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espanolResumen El texto aborda la comunicacion como un proceso radicalmente vincular, resignificando las nociones de informacion y produccion de sentido, a partir de la aceptacion de nuestra existencia como seres vivos pertenecientes a la trama de la naturaleza. Para ello propone una nueva matriz de pensamiento: dinamica, interactiva y multidimensional. Finalmente considera las limitaciones y los peligros inherentes a las metaforas disociadas y reductoras que han eliminado la produccion de sentido del pensamiento comunicacional. portuguesResumo O texto aborda a comunicacao como um processo radicalmente vinculado, ressignificando as nocoes de informacao e producao de sentido, a partir da aceitacao de nossa existencia como seres vivos pertencentes ao tecido da natureza. Para isso, propoe uma nova matriz de pensamento: dinâmica, interativa e multidimensional. Finalmente, considera as limitacoes e perigos inerentes as metaforas dissociadas e redutoras que eliminaram a producao de significado no pensamento comunicacional. EnglishAbstract The article addresses communication as a strong linking process, resignifying the notions of information and production of meaning, startingfrom the acceptance of our existence as living beings that belong to the plot of nature. For this purpose, the text proposes a new thought approach: dynamic, interactive and multidimensional. Finally, it takes into account the limitations and dangers attached to the dissociated and reducing metaphors that have removed from the production of meaning in communicational thinking.

This paper documents new facts about the joint evolution of firm performance and prices in international markets and proposes a theory of firm dynamics emphasizing the interaction between learning about demand and quality choice to explain the observed patterns. Using data from the Portuguese manufacturing sector, the paper documents that: (1) within narrow product categories, firms with longer spells of activity in export destinations tend to ship larger quantities at similar prices, thus obtaining larger export revenue; (2) older exporters tend to import more expensive inputs; and (3) revenue growth within destinations (conditional on initial size) tends to decline with market experience. The authors develop a model of endogenous input and output quality choices in a learning environment that is able to quantitatively account for these patterns. Counterfactual simulations reveal that minimum quality standards on exports reduce welfare by lowering entry in export markets and reallocating resources from old and large toward young and small firms.

Mobile phones and the internet have significantly affected practically all sectors of the economy, and agriculture is no exception. Building on a recent World Bank flagship report, this paper introduces a concise framework for describing the main benefits from new information and communications technologies. They promote greater inclusion in the broader economy, raise efficiency by complementing other production factors, and foster innovation by dramatically reducing transaction costs. The paper reviews the recent literature on corresponding technology impacts in the rural sector in developing countries. Digital technologies overcome information problems that hinder market access for many small-scale farmers, increase knowledge through new ways of providing extension services, and they provide novel ways for improving agricultural supply chain management. Although there are many promising examples of positive impacts on rural livelihoods--or "digital dividends"--often these have not scaled up to the extent expected. The main reason is that technology can only address some, but not all, of the barriers faced by farmers in the poorer countries.

Shifting Kenya’s private sector into higher gear: a trade and competitiveness agenda’ was born out of the World Bank’s Trade and Competitiveness (T&C) Global Practice recent stock taking of its work in Kenya. This was part of a Programmatic Approach that aimed to organize T&C’s knowledge, advisory, and convening services to address Kenya’s development challenges in the private sector space. By Sub-Saharan African standards, Kenya has a large private sector, which accounts for around 70 percent of total formal employment. As a result, the dynamics of the private sector are a key determinant of the trajectory of the Kenyan economy. The country’s product market regulations a restrictive for domestic competitors and foreign entrants, and the actions of cartels and behavior of dominant firms across sectors undermines competition and hurts consumers. The Kenyan Government recognizes these challenges and has invested significantly in unlocking these bottlenecks with impressive results so far and several important laws passed. Additional efforts to ease regulatory constraints and expedite important legislative changes could improve the investment climate at national and county levels.

The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) is an international standard to promote open and accountable management of natural resources. By encouraging governments, extractive companies, civil society and the public to engage in discourse around transparency of the extractive sector, it aims to facilitate the management of a country’s natural resource wealth to benefit all its citizens. The objective of this report is to present, in a structured form, data categories and their reporting formats, that can be used to standardize information generated under each EITI Requirement. The review conducted for this study included a sample of recent EITI Country Reports, as well as other initiatives and industry standards. ‘Good’ refers to reporting standards that meet the minimum data to be provided under each EITI Requirement. ‘Better’ typically refers to reporting standards that are enhancements of data covered under the good category. ‘Best’ refers to standard formats for reporting data that represent the highest international benchmarks and are considered to provide comprehensive information, beyond the minimum data requirements. The research team recommends a step by step approach to this, starting with a specific set of Requirements, across a number of countries. This would allow the EITI International Secretariat to develop a set of comparable statistics for various reporting entities, as well as start constructing guidelines for EITI implementers.

