Natural resources offer opportunities,
but also bring challenges. They have generally been linked
to a series of negative outcomes like economic decline,
corruption, and conflict. Oil and minerals reserves, in
particular, are often very spatially concentrated, and their
discovery becomes a potential source of conflict between the
governments, the people of the producing areas, and those of
the rest of the country. But can this increased risk of

For many developing countries, natural
resource exports such as oil, diamonds and copper continue
to be important drivers for economic growth and provide a
unique opportunity for generating revenues for much-needed
infrastructure and human development. Dependence on
extractive resources, however, may also increase the
likelihood of underdevelopment, fragility and conflict. The
challenges for managing these resources efficiently are

Poland’s economic growth over the last
25 years has been spectacular. In that period, Poland has
more than doubled its income per capita and became a
European growth champion. It was the only EU country to
avoid a recession in 2009. Its current GDP growth rate is
strong. Poland seems to be on the brink of its new ‘golden
age.’ Doing Business in Poland 2015 is the first subnational
report of the Doing Business series in Poland. It measures

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

This paper estimates farmers’ investment response to food price spikes using household panel data collected before and after the 2007/08 food price crisis in Indonesia. We found that an increase in farmers’ terms-of-trade allowed relatively large crop-producing farmers to increase their investments at both extensive and intensive margins. Food price spikes had a significant income effect among farmers whose production surplus is large for market sales.

This report provides a baseline
institutional and regulatory assessment of the oil and gas,
mining (including jade and gemstones) and the hydropower
sectors in Myanmar. As such the report is an input to
Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) in
Myanmar. However, it is not exhaustive with respect to all
the sectors that may be considered under a scoping study for
EITI .This report is the first in-depth study of the context

Seventy years after independence and
more than a decade of political and institutional reforms,
Indonesia has emerged as a stable democracy. Indonesia’s
achievements are now under stress, with a slowdown in its
commodity driven economy, stagnant rates of poverty
reduction, and rapidly rising inequality. The development
policy review, completed in 2014, and the systematic country
diagnostic (SCD), completed in 2015, explain the limited

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

The geo-economy presents Lebanon with
challenges associated with being a nexus for regional fault
lines and risks from its dependence on capital inflows.
Despite markedly improved security conditions since the
start of 2015, anxiety over regional turmoil and potential
spillover effectspersist. All the while, Lebanon continues
to be, by far, the largest host of Syrian refugees (in
proportion to the population). In addition, the economy’s

Self-help groups (SHGs) are the most
common form of microfinance in India. The authors provide
evidence that SHGs, composed of women only, undertake
collective actions for the provision of public goods within
village communities. Using a theoretical model, this paper
shows that an elected official, whose aim is to maximize
re-election chances, exerts higher effort in providing
public goods when private citizens undertake collective

This study on “internally displaced population, gender and livelihoods in Kassala State, Eastern Sudan” was carried out to deepen the analytical work being conducted by the “Sustainable Livelihoods for Displaced and Vulnerable Communities in Eastern Sudan Project (SLDP)”.

This program document presents the World
Bank Group (WBG) FY17-22 Country Partnership Framework (CPF)
for Bulgaria. The timing of the new CPF follows the
preparation of theSystematic Country Diagnostic (SCD)
prepared in FY15, and informs the areas and objectives ofthe
CPF in support of the WBG’s twin goals to reduce poverty and
boost shared prosperity1 for the bottom forty percent of the
population. The CPF proposes to focus WBG support in