Mauritius has been a success story since
independence, moving from low income to uppermiddle-income
status. Close public-private partnerships facilitated
private sector-led growth in astable macroeconomic and
institutional environment. The government implemented an
activeindustrial policy to support private sector
competitiveness while exploiting global trade nichescreated
by preferential access arrangements. As a result, savings

Honduras’ recent economic performance
has been positive, especially taking into account the global
economic context. Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth
accelerated from 2.8 percent in 2013 to 3.1 percent in 2014
and 3.6 percent in the first half of 2015. Growth has been
supported by improved terms of trade, higher remittance
inflows and export demand driven by the on-going recovery of
the United States (US), and improved investor confidence.

Colombia has made impressive strides in
reducing poverty and promoting shared prosperity during the
last decade. Extreme poverty fell from 17.7 percent in 2002
to 8.1 percent in 2014, while total poverty (including
moderate poverty) fell from 49.7 percent in 2002 to 29.5
percent in 2014. The decline implies that 6.2 million people
left poverty in the period. The multidimensional poverty
rate, which takes into account education, health, labor,

The purpose of this note is to provide
policy recommendations to improve access to credit of rural
populations and small agricultural producers under
financially sustainable schemes. Although the agricultural
sector remains an important source of employment,
agricultural credit is a small fraction of commercial credit
in Colombia. The share of agricultural credit in Colombia is
below levels observed in other countries in the region.

This systematic country diagnosis (SCD)
for Chad aims to identify how to achieve the twin goals of
ending poverty and improving shared prosperity. It
acknowledges both: (i) the need for selectivity in pro-poor
interventions, and (ii) the inherent difficulty to do so
given the many competing binding reasons for poverty.
Selectivity means the identification of principal
opportunities for sustainable poverty reduction in the next

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

Central America is undergoing an
important transition, with urban populations increasingat
accelerated speeds, bringing pressing challenges as well as
opportunities to boost sustained,inclusive and resilient
growth. Today, 59 percent of Central America's
population lives in urban areas, but it is expected that
within the next generation 7 out of 10 people will live in
cities, equivalent to adding 700,000 new urban residents

The new Country Partnership Framework
(CPF or framework) presents the engagement of the World Bank
Group (WBG) in Sri Lanka over the next four years (fiscal
years 2017-20 (FY17–20)). The CPF aims to support the
achievement of some of the government’s medium-term goals in
areas that are critical for reducing extreme poverty and
promoting shared prosperity, and that are consistent with
the WBG’s comparative advantage. Notably, the CPF provides

Bulgaria experienced strong economic
growth prior to and shortly after joining the European Union
(EU) in 2007. Under the better regulation program, the
government adopted over 100 measures to reduce the
regulatory and administrative burden, but no formal
mechanism was introduced to regularly monitor and review its
implementation at the national or municipal level. Some
areas, in which entrepreneurs expected to see improved

In July 2013, the World Bank Group
launched its Strategy, outlining how it will partner more
effectively with clients to help them achieve the ambitious
goals of eradicating extreme poverty and boosting shared
prosperity through economic growth, inclusion,
sustainability and resilience. In April 2014, the World Bank
Group Corporate Scorecard was launched for the first time
and the World Bank Scorecard revised to monitor the

This Country Partnership Framework (CPF)
presents the World Bank Group (WBG) program for Côte
d’Ivoire (CIV) during the period FY16-FY19. The CPF comes at
an opportune moment to accelerate and scale up the WBG
engagement. The program will take advantage of CIV’s current
climate of renewed stability to modernize the economy and
eliminate long-standing disparities aggravated by a decade
of multifaceted crisis, during which the World Bank Group

Between 2002 and 2012-13, most of the
reduction in poverty was due to increased earnings, as
opposed to higher employment or higher transfers. Although
it is hard to be certain, increases in earnings are
associated with: (i) a slow structural transformation away
from agriculture and into industry and services that led to
productivity increases; (ii) agglomeration around key urban
areas that supported this structural transformation; (iii)