An efficient and transparent regulatory framework governing international trade is a necessary condition for countries to realize the benefits of international trade. Over the last decade, Lao PDR has been deepening its economic ties with the global economy through the formal accession to the WTO in 2013. At the regional level, the country is committed to be full member of the ASEAN Economic Community. These agreements entailed profound changes to Lao PDR’s regulatory framework governing international trade. This report provides an overview of the incidence on NTMs on import flows in Lao PDR before and after WTO accession and identifies lingering regulatory hurdles that may still hamper the ability of the country to reap the gains of a deeper integration. Employing detailed and comparable NTM information, this note characterizes the changes in the trade related regulatory framework in Lao PDR and compares the current scheme with that of other countries in Asia. The report also combines econometric estimations of Ad-Valorem Equivalents (AVEs) of NTMs with qualitative information collected through fieldwork to identify priority measure to streamline. This report is organized as follows. Section two discusses main conceptual issues and presents the data and metrics to examine the role of NTMs in import flows. Section three, describes the trade incidence of NTMs and compares it with similar countries and with the situation prior to WTO accession. Section four combines an econometric technique with qualitative information to discuss the stringency of NTMs. Section five presents some concluding remarks and provides some recommendation for reform.

Special economic zones can be an effective instrument to promote industrialization if implemented properly in the right context. In China, starting in the 1980s, special economic zones were used as a testing ground for the country's transition from a planned to a market economy, and they are a prime example of China's pragmatic and experimental approach to reforms. One of the great special economic zone success stories in China is the Suzhou Industrial Park, a modern industrial township developed in the early 1990s through a Sino-Singapore partnership. It is successful not just in the economic sense, but also in terms of urban and social development in an eco-friendly way. One key lesson is that in a weak market environment, a facilitating and reform-oriented host government, coupled with foreign expertise and knowledge as well as a "whole value chain" approach can go a long way in developing urban-industry well-integrated special economic zones. This paper is intended to examine the success factors and key lessons of the Sino-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park, which can be useful for other developing countries.

This toolkit, commissioned by infoDev, a global partnership program within the World Bank, provides guidance on how to develop business analytics, measuring and learning from the performance and effects of mobile application labs (mLabs) and mobile social networking hubs (mHubs). It was made for managers of tech hubs. Dozens of tech hubs have emerged over the last few years across the globe. Managers of these innovation and entrepreneurship enablers grapple with problems that infoDev has experience with. This toolkit takes lessons that infoDev has gathered from its own tech hub pilots, mLabs and mHubs, and apply them to tech hubs in general. The toolkit is especially useful for current and future mLab and mHub managers. mLabs and mHubs are tech hubs established through grants administered by the infoDev Digital Entrepreneurship Program. infoDev is committed to supporting the analytical capacities of mLabs and mHubs. This toolkit is part of that agenda. It will help grantees to improve local implementation while setting a common framework on how to collaborate with infoDev on business analytics and performance measurements. The third target audience is mobile innovation specialists at other World Bank units and other development organizations, who design impact and measurement frameworks for tech hubs. Given the recent rise in numbers of tech hubs, international development organizations are exploring if and how they can be employed to achieve socio-economic development impact goals. In particular, tech hubs’ flexibility and diverse potential effects have sparked interest but have also caused problems for specific and concrete analysis and projection of hubs’ effects and impact. This toolkit addresses this complication. All elements of the toolkit that speak of infoDev’s role in facilitating and coordinating with mLabs or mHubs on business analytics processes can be seen as use cases with potential for replication and adaptation by practitioners and decision makers of other development organizations, including relevant units of the World Bank.

In face of growing concern related to climate change, green technology entrepreneurs are critically needed to develop the businesses and ideas behind climate mitigation in developing countries - but they frequently collide with challenges endemic to such environments. The purpose of this study is to shed light on the role that connections can play in helping green technology entrepreneurs innovate and scale up in developing countries, so as to inform the design of new public sector programs. Green technology entrepreneurs in developing countries need connection platforms for people, ideas, business models, transactions, as well as membership of expert communities. This study shows how cheaper, quicker, and more efficient connections can be created among stakeholders of green technology innovation in developing countries. This is done through drawing insights from a variety of public and private programs that seek to promote connections between entrepreneurs in green technology and other sectors. The report is based on 14 case studies of different programs spanning more than 80 countries. The general findings are presented in part one and insights from the individual case studies can be found in part two.

