South Sudan is a new country of 10.5
million people that has just emerged from conflict and still
facing challenges with recovery and development. Although
economic disparities, political exclusion and deprivation in
the distribution of political and economic power between the
northern and southern parts of then united Sudan were often
tendered as the proximal causes of the conflict, at the
center of the prolonged civil war was the struggle for

Low export prices and high production
costs are contributing to a persistent deficit in the
external accounts. Despite narrowing somewhat in recent
years, Zimbabwe’s current account deficit remains much
larger than those of comparable countries in the region, and
exports currently amount to just over half of imports. A
decline in global prices for gold, platinum and other
mineral commodities, coupled with unresolved supply-side

The West African coastline is home to
major industries, mining activities, peri-urban and
agro-industry, and tourism, as well as urban and seaside
residences, all of which generate waste and cause pollution.
Many areas along the coast also lack adequate wastewater and
solid waste management systems. As a result, large volumes
of untreated wastewater and solid waste are dumped into the
open, polluting the land and water. Water quality studies

This report represents a further chapter
in the dialogue between the World Bank and the People's
Republic of China about how to promote economic growth and
protect China's environment. There are three
cross-cutting issues that keep recurring throughout the
analysis. These issues characterize the environmental
management challenge over the next decade: First, the
environmental agenda is becoming so complex and large that

The systematic country diagnostic (SCD)
is designed to identify the most critical binding
constraints and opportunities facing Indonesia in ending
extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity. In line with
the World Bank Group’s (WBG’s) new country engagement model,
the findings of the SCD will provide inputs for the
preparation of the country partnership framework (CPF),
which will outline the WBG’s engagement with Indonesia to

Uruguay is a country of about 3.3
million people, which has consistently given high priority
to achieving broadly-shared economic growth and a
sustainable reduction in poverty. A strong and progressive
social compact has been a defining feature of Uruguayan
society and politics, with consistent emphasis placed on
protecting vulnerable groups, assuring worker dignity and
promoting equitable growth. This compact, combined with

Despite its challenging circumstances,
Bangladesh has proven to be remarkably resilient and
achieved significant human development gains. The country
partnership framework (CPF) will refocus the World Bank
Group’s (WBG’s) strategic direction on removing stubborn
impediments to job creation and growth. The CPF will build
on a well-performing portfolio, particularly in human
development, identified by the systematic country diagnostic

Latin America and the Caribbean (LCR)
will be center stage in the global development debate as
leaders from around the world convene in Lima, Peru for the
annual meetings of the World Bank Group and International
Monetary Fund. Critical progress in poverty reduction has
been made in the region over the last decade. The region’s
bottom 40 percent of the population saw growth eclipsing
that seen by the group in every other region in the world.

The study represents a background study
for the proposed Uganda Country Economic Memorandum (CEM),
which seeks to address the issue of efficient use of oil
resources and examine synergies between the oil industry and
the rest of the economy, through growth poles or linkages.
The oil industry can help Uganda to promote robust growth in
the economy. However, it is important to keep in mind that
it will take a number of years until oil revenues start

In less than fifty years, Brazil evolved
from a predominantly rural society and economy to a highly
urbanized country in which 85 percent of its people now live
in urban areas and more than 90 percent of the country’s GDP
is generated in the cities. This rapid urbanization process
was characterized by a lack of planning and an enduring
framework of inequality, resulting in high degrees of
concentrated poverty in the urban areas. Much of this

For more than a decade, Africa has enjoyed a mineral boom. is the growth mostly happening in isolated places, sectors and periods? The approach adopted in this study is two-pronged. First, through case studies, including the results of fieldwork, mining’s impacts are examined in a country-specific context for each of three countries, Ghana, Mali, and Tanzania; and second, a statistical analysis is used to test whether the indicators of welfare improve with proximity to a mine.

Maldives is an island nation scattered
in the Indian Ocean comprising 1,190 small coral islands of
which 190 are inhabited by a local population of 341,000.
Maldives’ unique archipelagic coral island provides the
country with an extremely rich and diverse marine ecological
system. With more territorial sea than land, marine
resources have played a vital role shaping the contours of
economic development, with nature-based tourism being the