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"Paper in press", This paper aims to propose an electronic accountability index of information disclosure on the web – named e-accountability index (e-AI). In particular, the methodology used to develop the e-AI, based on seven areas of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) survey, is described and explained. The application of the index is then illustrated using central governments’ websites of the 12 South American countries, often referred to as not discharging enough accountability. The e-AI scores can be recorded for different countries that may be, therefore, ranked accordingly. This research contributes by developing an important index of electronic accountability that takes into account the standards of good governance and the accessibility and usability of each government’s website, to improve the disclosure of information and evaluate their level of accountability in a comparative-international perspective., This study was partially conducted at the Research Center in Political Science (UIDB/CPO/00758/2020), University of Minho/University of Évora and supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and the Portuguese Ministry of Education and Science through national funds.

Tarihsel süreçte engellilik olgusu farklı aşamalardan geçmiştir. Özellikle 20.yy'ın ortasından bugüne kadar sağlık temelli bir anlayıştan, toplum temelli bir anlayışa yönelme olduğu görülmektedir. Genel anlamda toplumun insana bakış açısını yansıtan ve bireyin yaşamla bütünleşebilmesinde her türlü kamu hizmetlerine ve kamu politikalarına ihtiyaç duyan bir engelli profili karşımıza çıkmaktadır. Bu dezavantajlı grup, önlerine çıkan tüm zorluklarla mücadele etmiştir ve ayrımcılıkla mücadelesini de her zaman sürdürmektedir. Ülkemizde engelliler hep hastalıklı grup olarak algılanmış fakat asıl olan şey onların toplumun ayrılmaz bir parçası oldukları gerçeğidir. Engelli, tüm kişisel ve sosyal gereksinimlerini bedensel, ruhsal, fiziksel vb. herhangi bir eksiklik sonucu karşılayamayan bireylerdir Bu noktada, merkezi yönetimler başta olmak üzere, engellilere yönelik tüm kamu kurum ve kuruluşları, yerel yönetimler, sivil toplum kuruluşları çeşitli faaliyetleri yürüterek, kamu hizmetlerini sunmaktadırlar., In the historical process, the phenomenon of disability has gone through different stages. Especially from the mid-20th century until today, it is seen that there is a health-based approach and a society-based approach. In general, a disabled profıle reflecting the society's point of view to the human and needs of all kinds of public services and public policies in order to enable the individual to be able to make a living through life. This disadvantaged group has struggled with all the challenges and is always engaged in the fight against discrimination. In our country, people with disabilities are always perceived as a diseased group, but the main thing is that they are an inseparable part of society. Disabled, all personal and social needs of physical, spiritual, physical etc. are the individuals who cannot meet any shortcomings. At this point, all public institutions and organizations, local administrations and non-governmental organizations for the disabled, especially central administrations, carry out various activities and provide public services.

The aim of this paper is to evaluate accountability using a newly constructed multivariate accountability index based on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), as well as on the accessibility of government disclosure for each country in the South America context. That will allow to analyse and compare the accountability disclosure issues among the South American countries. This study uses the statistical dimensional structure of data to identify the number of (dominant) dimensions. The findings were eight dimensions defined as Environmental, Expenditure, Social, Strategic, Economic, Information, Macroeconomic and Organizational perspectives. Scores are recorded for the twelve countries in South America that are classified accordingly. The contributions of this research represent an advance in the theoretical and empirical framework by creating an accountability index that takes into account the principles of good governance to improve the South America Central Governments’ transparency performance. This index could be used both by academics and practitioners to classify countries and their web site accountability.

In this paper we consider the problem of development of the Central state organs of management by the mining industry in the Urals during the reign of Emperor Alexander III. The article reveals the process of centralization of the state administration of industry and strengthening their oversight functions, as a reaction to liberal reform efforts of the Emperor Alexander II. In particular with this purpose, the Urals were regularly dispatched expeditions of the Ministry of state property, and then a discussion of the results the meetings of the higher bodies. В данной работе рассматривается проблема развития центральных государственных органов управления горнозаводской промышленностью на Урале в период правления императора Александра III. В статье раскрывается процесс централизации органов госуправления промышленностью и усиления их контролирующей функции, как реакция на либеральную реформаторскую деятельность императора Александра II. В частности с этой целью на Урал регулярно отправлялись экспедиции министерства государственных имуществ, а затем обсуждение их результатов совещаниях высших органов.