The emerging concept of illicit financial flows has become a crosscutting issue on the international agenda in recent years. This umbrella term refers to money illegally earned, transferred, or used. With the development of digital technologies, the use of information and communications networks as a tool for facilitating illicit financial flows is rising as one of the key challenges in tackling the problem of the movement of illegal funds. Digital technologies facilitate illicit financial flows at each stage, be it earning money illegally, transferring illegal funds, or using them. There are several areas where clear links between technology and illicit financial flows can be established. Part one defines illicit financial flows to establish the scope of the problem and provide the context for further analysis. Part two focuses on the issue of digital technologies in the process of earning money illegally and transferring illicit funds, and analyzes how technology can help in the process of acquisition, transfers, and integration of illicit finds. Part three discusses the role of technology in fighting illicit financial flows. Part four concludes with suggestions for further areas of research in this field and ways to tackle the problem more effectively.

Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 11 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and labor market regulation. Doing Business 2016 presents the data for the labor market regulation indicators in an annex. The report does not present rankings of economies on labor market regulation indicators or include the topic in the aggregate distance to frontier score or ranking on the ease of doing business. This regional profile presents the Doing Business indicators for economies in Middle East and North Africa (MENA). It also shows the regional average, the best performance globally for each indicator and data for the following comparator regions: Latin America, East Asia and the Pacific (EAP), Europe and Central Asia (ECA), South Asia (SA) and OECD High Income.. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2015 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January–December 2014).

Rapid and consistent economic growth of Ethiopia over the past decade has contributed to reducing the number of people living in poverty. The Government of Ethiopia has created the growth and transformation plan (GTP), focusing on two overarching themes: fostering competitiveness and employment, and enhancing resilience and reducing vulnerabilities. This plan recognizes that for poverty reduction and economic growth to be sustainable, the Ethiopian economic structure will have to undergo a fundamental transformation. In accordance with a focus on poverty reduction and economic growth, the GTP has identified five main levers for change: public sector investment in infrastructure to lay the ground for private sector development, enhancement of policies and regulations to provide an environment conducive to competitiveness and productivity, expanding access to credit for small and medium size enterprises, provision of training and education to augment the supply of skilled labor, and improved access to land. Technological adoption and innovation will play a crucial role in delivering the goals laid out in the GTP. Participation in foreign markets also induces firms to become more innovative, a phenomenon known as learning through exporting, as observed among Ethiopian leather exporters. Another vital determinant of innovative activity is the accumulation of human capital and the skill level of the workforce. This study seeks: (i) to empirically analyze the extent of innovative activities that formal firms are undertaking in Ethiopia; (ii) to conduct a review of the existing innovation landscape; and (iii) to identify opportunities to foster innovations at the base of the pyramid (BoP) in Ethiopia. This study is structured as follows: chapter one gives introduction. Chapter two provides a detailed overview of the characteristics of growth and innovation, by providing key insights based on the enterprise survey analysis on the characteristics, motivations, operational and market environment and constraints of the innovators in Ethiopia. Chapter three assesses the innovation landscape in Ethiopia, by looking at the governmental and private agencies responsible to promote innovation, as well as active programs, and donor initiatives which may play a role in promoting firm level and pro-poor innovations. Chapter four provides policy recommendations to promote innovation in Ethiopia both at the firm level and in the form of pro-poor initiatives.

This report presents the findings of a large spatial analysis of almost 3 million viral load tests from over 2 million HIV patients on antiretroviral therapy in South Africa. It is part of the second phase of a series of analytical and evaluation studies contributing to the design of an impact and process evaluation of South Africa’s National Adherence Guidelines for Chronic Diseases. The analysis was conducted by the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) and Boston University/Health Economics and Epidemiology Research Office (HE2RO), in collaboration with the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), the National Department of Health of South Africa, and the World Bank. A number of other institutions contributed in the multi-step process of creating a patient-linked cohort through a novel record linkage algorithm and a masterlist of public sector health facilities, which are both underpinning this analysis and described in the report. The analysis demonstrates the diversity in the proportion of HIV patients getting a viral load test annually and patients virally suppressed. The variation shows by geographic location and facility, as well as by age, gender and demography. It sheds light on high viral load levels in young HIV patients on treatment. Also, one in six male and one in nine female ART patients were identified as having a high risk of HIV transmission due to viral load levels above 10,000 copies/mL

The Pacific region is in the midst of an information and communications technology (ICT) revolution in which small island countries are increasingly connected to the global economy. The regions improving internet connectivity presents an opportunity for Pacific Island countries (PICs) to overcome their inherent limitations, and help address the long-standing issues of employment and income generation, which is vital to accelerate progress towards ending poverty and creating an inclusive society. The PICs possess unique vulnerabilities that make addressing poverty and development challenges particularly difficult and complex. The purpose of this study is to examine the feasibility of leveraging ICT to help generate job opportunities in the PICs. This is because of the positive experiences that several countries, including small island economies, have had in generating new types of employment opportunities. The study’s main focus is on cities and urban areas, given the still low availability of internet infrastructure and services in rural and remote areas and islands in the Pacific region. The study focuses specifically on the information technology (IT) - enabled global outsourcing services (GOS) industry. ICT covers diverse subsectors that include telecommunications and IT hardware and software.

