World Bank
Africa's power infrastructure; investment, integration, efficiency.
Sub-Saharan Africa's power generation capacity is lower than that of any other world region. The average price of power in the region is double that of other developing regions, and the supply of electrical power is unreliable throughout the continent. The weakness of the power sector has constrained economic growth and development in the region. This book asserts that current impediments to economic growth and development need to be tackled through reform of state-owned utilities building on the lessons of private participation in infrastructure projects. Other aspects of the solution explored include retargeting electrification strategies, expanding regional power trade, and mobilizing new funding resources. The book is based on the Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD), and includes over 100 pages of data tables in seven appendices. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Atlas of global development, 3d ed.
Updated to include the latest statistics from the World Bank's World Development Indicators database, this volume features key aspects of human development linked to geography. Colorful maps, graphs and tables, along with a photograph represent the subject under discussion. A helpful glossary appears at the end of the book, along with an expansion of abbreviations, notes on the sources of data, and an explanation of the symbols used to represent it. This edition includes access to an online interactive atlas which greatly expands the ways in which it can be used. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Capitalizing on the demographic transition; tackling noncommunicable diseases in South Asia.
Prevention and treatment of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in South Asia can promote healthy aging and contribute to economic development in the region. This handbook is for policy makers in the governments of South Asia, both inside and outside of the health sector, and for professionals working in development in South Asia. It reviews the reasons for creating specific policies to respond to NCDs and offers a structure for creating such policies. This framework can be used as a way to promote discussion among government, civil society, and development partners. The book includes country profiles detailing current programs for prevention and control of NCDs and possible scenarios in eight countries. It also recommends regional strategies. A wealth of data appendices are included. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Challenges to enterprise performance in the face of the financial crisis; Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
The World Bank analyzes the economic damage to businesses in the region under study. The report looks at trends in financing, the deterioration of physical infrastructure and growing disparities in access to new infrastructure, a shortage of skilled labor and easing of labor regulations, and prospects in the post-crisis period. The methodology involves comparing data before and after the collapse. There is no index. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Cities and climate change; responding to an urgent agenda.
Aimed at researchers, academics, and students, this volume consists of eight revised papers from the Fifth Urban Research Symposium on Cities and Climate Change held in Marseille, France, in June 2009, on the links between cities and climate change and resulting challenges in mitigation and adaptation. Contributed by researchers from around the world, papers relate to the five topics from the symposium: models and indicators to measure impact and performance of cities; infrastructure, the built environment, and energy efficiency; finance and economic incentives; institutions and governance; and social aspects. They discuss such topics as the measurement of greenhouse gas emissions, the role of poverty, energy efficiency in buildings, and the importance of urban form, with case studies comparing cities in industrialized and developing countries. Abstracts of papers not in the volume are appended, and all papers are available online. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Connecting landlocked developing countries to markets; trade corridors in the 21st century.
Four economists with the World Bank examine difficulties landlocked countries face conducting international trade, and suggest solutions. Their topics include the access problem and the performance of trade corridors, the complex political economy of trade corridors, transit regimes for moving goods on corridors, improving transit regimes and international cooperation, improving road freight transport, alternative transport modes and the role of logistics intermediaries, managing trade corridors, and bringing together the solutions. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
A decade of aid to the health sector in Somalia (2000-2009).
The results of this study on money donated to aid the health sector in Somalia 2000-2009 are based on quantitative data collected from 38 Development Assistance Committee donors and implementing agencies in Somalia. The study presents findings on financial aid flows, total health sector aid financing, health sector aid by disease and program, and health sector aid by zone, in order to reveal which health interventions were prioritized by donors and how evenly health sector aid was distributed to the different parts of the country. The study recommends better links between local authorities and national and international partners, financial tracking of donor resources to the health sector as part of the health information system, and further operational research on health financing in Somalia. The study was produced as part of the World Bank's Africa Region Health Systems for Outcomes (HSO) Program, and will be of interest to donors, NGOs, and health specialists involved in the allocation of financial resources to the Somalia health sector. There is no subject index. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Diaspora for development in Africa.
