Health indicators in developing countries have shown significant improvement in the last 50 years. People are living longer, fewer children and their mothers die in childbirth, and many diseases have been controlled and some eliminated. However, the health status of individuals in these countries remains below its potential level, and many people lack access to suitable health care and health-promoting services. There is still much to be achieved in the promotion of health care and well-being of individuals in the developing world. In recent years, the efficient and equitable provision of...

The 1990s saw a dramatic increase in the liberalization of transport policies and a strengthening of the role of private operators and investors in transport infrastructure worldwide. This increased private sector participation has often reflected changing ideologies about the role of the state and dissatisfaction with publicly provided services. In general, the main driving force behind seeking private sector financing has been the pressure imposed on governments by lasting fiscal crises. This change in sources of finance is also providing an opportunity to restructure the sector in an...

'Economic Analysis of Investment Operations' presents general principles and methodologies that are applicable across sectors, including quantitative risk analysis. It provides both theory and practice about how to evaluate transportation, health, and education projects; and explains how to assess the environmental impact of projects. It provides a fresh look at the tools of project analysis and explains how to apply quantitative analysis of costs and benefits from multiple perspectives--including the private sector, the public sector, bankers, and the country as a whole. The examples used to...

During the 1990's a number of countries in Latin America including Argentina, Bolivia and Chile, developed policies focused on utility sector liberalization through increased private sector participation. This focus resulted from the recognition that overall quality and availability of services were inadequate. Infrastructure reform is inexorably linked to poverty alleviation and therefore must be carefully constructed and enacted. This book provides practical guidelines and options for infrastructure reform that result in access and affordability for the poor. Accounting for Poverty in...

An independent press is essential to sound and equitable economic development. The media helps to give a voice to the poor and the disenfranchised. An independent press also provides a solid foundation for a free and transparent society. 'The Right to Tell' contains an outstanding list of contributors from Nobel Prize winner and former World Bank chief economist, Joseph Stiglitz to Robert J. Shiller author of 'Irrational Exuberance', and Nobel Prize winner and novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Contributors to this volume explore the role of the media as a watchdog of government and the...

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has been facing considerable economic challenges. Left behind by the industrial revolution, overly dependent on oil resources, and on the fringes of the globalization process, a number of MENA countries have embarked on structural reforms to overcome economic stagnation, mounting unemployment, and increasing poverty. At the same time, there is growing awareness worldwide that the knowledge revolution offers new opportunities for growth resulting from the availability of information and communication technologies and from the advent of a new form...

Little over a decade ago, infrastructure concessions promised to solve Latin America's endemic infrastructure deficit. Awarded in competitive auctions, these concessions were supposed to combine private sector efficiency with rent dissipation brought about by competition. Yet something did not go quite right, as concessions were plagued with opportunistic renegotiations, most of them at the expense of taxpayers. Granting and Renegotiating Infrastructure Concessions is a major contribution toward understanding what went wrong and what should be done differently in the future to reap the...

The World Bank and other donors are fully committed to modalities of development support that put countries in the driver's seat, with the poverty reduction strategy process--prepared by national governments, on the basis of close consultation with civil society--providing the framework for that support. An effective poverty reduction strategy process and a productive partnership can be built only on a platform of strong public capacity: capacity to formulate policies; capacity to build consensus; capacity to implement reform; and capacity to monitor results, learn lessons, and adapt...

Network diasporas are but the latest bridge connecting developing economy insiders, with their risk-mitigating knowledge and connections, to outsiders in command of technical know-how and investment capital. This book examines the interaction of expatriate talent with institutions in expatriates' countries of origin in an attempt to make the potential of diasporas and their knowledge a reality. The question of how to trigger and sustain such a virtuous cycle is a central concern of this book. The focus is on the "how to" details of how to design effective diaspora networks and transform brain...

In most countries, parliament has the constitutional mandate to both oversee government and to hold government to account; often, audit institutions, ombuds and anti-corruption agencies report to parliament, as a means of ensuring both their independence from government and reinforcing parliament's position at the apex of accountability institutions. At the same time, parliaments can also play a key role in promoting accountability, through constituency outreach, public hearings, and parliamentary commissions. This title will be of interest to parliamentarians and parliamentary staff,...