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 every year. At current rates of urbanization, the region’s urban population will double in size by 2050, welcoming over 25 million new urban dwellers, calling for better infrastructure, higher coverage and quality of urban services and greater employment opportunities. As larger numbers of people concentrate in urban areas, Central American governments at the national and local levels face both opportunities and challenges to ensure the prosperity of their country's present and future generations.

Governments must decide how to allocate limited resources for infrastructure development, particularly since financing gaps have been projected for the coming decades. Social cost-benefit analysis provides sound project appraisal and, when systematically applied, a basis for prioritization. In some instances, however, capacity and resource limitations make extensive economic analyses across all projects unfeasible in the immediate term. This paper responds to a need for expanding the available set of tools for project selection by proposing an alternative prioritization approach that is systematic and feasible within the current resource means of government. The Infrastructure Prioritization Framework is a multi-criteria decision support tool that considers project outcomes along two dimensions, social-environmental and financial-economic. When large sets of small- to medium-sized projects are proposed, resources are limited, and basic project appraisal data (but not full social cost-benefit analysis) are available, the Infrastructure Prioritization Framework can inform project selection by combining selection criteria into social-environmental and financial-economic indexes. These indexes are used to plot projects on a Cartesian plane, and the sector budget is imposed to create a project map for comparison along each dimension. The Infrastructure Prioritization Framework is structured to accommodate multiple policy objectives, attend to social and environmental factors, provide an intuitive platform for displaying results, and take advantage of available data while promoting capacity building and data collection for more sophisticated appraisal methods and selection frameworks. Decision criteria, weighting, and sensitivity analysis should be decided and made transparent in advance of selection, and analysis should be made publicly available and open to third-party review.

This technical note discusses the current status of banking supervision and regulation in Montenegro in the context of select Basel Core Principles (BCP). This note has been prepared as part of a Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) update conducted jointly by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB) in September 2015. As agreed with the authorities, the FSAP tea

Since the Constitution (2005) provided for decentralizing powers and functions for the Governorates, the government of Iraq has enacted several legal, policy, and institutional reform initiatives, the intent of which is to shift political and administrative powers and responsibilities from the Central Government to the Governorates. The legal and policy framework for decentralization is yet to be followed through with efficient implementation. The Government of Iraq and the World Bank will like to assess the current status of decentralization and its implications for improving service delivery at the Governorate level. The objective of the assessment is to take stock of the current state of decentralization in Iraq with a view to identifying factors that contribute to weak service delivery performance at the governorate level. The assessment will also make recommendations for policy and process reforms that are deemed necessary to moving forward the decentralization process, thereby helping to improve service delivery performance by the Governorates. The assessment was carried out through a combination of desk reviews and field level consultations. This assessment provides a snapshot of the current status of the decentralization process. It identifies policy and process reform measures that are necessary to strengthen service delivery by the 15 Governorates of Iraq. Strengthening local accountability should be the key to strengthening the service delivery performance of the Governorates.

Provision of safe drinking water is a basic necessity and has been a major topic for key political discourses in the country over the last decade. The Government of India has been focusing on safe drinking water since 1972-73 when it introduced the Accelerated Rural Water Supply Program (ARWSP) to assist States and Union Territories to accelerate the coverage of drinking water in the country. Despite increased outlays since then, access to safe drinking water in India remains a challenge. Apart from access, water quality and sustainability of resources (water points and infrastructure developed) are issues of major concern. The National Rural Drinking Water Program (NRDWP), which is supplementing the efforts of the State Governments by providing technical and financial assistance, is looking at rural drinking water from a holistic viewpoint. The Ministry has shifted its focus from hand pumps to piped water supply systems with the aim of providing monitored clean water and is focusing on those States which have low levels of piped water supply. The Water and Sanitation Program has compiled an excellent collection of success stories and best practices from the States of Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Punjab and Uttarakhand which address these key constraints. Some of these success stories, such as the Asoga village intervention in Karnataka which showcases a unique demand driven approach to facilitate participatory decision making leading to community ownership, the Bidholi piped water supply scheme in Uttarakhand which manages and recovers 100 per cent operation and maintenance costs from the community, the Shikayat Nivaran Kendra experiment in Punjab which uses information technology for online web enabled centralised complaint redressal and the Water and Sanitation Management Organisation experiment in Gujarat where the registered body acts as a facilitator in developing water and sanitation facilities owned and managed by communities, are all outstanding examples of how to address various challenges and shortcomings the program is facing.