This volume contains ten papers on initiatives for harnessing the resources of the African diaspora for fostering African development, taken from an April 2009 International Conference on Diaspora and Development organized by the World Bank in Washington, DC. Topics addressed include links between migrant networks and international investment, return migration and small enterprise development in the North African Maghreb, the development activities and potentials of African diaspora associations in Denmark, the financial consequences of high-skill emigration, and France's co-development program providing incentives to promote diaspora entrepreneurship and transfers. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Financial management information systems; 25 years of World Bank experience on what works and what doesn't.
Updating and expanding the 2003 report, this one highlights the achievements and challenges during the design and implementation of the World-Bank funded financial management information system projects since 1984. It covers descriptive data analysis, project performance, case studies, and conclusions. The main recommendations are to identify a government's reform needs, develop customized solutions, and strengthen institutional capacity to manage project activities. No index is provided. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
From farm to firm; rural-urban transition in developing countries.
This work is for economists, social scientists, and policy makers concerned with issues of geography and development in poor countries. The studies presented are intended to build on World Development Reports 2008 and 2009. The studies share insight on managing the transformation from rural agrarian to urban economies in developing countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, and serve as a reminder that interventions have impact beyond their immediate geographical target. Contributors are development professionals with experience in geography and urban and rural development policy, as well as poverty and inequality analysis and policy. In part 1 they review global, national, and local perspectives on urbanization and inclusive growth and give examples of rural-urban welfare inequalities in Africa. Part 2 focuses on managing the rural-urban transformation in South Asia, with country case studies on Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Appendices gather surveys, data, methodology, and results from the original studies. B&w maps and charts are included. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The global HIV epidemics among men who have sex with men.
From the World Bank and researchers at the Center for Public Health and Human Rights at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, this volume presents analysis of the emerging epidemics of HIV among men who have sex with men in low and middle-income countries around the world, to help governments, public health agencies, donors, and communities better understand and respond to these populations, which have higher estimates of prevalence rates and fewer services and resources. It reviews HIV prevention and epidemiology literature and details an approach to evaluating interventions in prevention, care, and treatment, as well as modeling, costing, and human rights assessments, with specific studies of Kenya, Senegal, Malawi, Brazil, Peru, India, Thailand, the Russian Federation, and Ukraine, and modeling scenarios for the impact of HIV prevention services in Kenya, Peru, Thailand, and Ukraine. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Harnessing quality for global competitiveness in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
National quality infrastructure systems are underdeveloped and not synchronized with the trading partners in much of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The intent of Racine (innovation specialist, Europe and Central Asia region, World Bank) and 10 contributors is to underscore the need for reform and modernization of institutions in those regions to improve quality and standards. The authors suggest that those countries can make improvements by changing mandatory standards, fast-tracking technical regulations, and harmonizing national quality infrastructure with regional and international trade partners. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Health equity and financial protection; streamlined analysis with ADePT software.
Written for practitioners, researchers, students, and teachers who have some knowledge of quantitative techniques and the manipulation of household data using programs like SPSS or Stata, this volume explains the use of ADePT (Automated Development Economics Poverty Tables), a software tool developed by the World Bank's Development Research Group that automates the production of standardized tables and charts using methods in distributional analysis, making advanced methods accessible to analysts with limited programming skills. It focuses on ADePT's two health modules — inequality and equity in health, health care utilization and subsidy incidence, and health financing and financial protection — with introductions to the methods and a step-by-step guide to their implementation, as well as how to prepare the data for the program, example data sets, how to generate tables and charts, their interpretation, and more detailed technical notes on the methods used in the program. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Improving the odds of achieving the MDGs; heterogeneity, gaps, and challenges.
The report shares what has been done towards meeting the Millenium Development Goals, and how lessons from successes and failures might be applied during the remaining five years of the program to improve chances of accomplishment. The perspectives are the diversity of progress, economic growth in developing countries, linking spending and outcomes in education and health, assisting the indigenous and socially excluded, and progress in the international development and trading framework. There is no index. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Influencing change; building evaluation capacity to strengthen governance.
A conference in Johannesburg, South Africa, in the spring of 2009 explored various ideas about what evaluation capacity building means, and the 14 papers here include some from that gathering and some written later in response to the ideas presented there. Among the topics are working toward development results in Sri Lanka, from evaluating projects toward assessing institutional performance, supporting evaluation capacity on environment and development, and old challenges and new frontiers. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Lessons from East Asia and the global financial crisis; proceedings.
