From 2005 to 2013, a mining boom quickly
promoted Mongolia from a low-income to a middle-income
country. Although the World Bank Group strategy initially
overlooked the challenge of the mining boom, the new country
management team that came on board in 2005 decided to
prioritize mining issues in a more selective framework. This
involved taking a set of bold steps to support Bank Group
engagement in the extractive industry, including basing for

As the result of past investments in gas
and mining sectors and high world commodity prices, the
Bolivian economy grew considerably during the last seven
years. Prudent macroeconomic policies and high taxes on
hydrocarbon revenues led to a significant accumulation of
fiscal surplus and external reserves. Under a state-led
development model, the government led by President Morales
pursued redistributive policies and invested heavily in road

Policies that enable rural communities
to participate in expanding economic opportunities can be
central to inclusive growth in Myanmar. Rural communities
are home to the majority of Myanmar’s population, the
majority of its many ethnic groups, and 70 percent of its
poor. Development in rural areas is constrained by low
returns to agriculture, and significantly lower levels of
public service delivery and human development outcomes

The November 8, 2015 elections in
Myanmar marked a historic milestone in the country’s
political and economic transition that began in 2011.
Incoming policy makers are preparing to pick up the baton
and deliver on the people’s strong aspirations for a
harmonious and prosperous Myanmar. In this series of policy
notes, the World Bank Group seeks to promote dialogue on
critical development challenges and on options for policies

The purpose of this paper is to provide
information on how to transform and strengthen pluralistic
agricultural extension and advisory systems in moving toward
the broader goal of increasing farm income and improving
rural livelihoods. The focus of this book is primarily on
the technical knowledge, management skills, and information
services that small-scale farm households will need to
improve their livelihoods in the rapidly changing global

Doing Business in Egypt 2008 covers
three topics at the sub national level: starting a business,
dealing with licenses and registering property. These
indicators have been selected because they cover areas of
local jurisdiction and practice. In the last two years,
doing business in Egypt has become more affordable the
minimum capital required to start a business and the costs
of registering property and dealing with licenses have been

The purpose of this paper is to assess
the World Bank's recent relations with civil society
organizations (CSOs), that is, nongovernmental organizations
and not-for-profit organizations, and to propose options for
promoting more effective civic engagement in Bank-supported
activities and managing associated risks in the future. The
analysis in this paper points to four main issues and
challenges for the Bank as it seeks to achieve more

Even after several decades of green
revolution, malnutrition continues to be a major development
challenge in much of South Asia, and India has a major share
of the malnourished people in the region. For nutrition
goals to be integrated into extension the curricula provided
to current and future agricultural extension agents must be
revisited. As part of the South Asia Food and Nutrition
Security Initiative (SAFANSI), this paper focuses on

Prior to the political and security
crisis of 2012, Mali, a large landlocked country in West
Africa already ranked among the poorest countries in the
world. In early 2012, the vast northern regions fell under
the control of extremist forces, while a coup d’état in
Bamako threw the country into political instability and
turmoil. A strong international military response in early
2013 prevented further destabilization, though part of the

Inequality in Indonesia is rising
rapidly. During the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, poverty
rosesharply, while the Gini measure of inequality fell, as
the richest were the hardest hit. Since then, the Gini has
increased from 30 points in 2000 to 41 points in 2014, its
highest recorded level. In 2002, the richest 10 percent of
Indonesians consumed as much as the poorest 42 percent
combined; by 2014, they consumed as much as the poorest 54

The use of the phrase, ‘political
economy’ originates in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and is
also found in the writings of David Ricardo and Karl Marx.
What is presently understood as ‘economics’ was, at that
time, termed ‘political economy’. This was understood to
mean ‘conditions of production organization in
nation-states’ (Acemoglu and Robinson, 2012, Beuran,
Raballand and Kapoor, 2011). Venerable scholars such as

This report by the Independent
Evaluation Group (IEG) summarizes the experiences of and
draws lessons from the country program evaluations of four
natural resource-rich countries: the Plurinational State of
Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and Zambia. It concludes that
although the challenges identified in these countries are
not unique, they manifest themselves with particular
intensity in three closely interrelated areas that need to