Reliable evidence on the quality of current WSS service conditions is scarce and consumer experience and views and voices are not systematically collected and used for policy development. International experience suggests that poor drinking water and sanitation services can cause households to incur high costs for dealing with this situation. However, in Uzbekistan and other Central Asian countries, there is a lack of data on service quality and on such coping costs. Together with limited feedback from consumers to those that design WSS policies and programs this makes it difficult to design effective reform measures and assess their ex-ante impact on households, in particular for those at the bottom of the income distribution. This study assesses consumer experiences with current WSS services across a range of selected sites in Uzbekistan and determines consumer readiness for reform. First of all, the study analyses how surveyed consumers currently meet their drinking water and sanitation needs and what proportion of their household budget is spent on meeting their WSS needs. Second it assesses the interaction between consumers and service providers. Third it examines stakeholder views and positions on service modernization needs and assesses consumer willingness to pay for quality networked WSS services. Comparisons are made across consumers in a selection of cities, small towns and rural areas, between consumers that are connected to a networked service and those that are not, and between households in the bottom 40 percent and top 60 percent of the income distribution (as estimated through a wealth index).

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 conflict be prevented? Are there ways for the government to change this course of events? This paper tries to contribute to this discussion by looking at the international practices in raising and sharing natural resource revenues (NRR) among different levels of government. The study observes that sharing NRR with subnational governments of the producing areas is the prevailing practice worldwide. There is a rationale to compensate the subnational government of the producing areas for the negative environmental, social, and economic impact of production activities. Assignment to all - including the non-producing - subnational governments is less frequent, although it is increasingly used (particularly in Latin America). This option increases the number of stakeholders and gives them incentives to exert control. This is a relevant argument, particularly in countries with a weak capacity of public scrutiny of government activities. The volatility of revenue or the low absorption capacity of small government units may nevertheless create problems. Similarly, the allocation of NRR to individuals with direct transfers, a complement to the intergovernmental allocation rather than an alternative, can increase the welfare of citizens by increasing their scrutiny of NRR use by government.

The Tunisia Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) seeks to identify the challenges and opportunities to achieve the twin goals of reducing poverty and boosting shared prosperity in a sustainable way. This SCD takes into account Tunisia’s historical sociopolitical context and the political economy of past reforms to provide the context for the challenges and opportunities that exist today to make progress toward the twin goals. The economic policies of the two decades preceding the 2011 revolution delivered widely recognized achievements, including growth rates above the regional average, impressive progress in human development indicators and reduced poverty. However, they failed to address, and even exacerbated, the deep-rooted distortions in the economy that closed the channels, in particular, productive employment and job creation, for a more equal and inclusive society. These distortions were also grounded in a tightly controlled social and political space that favored the elite while repressing others. This development model proved to be economically and socially unsustainable. With a new constitution adopted in 2014 and a democratically-elected government established in 2015, there is today an unprecedented window of opportunity for Tunisia to embark on deep structural reforms to open the channels conducive to a more equal and inclusive society and put the country on a path of more sustainable development. The SCD identifies key opportunities to build on Tunisia’s multiple strengths and economic potential to help guide future development policies. It highlights the importance of social and political stability (as well as domestic security) as prerequisites for critical reforms to be undertaken, as well as the importance of voice, transparency, and accountability in all economic and institutional spheres for those reforms to be sustainable.

This Technical Note was prepared by IMF and WB staff in the context of the Financial Sector Assessment Program in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and overseen by the Monetary and Capital Markets Department, IMF, and the Financial and Private Sector Development Vice Presidency, World Bank. It contains technical analysis and detailed information underpinning the FSAP’s findings and recommendations. A review of supervisory practices was conducted to assess progress towards implementation of the Basel Committee Core Principles for Effective Banking Supervision. The system of banking supervision oversight has significantly improved since the last review in 2006, but shortcomings remain.