Cities are emerging as hubs of technological innovation. This is characterized by an ongoing shift from technology parks in suburban areas, to entrepreneurial activity within cities. There is a global trend of startups in cities like Berlin, Buenos Aires, Mumbai and Madrid. The rise of technology startups in cities is leading to new sources of employment and economic growth, by creation of new businesses and employment categories. Traditional manufacturing and routine cognitive skills jobs are being eroded, and the creation of new sources of employment and growth is vital to maintain competitiveness, reduce poverty, and increase shared prosperity. The growth of tech innovation and entrepreneurship is not equal in all cities. Some cities experience higher, faster, and more sustainable growth than others. This paper discusses research on what factors make tech innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems grow faster and larger in some cities. The findings point out that the social dimension, or the interpersonal connections and communities, are critical for the growth and sustainability of the ecosystem; and, that networking assets (defined as community building events, skill training events, collaboration spaces, and networking of mentors) are central to this social dimension. This paper includes a) proposed framework for urban technology innovation ecosystems based on this findings; b) testing of the framework in New York, and; c) policy implications of this findings.

This economy profile for Doing Business 2016 presents the 11 Doing Business indicators for Malawi. To allow for useful comparison, the profile also provides data for other selected economies (comparator economies) for each indicator. Doing Business 2016 is the 13th edition in a series of annual reports measuring the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. Economies are ranked on their ease of doing business; for 2015 Malawi ranks 141. A high ease of doing business ranking means the regulatory environment is more conducive to the starting and operation of a local firm. Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 189 economies from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe and over time. Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 11 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and labor market regulation. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2015 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period from January to December 2014).

This economy profile for Doing Business 2016 presents the 11 Doing Business indicators for South Africa. To allow for useful comparison, the profile also provides data for other selected economies (comparator economies) for each indicator. Doing Business 2016 is the 13th edition in a series of annual reports measuring the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. Economies are ranked on their ease of doing business; for 2015 South Africa ranks 73. A high ease of doing business ranking means the regulatory environment is more conducive to the starting and operation of a local firm. Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 189 economies from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe and over time. Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 11 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and labor market regulation. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2015 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period from January to December 2014).

Management has a large effect on the productivity of large firms. But does management matter in micro and small firms, where the majority of the labor force in developing countries works? This study developed 26 questions that measure business practices in marketing, stock-keeping, record-keeping, and financial planning. These questions have been administered in surveys in Bangladesh, Chile, Ghana, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, and Sri Lanka. This paper shows that variation in business practices explains as much of the variation in outcomes — sales, profits, and labor productivity and total factor productivity — in microenterprises as in larger enterprises. Panel data from three countries indicate that better business practices predict higher survival rates and faster sales growth. The effect of business practices is robust to including many measures of the owner’s human capital. The analysis finds that owners with higher human capital, children of entrepreneurs, and firms with employees employ better business practices. Competition has less robust effects.

This study uses Twitter data to provide a more nuanced understanding of the public reaction to the 2011 reform to the propane gas subsidy in El Salvador. By soliciting a small sample of manually tagged tweets, the study identifies the subject matter and sentiment of all tweets during six one-month periods over three years that concern the subsidy reform. The paper shows that such an analysis using Twitter data can provide a useful complement to existing household survey data and even potentially replace survey data if none were available. The finding show that when people tweet about the subsidy, they almost always do so in a negative manner; and there is a decline in discussion of topics about the reform subsidy, which coincides with increase in support for the subsidy as reported elsewhere. Therefore, the study concludes that decreasing discussion of the subsidy reform indicates an increase in support for the reform. In addition, the gas distributor strikes of May 2011 may have contributed to public perception of the reform more than previously acknowledged. This study is used as an opportunity to provide methodological guidance for researchers who wish to undertake similar studies, documenting the steps in the analysis pipeline with detail and noting the challenges inherent in obtaining data, classification, and inference.

This paper uses an original database of 469 politically connected firms under the Mubarak regime in Egypt to explore the economic effects of close state-business relations. Previous research has shown that political connections are lucrative. The paper addresses several questions raised by this research. Do connected firms receive favorable regulatory treatment? They do: connected firms are more likely to benefit from trade protection, energy subsidies, access to land, and regulatory enforcement. Does regulatory capture account for the high value of connected firms? In the sample, regulatory capture as revealed by energy subsidies and trade protection account for the higher profits of politically connected firms. Do politically connected firms hurt aggregate growth? The paper identifies the growth effects of the entry of politically connected firms by comparing detailed 4-digit sectors where they entered, between 1996 and 2006, and sectors that remained unconnected. The entry of connected firms into new, modern, and previously unconnected sectors slows aggregate employment growth and skews the distribution of employment toward less productive, smaller firms.

