts. India's 2005 National Electricity Policy recognized electricity as one of the key drivers for rapid economic growth and poverty alleviation in the country. Yet the policy's target--electricity for all and 1,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) available per capita by 2012--was not met. Despite a 20-year reform process and private-sector participation, the rate of resource augmentation...

Bangladesh has the world's fastest growing, off-grid solar home system (SHS) coverage. The number of SHS installations has risen phenomenally--from a five-year target of 50,000 in 2003 to 50,000 a month a decade later. By early 2014, installations totaled more than 3 million. Even so, this figure represents just 10 percent of the country's off-grid households, suggesting ample room for continued program expansion. Surge in Solar-Powered Homes: Experience in Off-Grid Rural Bangladesh assesses the country's remarkable growth in SHS, its support schemes, and welfare impacts for rural households....

HIV Epidemics in the European Region: Vulnerability and Response provides a systematic review of the evidence on HIV vulnerability and response in all 53 countries of the World Health Organization's (WHO's) European Region, stretching from Iceland to the borders of China. The report focuses on key populations most at risk of HIV infection: people who inject drugs, sex workers, and men who have sex with men. It confirms that these populations are disproportionately affected by the growing HIV epidemic in Europe. Twenty-five percent of HIV diagnoses in Europe are associated with injecting drug...

Latin America's population is aging, and many among the growing elderly population are not protected by traditional pension schemes. In response, policy makers have been reevaluating their income protection systems so that between 2000 and 2013, the majority of Latin American countries reformed their social pension schemes to provide near-universal coverage for the elderly. Before this unprecedented wave of reform, most income protection in Latin America was provided through contributory pensions available only to formal sector workers. Considering that informal and unpaid employment...

To ensure education's contributions to growth, Cambodia needs to address the next challenge of education reform: improving student learning. A high-quality teaching workforce--the bedrock of all high-performing education systems--is the single most important factor in improving student learning. Quality teachers are at the heart of developing the talent of the next generation. They underpin the educational investments that will drive growth; they stand at the crossroads of sectoral, service delivery, public financial management, and civil service reform. Educating the Next Generation:...

In Zimbabwe, trade has been a driver of economic growth, rising incomes, and progressive empowerment of Zimbabweans through rising standards of living and the promise of better jobs. Since 1980, through good years and bad years, increases in exports have been positively associated with increases in national income. Zimbabwe's location and resource base, together with a low-cost but relatively well educated labor force, have endowed it with a naturally high trade ratio built on a diversified base that facilitates using trade as an engine of growth. While trade volumes have rebounded smartly...

The countries of the Latin America and Caribbean region (LAC), like other emerging economies, have benefited from a decade of remarkable growth and some income per capita convergence towards the United States and other industrialized countries. However, even nearly ten years of solid growth in the first decade of the 21st century could not guarantee that LAC would move on to a sustained long-term income convergence path. In fact, despite this recent progress, LAC still faces a significant per capita income gap with the developed world. The papers in this volume contribute to the ongoing...

In 2009, more than 40,000 people died prematurely in Sindh, Pakistan because of an illness associated with an environmental health risk. This means that almost one of every five deaths that occurred that year was caused by environmental factors. Loss of natural resources and impacts from natural disasters also represent development challenges. Increased salinity and waterlogging result in loss of agricultural crops. In addition, hydro-meteorological hazards recurrently affect Sindh, as illustrated by the devastating effects of the 2010 and 2011 floods. For Sindh's population, these problems...