'Competitiveness and Growth in Brazilian Cities' addresses the question of what cities can do to improve economic performance and create jobs. The topic is explored through a review of theories and policy options for city competitiveness, preliminary benchmarking of Brazilian cities, and case studies of two urban areas in Northeast Brazil the Cariri region, Ceara and Sao Luis, Maranhao. The book concludes that to be competitive, cities need to reduce the cost of doing business by improving their services and infrastructure and by reducing bureaucracies. But for a middle-income country such as...

Traditional sources of health care financing are often inadequate leaving many of the 1.3 billion poor people in low- and middle-income countries without access to the most basic health services. Governments in these countries have tried to reach these excluded populations through public clinics and hospitals. To help pay for these services, governments often use a combination of broad-based general revenues, contributions from the formal labor force, and user fees, similar to the financing mechanisms used by Western industrial countries. However, these mechanisms are not always effective in...

'... the relationship between employment growth and output growth ... is greatly affected by the functioning, efficiency and institutional structure of the labor market.' - Joseph Stiglitz, Chief Economist, World Bank Despite the resumption of economic growth in most LAC countries since the late 1980s, improvements on the employment/unemployment front have been sluggish at best, with a few notable exceptions. In many countries, renewed growth in LAC in the 1990s has so far failed to generate adequate new jobs in place of those lost during the adjustment, and to restore wages to pre-crisis...

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As part of education and public sector reforms, many countries are decentralizing the financing and administration of education services to regional, local, or school levels. This report explores what can be learned in decentralizing teacher management from international experience. In particular, it examines what has prompted governments to decentralize teacher management functions, how they have done so, and which decentralization mechanisms have been most effective. The report aims to help guide policymakers in refining strategies that will improve teaching and learning in the classroom.

'The Cost of Being Landlocked' proposes a new analytical framework to interpret and model the constraints faced by logistics chains on international trade corridors. The plight of landlocked developing countries (LLDCs) has naturally received special attention for decades, leading to a specific set of development priorities based upon the concept of dependence on the transit state. Therefore, the standard approach used to tackle the cost of being landlocked has been predominantly aimed at developing regional transport infrastructure and ensuring freedom of transit through regional...

Although overall HIV prevalence in South Asia is low, the widespread stigma attached to HIV and AIDS impedes efforts to reach people most in need of prevention, care, and treatment services. To address this challenge, the 2008 South Asia Region Development Marketplace partnership, led by the World Bank, launched a competitive grants program to support innovative community approaches. 'Tackling HIV-Related Stigma and Discrimination in South Asia' summarizes the monitoring, evaluation, and case study data and documents successful community innovations. Twenty-six community groups in...