The Philippines is one of the eight founding members of the open government partnership (OGP) alongside Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Norway, South Africa, United Kingdom, and the United States. The overarching concept of open government recognizes that good governance derives from the principle of transparency by providing an easily accessible, readily usable, and up-to-date online platform of digitized public records. Open data is an important component and commitment area of the OGP. The Philippines developed its first national open government action plan, which detailed nineteen initiatives under four broad outcome areas, from June to September 2011. This paper aims to: (1) document the historical development, key drivers, and milestones of open government Philippines and open data Philippines, and (2) pose recommendations for moving forward with its commitments. It reviews the composition and formation of the open data task force and showcases the features of data.gov.ph. The paper seeks to pose recommendations pertaining to the following areas: (1) release and manage organized, operable, and relevant data; (2) refine technical aspects of open data; (3) institutionalize open data within government; (4) promote civic engagement and stakeholder outreach; and (5) adopt complementary metrics and measures of success. The paper also opens a series of reports on the key stages in the development of the program, including implementation and impact evaluation.

This paper explores the link between exports and total factor productivity in Brazilian manufacturing firms over the period 2000–08. The Brazilian experience is instructive, as it is a case of an economy that expanded aggregate exports significantly, but with stagnant aggregate growth in total factor productivity. The paper first estimates firm-level total factor productivity under alternative assumptions (exogenous and endogenous law of motion for productivity) following a GMM procedure. In turn, the analysis uses stochastic dominance techniques to assess whether the ex ante most productive firms are those that start exporting (self-selection hypothesis). Finally, the paper tests whether exporting boosts firms’ total factor productivity growth (learning-by-exporting hypothesis) using matching techniques to control for the possibility that selection into exports may not be a random process. The results confirm the self-selection hypothesis and show that starting to export yields additional growth in total factor productivity that emerges since the firm’s first year of exporting but lasts only one year. Further, this extra total factor productivity growth is much higher under the assumption of an endogenous law of motion for productivity, which reinforces the importance of accounting for firm export status to study the evolution of productivity.

The objective of this review is to synthesize existing evaluative evidence and generate new evidence on the quality of the Results Frameworks (RFs) of development policy operations (DPOs). The study is organized around a number of evaluative questions on various aspects of DPO design, implementation, reporting, and evaluation. Its focus is on the quality of RF, taking objectives and coverage for granted. The study does not cover the scope and coverage of reform programs underpinning DPOs, including the relevance of objectives, or the choice of policy areas and the links between DPOs and country assistance strategies. It generally does not look at program achievements and outcomes, except in cases when it is required for assessing the quality of prior actions (PAs). The structure of the review is: chapter one presents the methodology; chapter two has the findings with respect to the presentation and clarity of RFs; chapter three discusses evidence of the quality of PAs and their contribution to the robustness of RFs; chapter four discusses findings with respect to the use of programmatic approach in DPOs relevant for RFs; chapter five discusses strengths and weaknesses in the ME framework of DPOs; chapter six discusses reporting of DPO results at completion and implications for IEG validation and evaluation of DPOs.

This set of three case studies explores the intersection of openness, digital governance, andhigh quality information in Estonia,1 Finland, and Norway with the aim of identifying lessonsthat will support the same objectives in lower resource countries. Openness, a key aspect ofthe international agenda for increasing transparency and accountability, for reducing public sectorcorruption, and for strengthening economic performance, rests on the principle that citizenshave a right to know what their governments are doing and to benefit from using governmentinformation. Goals for open, accountable, and inclusive governance rest on the assumption thattrustworthy information is available and can be shared meaningfully through strategies for digitalgovernance. This assumption needs to be examined. Does reliable and complete informationexist across lower resource countries? Can it be accessed readily? Will it survive through time?

Over the past decade, there has been increased interest in improving business regulations, in part because of the increased availability of data that can inform and monitor those improvements. This paper analyzes whether these regulatory changes are linked to economic outcomes. With panel data for 10 years across more than 180 countries, the paper establishes the link between business regulations, firm creation, and growth. It is found that an improvement of 10 points in the overall measure of business regulations is linked to an increase of around 0.5 new businesses per 1,000 adults. Moreover, the results show that although small changes in the overall level of business regulations may have a negligible link to growth, moving from the lowest quartile of improvement in business regulations to the highest quartile is associated with a significant increase in annual per capita growth of around 0.8 percentage points. In addition, the results highlight the importance of sound entry and exit regulations and sound credit market regulations and court enforcement for growth.

