Private Health Sector Assessment in Ghana is part of the World Bank Working Paper series. These papers are published to communicate the results of the Bank s ongoing research and to stimulate public discussion. The private health sector in Ghana is a large and important sector in the market for health-related goods and services. However, little has been documented concerning the size and configuration of private providers and their contribution to health sector outcomes. With better information about the size, scope, distribution, and constraints of private actors, Ghana s public policy...

Managing the ability of agriculture to meet rising global demand and to respond to the changes and opportunities will require good policy, sustained investments, and innovation - not business as usual. Investments in public Research and Development, extension, education, and their links with one another have elicited high returns and pro-poor growth, but these investments alone will not elicit innovation at the pace or on the scale required by the intensifying and proliferating challenges confronting agriculture. Experience indicates that aside from a strong capacity in Research and...

The countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have been recovering from the global financial crisis, but the recent political turmoil has interrupted the pace of credit and output recovery in many countries. The political turmoil in the MENA region reveals deep-seated frustrations and a sense of political, social, and economic exclusion, especially among the youth. The relatively weak growth performance reflects a combination of insufficient reforms and weak reform implementation, including financial sector reforms. The structural weaknesses of financial sectors imply that access...

Despite the East Asia and Pacific (EAP) region's impressive economic growth, over 1 billion of its people still lack access to electricity and modern cooking solutions. To achieve universal access to modern energy by 2030, this book exhorts EAP countries to advance simultaneously on two paths: (1) accelerate programs for grid and off-grid electricity through appropriate policies and innovative technologies; and (2) scale up access to clean cooking fuels and efficient cooking stoves, particularly for biomass in poor rural areas.

The Government of Sudan has made great efforts in increasing access to education for children in northern Sudan across education sub-sectors over the past decade. In particular, educational access for children in areas previously affected by conflict has improved substantially since the signing of the peace agreements of 2005 and 2006. Estimates suggest that, on average, 90 percent of all children in northern Sudan had access to a formal school in 2010. However, inequities in access to schooling by gender and location persist. There continues to be regional disparities in access to education...

En los anos recientes, Nicaragua ha hecho un progreso estable, aunque modesto, en la agenda economico y de reduccion de la pobreza. Las tasas de pobreza han caido levemente y varios indicadores de bienestar han demostrado mejorias, persisten importantes desafios y se proyecta que Nicaragua podria lograr solamente la mitad de las Metas de Desarrollo del Milenio (MDGs) al ano 2015, si las politicas no se modifican. Las metas ERP/MDGs que estan actualmente fuera de curso y que necesitan esfuerzos adicionales para sostener mejorias a futuro son: mortalidad materna, acceso a servicios de salud...

While economic theory considers technological progress to be a key factor for sustained long-term economic growth and job creation, technology absorption is particularly an important driver for 'catch-up growth.' This study seeks to identify channels of technology transfer and absorption for Southern African enterprises, constraints to greater technology absorption, and discuss policy options open to governments and the private sector in light of relevant international experience. It has been done based on sector and enterprise case studies carried in four countries: South Africa, Mauritius,...

South Asia has created nearly 800,000 jobs per month during the last decade. Robust economic growth in large parts of the region has created better jobs -- those that pay higher wages for wage workers and reduce poverty for the self-employed, the largest segment of the region s employed. Going forward, South Asia faces the enormous challenge of absorbing 1 to 1.2 million entrants to the labor force every month for the next two decades at rising levels of productivity. This calls for an agenda that cuts across sectors and includes improving the reliability of electricity supply for firms in...

This book presents a framework, the Urban Risk Assessment, for assessing disaster and climate risk in cities which is intended to assist in decision-making, urban planning, and designing risk management programs. The approach seeks to strengthen coherence and consensus within and across cities in understanding and planning for risk from natural disasters and climate change. The target audience for this book includes policy makers, urban practitioners and technical staff, and international organizations. The Urban Risk Assessment is a flexible approach based on three reinforcing pillars that...

This study provides a conceptual framework for the analysis of the questions of out-of-court debt restructuring from a policy-oriented perspective. The starting point of the analysis is given by the World Bank Principles for Effective Insolvency and Creditor Rights Systems. The study offers an overview of out-of-court restructuring, which is not seen as fundamentally opposed to formal insolvency procedures. Actually, the study contemplates different restructuring techniques as forming a continuum to the treatment of financial difficulties. Thus, from the purely contractual - or informal -...