What caused the global financial crisis? How can the world economy recover? Should developing countries alter their growth strategies? What is the ideal role of the state? Updated papers from a June 2009 conference organized by the Republic of Korea, the Korea Development Institute, and the World Bank seek answers to these and other questions, looking for lessons from the Korean and East Asian experience in the late 1990s and from more recent experiences since 2008. Most papers include introductory summaries or abstracts. The first part of the book contains several keynote addresses on policy responses to the global financial crisis. The rest of the papers and corresponding comments are organized into five parts. In the first section, papers look at ways in which industrial policy can both stimulate and inhibit growth and development, and in the second section, contributors take a game theorey approach to the concept of social capital and how it works. Chapters in the third section analyze the causes and consequences of the global financial crisis, particularly with respect to reserve currency liquidity in East Asia, and make suggestions for reform. A section on sustainable global economics draws lessons from the crisis for national and international financial reform and lessons for emerging markets and developing countries. The final section of the book examines how international financial integration affects productivity and innovation. It also traces Korea's technological progress over the last 40 years. There is no subject index. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Leveraging migration for Africa; remittances, skills, and investments.
Researchers from The World Bank and The African Development Bank provide information to governments in Africa to help them manage migration by reviewing previous studies and reporting results of surveys taken for this volume. The report covers migration patterns and policies in Africa, migrant remittances, migration of the highly skilled, and harnessing the resources of the diaspora. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Perspectives on poverty in India; stylized facts from survey data.
Using data arising from National Sample Surveys and other sources, this volume focuses on both consumption poverty and human development concerns in India. Examples include health, education and childhood undernutrition. It examines current data and patterns in small and large urban areas and rural nonfarm sectors with a final section focusing on ethnicity and gender, along with poor implementation of government policies. The report includes a number of boxes, figures and tables. No index is provided. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Poverty and social exclusion in India.
Data for this World Bank report comes primarily from four national household surveys, along with international surveys and the database of the Population Reference Bureau. The results indicate that although India has experienced rapid economic growth, coupled with some success at poverty reduction, inequality has continued to grow. The portion attributable to social exclusion is the focus of this work, much of which can be associated with gender and the historical divisions among caste and tribe. The report includes a number of boxes, figures and tables. No index is provided. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Private health sector assessment in Ghana.
This study of the role of Ghana's private sector in the country's health system employs a supply and demand approach to identify market, policy, and institutional weaknesses that could be addressed through action to improve the public-private partnership. After background on Ghana's health system and general enrollment in 2010, the book explains the methodology of the study, which involved secondary analysis of household surveys, a questionnaire for public and private health service providers, and group discussions with private providers, as well as patient exit polls and interviews with key informants at the national level. The report identifies obstacles such as poor investment climate, weak financial management, and incomplete coverage under risk pooling, especially among lower-income populations. Options for reform are described, such as enforcing quality standards, strengthening professional education, and improving pharmaceutical distribution networks through incentives. About 40 pages of appendices offer a list of stakeholders interviewed and supplementary data and analysis. There is no subject index. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Results and performance of the World Bank Group: IEG annual report 2010; v.1: Main report.
The department of the World Bank called the Independent Evaluation Group assesses the performance of its mother institution during 2010. The year was dominated by the response to the global financial crisis, but challenges of poverty, fragile states, environmental and climate change remained daunting, it finds, and the Bank needs to adjust to changes in the world. There is no index. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Unleashing the potential of renewable energy in India.
After characterizing the electricity shortage in India, this slim report assesses key issues affecting each segment of the renewable energy industry, compares the economics of renewable energy and conventional generation, and evaluates the financial viability of renewable energy from the perspective of the utility and developer. The final chapter identifies ten barriers to developing renewable energy and suggests ten solutions. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
World development indicators; 2011.
For the 15th year in the present format, the guide presents international comparable statistics showing progress (or not) towards the kind of world the World Bank would like to see. Data is provided for policy makers and development professionals in the areas of world view, people, environment, economy, states and markets, and global links. A sampling of detailed topics shows progress toward gender parity, participation in education, urban housing conditions, growth of consumption and investment, transport services, and tariff barriers. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