This guidebook aims to bring citizen-driven innovation to policy makers and change agents around the globe, by spreading good practice on open and participatory approaches as applied to digital service development in different nations, climates, cultures, and urban settings. The report explores the concept of smart cities through a lens that promotes citizens as the driving force of urban innovation. Different models of smart cities are presented, showing how citizen-centric methods have been used to mobilize resources to respond to urban innovation challenges in a variety of situations, objectives, and governance structures. The living lab approach strengthens these processes as one of the leading methods for agile development or the rapid prototyping of ideas, concepts, products, services, and processes in a highly decentralized and user-centric manner. By adopting these approaches and promoting citizen-driven innovation, cities around the world are aiming to alleviate the demand for services, increase the quality of delivery, and promote local entrepreneurship. This guidebook is structured into seven main sections: an introductory section describes the vision of a humanly smart city, in order to give an idea of the kind of result that can be attained from opening up and applying citizen-driven innovation methods. Chapter one getting started helps mayors launch co-design initiatives, exploring innovation processes founded on trust and verifying the benefits of opening up. Chapter two, building a strategy identifies the key steps for building an innovation partnership and together defining a sustainable city vision and scenarios for getting there. Chapter three, co-designing solutions looks at the process of unpacking concrete problems, working creatively to address them, and following up on implementation. Chapter four, ensuring sustainability describes key elements for long-term viability: evaluation and impact assessment, appropriate institutional structuring, and funding and policy support. Chapter five, joining forces suggests ways to identify a unique role for participation in international networks and how to best learn from cooperation. Finally, the report provides a starter pack with some of the more commonly used tools and methods to support the kinds of activities described in this guidebook.

In 2011 the Government of El Salvador implemented a reform to the gas subsidy that increased the welfare of households in all but the top two deciles of the income distribution. However, the reform turned out to be rather unpopular, especially among winners. This paper relies on ad hoc household surveys conducted before the implementation and in the following two and a half years to test which factors help explain the puzzle. The analysis uses probit and logit models to show that misinformation (a negativity bias by which people with limited information inferred negative consequences), mistrust of the government’s ability to implement the policy, and political priors explain most of the (un)satisfaction before implementation. Perceptions improved gradually—and significantly so—over time when the subsidy reception induced households to update their initial priors, although political biases remained significant throughout the entire period. The results suggest several implications with respect to policy reforms in cases where agents have limited information.

The Pacific region is in the midst of an information and communications technology (ICT) revolution in which small island countries are increasingly connected to the global economy. The regions improving internet connectivity presents an opportunity for Pacific Island countries (PICs) to overcome their inherent limitations, and help address the long-standing issues of employment and income generation, which is vital to accelerate progress towards ending poverty and creating an inclusive society. The PICs possess unique vulnerabilities that make addressing poverty and development challenges particularly difficult and complex. The purpose of this study is to examine the feasibility of leveraging ICT to help generate job opportunities in the PICs. This is because of the positive experiences that several countries, including small island economies, have had in generating new types of employment opportunities. The study’s main focus is on cities and urban areas, given the still low availability of internet infrastructure and services in rural and remote areas and islands in the Pacific region. The study focuses specifically on the information technology (IT) - enabled global outsourcing services (GOS) industry. ICT covers diverse subsectors that include telecommunications and IT hardware and software.

The pattern of global trade in goods has changed substantially over the last two decades with a rapid increase in trade in intermediate inputs, such as parts and components, and a significant increase in the role of services inputs. Indonesia can benefit greatly from increasing its participation in global supply chains. With GDP expected to grow 5-6 percent annually, Indonesia will by 2030 have an additional 90 million middle class consumers, while 70 percent of the population will be of working age. At present, Indonesia is not reaping gains from economic globalization to the fullest extent due to weak integration into global supply chains. Better integration would allow Indonesia to further diversify its economy. To do so, however, Indonesia needs to improve its infrastructure, the business environment and education levels in order to better participate in, and reap the benefits from, global supply chains.

The Marrakesh action plan for statistics (MAPS) was created in 2004 as an important component of an informal partnership whose main goal is to help develop and strengthen national statistical systems through six specific actions with target dates aiming to prepare the way for sustainable improvement in statistical capacity. The objectives of the evaluation are: (i) to assess the effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability of the five partnership programs; (ii) to assess the extent to which MAPS actions remains relevant to the statistical capacity; and (iii) to provide guidance on how support for statistical capacity can be strengthened and made more effective under the Busan action plan for statistics. This report presents the results of a light evaluation of the partnership effort between the World Bank, through the development grant facility (DGF), and a number of key agencies involved in the building of statistical capacity in developing countries under the MAPS. This evaluation covers the five largest partnership programs which include the international household survey network (IHSN), the accelerated data program (ADP), the preparation of national strategies for the development of statistics (NSDSs), the urgent improvement in key statistics, including gender statistics and the support given to countries to participate in the 2010 census round.

The emergence of global value chains (GVCs) and their rapid expansion over the past two decades has transformed the global trade environment. GVCs involve task-based trade across multiple stages of the production process that take place across a number of different countries, in which multiple inputs and exports of intermediate goods and services are necessary to produce a final good, which may also be exported. GVC-oriented trade is seen to offer significant opportunities for developing countries, especially smaller ones, to benefit from global integration by changing the nature of competitiveness. With competition for GVC investment taking place in a truly global market, factor competitiveness relative to other countries matters a lot. In this context, the purpose of this note is to shed some light for policymakers, in this case specifically in the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) countries, on where to focus efforts to drive competitiveness for GVC participation. This is a data-intensive exercise that requires indicators to represent underlying capabilities, disaggregated international trade data, and finally, a classification of which products are likely to be trade within GVCs.

In recent decades, many countries have embarked on structural reform programs involving private sector participation (PSP) across the entire value chain of the power sector. Often as part of a broader market oriented reform program, governments have resorted to PSP in transmission and distribution (T and D) for a variety of reasons, including to: (i) offset years of underinvestment and poor operating performance under public ownership; (ii) attract considerable private investment to fill the financing gap stemming from new T and D additions amid rapidly growing demand for electricity; and (iii) raise fiscal revenues by offloading state assets. In some cases (for example, Brazil and Peru), a prolonged electricity supply crisis prompted government into structural reforms of the T and D sector. The energy sector management assistance program (ESMAP) study covers PSP in transmission, as well as distribution. The four case-study countries, Brazil, Peru, Philippines, and Turkey were selected based on the substantial transmission story under their broader electricity PSP experience.

The Doing Business data highlight the important role of the government and government policies in the day-to-day life of domestic small and medium-size firms. The objective is to encourage regulations that are designed to be efficient, accessible to all who use them and simple in their implementation. Where regulation is burdensome and competition limited, success tends to depend on whom one knows. But where regulation is efficient, transparent and implemented in a simple way, it becomes easier for aspiring entrepreneurs to compete on an equal footing and to innovate and expand. In this sense Doing Business values good rules as a key to social inclusion. Enabling growth, and ensuring that all people, regardless of income level, can participate in its benefits, requires an environment where new entrants with drive and good ideas can get started in business and where good firms can invest and grow, thereby creating more jobs. Doing Business was designed with 2 main types of users in mind: policy makers and researchers. Doing Business is a tool that governments can use to design sound policies for the creation of firms and jobs. But this tool should not be used in isolation. Doing Business provides a rich opportunity for benchmarking by capturing key dimensions of regulatory regimes. Nevertheless, the Doing Business data are limited in scope and should be complemented with other sources of information.

This note lays out the rationale for including land administration quality index in the standard ‘registering property’ indicator by doing business and discusses initial evidence from the global sample, showing that many countries, including some that have performed well on Doing Business’s traditional ranking, have a long way to go to establish a system of land administration that is reliable and transparent, achieves sufficient coverage, and minimizes disputes. The cases in this brochure document that by smartly deploying new technology, countries can make progress in this direction irrespective of their initial income level. Continued monitoring and learning from experience at all levels had an important role in facilitating such progress. Doing Business will contribute to this agenda by elevating the profile of land governance, tracking countries’ performance with respect to land administration quality index, and fostering global exchange and learning from good performers.

In 2011, the World Bank Group commenced a multiyear program designed to support countries in systematically examining and strengthening the performance of their education systems. By leveraging this global knowledge, the systems approach for better education results (SABER) tools fill a gap in the availability of data and evidence on what matters most to improve the quality of education and achievement of better results. This report discusses the results of applying the SABER - education management information systems (EMIS) tool in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The objectives of this report are to examine the system according to key policy areas, identify successes and challenges in the system, and provide recommendations to support the continued advancement of EMIS in PNG. A successful EMIS is credible and operational in planning and policy dialogue as well as teaching and learning.

The dynamic growth of mobile communications technology is creating opportunities for economic growth, social empowerment, and grassroots innovation in developing countries. One of the areas with the greatest potential impact is in the contribution that mobile applications can make to agricultural and rural development (ARD), by providing access to information, markets, and services to millions of rural inhabitants. For both agricultural supply and demand, mobile phones can reduce waste, make delivery more efficient, and forge closer links between farmers and consumers. This report provides policymakers and development practitioners with a guide that facilitates the development and deployment of mobile applications for ARD. It also informs their understanding of the key drivers for promoting such applications and services in their countries. Using James Moore’s (1996) revised definition of ecosystems: economic communities based on interacting organizations and individuals the report identifies a wide range of players in the ecosystem for m-ARD apps, such as mobile network operators, m-app (mobile applications) providers, content providers, and various types of users. M-apps are software designed to take advantage of mobile technology and can be developed for technology besides mobile phones. But mobile phones have many key advantages: affordability, wide ownership, voice communications, and instant and convenient service delivery. As a result, there has been a global explosion in the number of m-apps, facilitated by the rapid evolution of mobile networks and by the increasing functions and falling prices of mobile handsets. M-apps are markedly different in developing countries because they typically run on second-generation (2G) phones rather than smartphones, which are far more common in developed countries. The report reviews country examples and extracts policy lessons and good practices. It also presents detailed studies of cases from Kenya, Philippines, and Sri Lanka, as well as summarizes 92 case studies from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The goal is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the development impact, ecosystem, and business models for mobile applications in ARD. The report is intended to complement the recent ICT in Agriculture eSourcebook. One of the main findings is that an enabling platform (or platforms) is probably the most important factor for the development of m-ARD apps. Platforms can facilitate interactions among ecosystem players, increase access to users, provide technical standards, and incorporate payment mechanisms.

This study aims to improve our understanding of the extent and speed of the transmission of international cereal prices to local markets in developing countries. We analyse two samples of price transmission (PT) estimates, one extracted from a comprehensive literature sample of 31 published papers and studies on cereal price transmission and one containing of own estimates of cereal PT using the FAO’s GIEWS dataset. We also present the results of a non-parametric analysis of PT in which we analyse the share of periods in which domestic and international prices have jointly increased or decreased. We find a higher share of cointegrated commodity market pairs in the literature sample (79% compared to 43%). This may be due to publication bias. Cointegration is more prevalent for maize market pairs and less prevalent for rice market pairs. Both the literature and the GIEWS-based estimates point to average long-run PT coefficients of roughly 0.75 and average short-run adjustment parameters of roughly 0.09-0.11. In most cases domestic prices adjust to deviations from the long-run price relationship, but international prices do not. The only notable exception to this rule is rice, which suggests that the determination of international rice prices differs fundamentally from the determination of international wheat and maize prices. In a subsequent meta-regression analysis we measure how much of the variation in the samples of PT estimates can be explained by country- or product-specific factors. However, this analysis fails to generate compelling results. An analysis of domestic price volatility reveals that median volatility has increased since July 2007.

In the wake of the revolution, Tunisian society is currently undergoing a significant transformation. In late 2011, the country's first representative government in more than three decades was formed, as the Constituent Assembly was seated. Hundreds of legitimate candidates ran in an election that was free, fair, and enjoyed nearly 90 percent participation by eligible voters. 'Tunisia: from revolutions to institutions,' published one year after the exile of Ben Ali, seeks to describe the factors driving this transformation, examining how specific elements of society have changed, or not changed, in the post-revolutionary period. Information and communication technologies (ICTs), which played a central role in the lead-up to the revolution as well as the revolution itself, have continued to influence rapid changes in the past year. This report charts the application of these technologies by citizens, civil society, entrepreneurs, and government stakeholders. It also identifies openings to capitalize on technology's ability to improve governance, expand economic opportunity, and encourage social cohesion.

In the private sector, outsourcing has become a recognized feature of the business scene. While there are various reasons for contracting out functions to external organizations, in general the justification relates to the potential cost-benefit from adopting this approach. This study set out to ascertain whether the same considerations applied to administrative procedures associated with starting a business. Did business registries outsource any or all of their functions? If so, did the same considerations apply as for the private sector? Were there lessons to be learned from their experience? Responses to these and other questions were received from 53 registries. This paper is not about global commerce, at least, not in the usual sense. It is about some of the more mundane administrative procedures that underpin the activities of the private sector, the basics that help it to function. Business registration is seen as a key factor in determining the investment climate of a country.

The objective of this paper is to share the experiences and good practices of early business registry reformers who implemented web-enabled and automated electronic business registries (e-BRs). These lessons are hoped to be of help to EU New Member countries as they embark on delivering EU-conformant e-BRs. At the same time, policymakers in other developing countries may also find these lessons of use. This paper cites examples of good practices rather than best practices. As elsewhere in the development agenda, solutions that have worked well in some countries may not work in other local circumstances. In the case of e-BRs, success depends on a broader set of reforms; as will be discussed in a subsequent chapter, e-BRs require a supportive legal and regulatory infrastructure, such as electronic signature laws and document authentication. A needs assessment and analysis of the options in the local country context need to be conducted in order to find the most relevant best practice options for a specific country. Nevertheless, a number of practical good practices can be identified and are presented in this paper for consideration.