Integration of knowledge with lending is an enduring theme in World Bank strategies at the corporate and country levels. It rests on the widely shared proposition that Bank lending instruments could be more relevant and produce better results if they incorporate key analytical, country level knowledge. To be successful, development interventions must be informed by evidence, and evidence comes from knowledge. This is the idea behind Bank as a ‘solutions bank,’ integrating financial instruments and knowledge products into ‘development solutions’ that deliver results. A recent Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) evaluation suggests that the Bank’s broad economic and sector work and technical assistance strongly inform Bank lending strategies (IEG 2008). PERs, for the purpose of this learning product, are identified as Bank knowledge products with a specific reference in their titles as Public Expenditure Review, whether they are multi-sector or single sector public expenditure reviews. They also include other analytical documents which deal with public expenditure issues, be they public finance reviews, studies of specific expenditure and debt issues, and even Country Economic Memoranda (CEMs) with a special focus on public expenditures. This broad definition should capture much (though not all) of the public expenditure-related analytical work at the Bank. Arguably, efficiency and allocation issues important in the design of DPOs and the reforms they support can only be addressed by such integrative, not partial or silo-type knowledge of specific subsector expenditures (e.g., tertiary education expenditure review).

Kazakhstan made steady progress on poverty reduction and social development during the review period, driven by impressive economic growth and rising hydrocarbon prices. Yet, the country continues to grapple with a number of systemic challenges, including: a lack of progress on economic diversification and anticorruption; a dominant role of the state in the economy; a lack of skills in the labor force; and a legacy of environmental problems inherited from the Soviet era. The quality of the Bank Group dialogue with the government was exceptionally high throughout the evaluation period. The Bank Group has established itself as a trusted adviser to the government, with a proven track record of timely delivery of high-quality technical and policy advice, including cabinet-level ‘brainstorming sessions’ and the client-funded Joint Economic Research Program (JERP). Implementation of the JERP suggests that it could become a powerful tool for strengthening the partnership, advancing the reform agenda, and gradually building up the lending program. At the same time, the fully demand-driven nature of the program imposed limitations on the Bank in defining strategic priorities in its advisory work, disseminating findings, and engaging local partners. Looking forward, the Bank Group will need to (i) link the JERP with concrete sector investments and advance monitoring and evaluation (M&E) tools to track its effectiveness; (ii) disclose the main policy recommendations; (iii) engage local partners and civil society to advance transparency and accountability and build capacity; (iv) select and prepare of a set of analytical products independently and in line with the World Bank Group’s global development mandate; and (v) be more selective and strategic in sector engagement.

The inability to unlock natural resource wealth for the benefit of developing countries’ local populations, a phenomenon popularly known as the ‘resource curse’ or the ‘paradox of plenty’, has spawned extensive debate among researchers and policy makers in recent years. There is now a well-established body of literature exploring the links between natural resources and conflict, with some sources estimating that over the past 60 years, 40 percent of civil wars have been associated with natural resources. Following this introduction, Section two provides an overview of interstate tensions in West Africa in order to improve understanding of the drivers of fragility that trigger conflict between countries around extractive industry investment. Here, the discussion is grounded in examples in which interstate tensions have been apparent, including the case of the Mano River Union, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, a region with a history of conflict, and where the exploitation of commercial deposits of high-value resources may continue to have a potentially destabilizing effect. Section three focuses on the decentralization of natural resource revenues, a process that proponents believe can help manage grievances and defuse intrastate tension in areas directly affected by resource extraction, but one that is also not without challenges. Drawing upon the case of Ghana’s Mineral Development Fund, the section explores the potential for conflict (and conflict triggers) to arise when the redistribution of extractive industry revenues to subnational regions takes place. In doing so, it becomes apparent that the capture and misuse of revenues from the fund is as much a political issue as it is a policy or technical one. This sets the stage for section four, which focuses in greater detail on extractive industry-related conflict within catchment communities, and how contestation is most often a result of unequal power relationships. Section five, the conclusion, summarizes and reflects upon some of the challenges and struggles over resource management associated with West Africa’s recent resource boom, and draws out some of the cross-cutting themes. Here, suitable entry points for future lines of inquiry and engagement are identified.

The Armenian Social Investment Fund supports communities’ efforts to improve local infrastructure during Armenia’s economic transition away from central planning, financing community-designed and -implemented projects to rehabilitate primary schools, water systems, and other infrastructure. This article considers the targeting, household impact, and community effects of the social fund’s activities. It relies on a nationally representative household survey, oversampled in areas where the social fund was active. Using propensity and pipeline matching techniques to control for community self-selection into the social fund, it evaluates the household effects of rehabilitating schools and water systems. The results show that the social fund reached poor households, particularly in rural areas. Education projects increased households’ spending on education significantly and had mild effects on school attendance. Potable water projects increased household access to water and had mild positive effects on health. Communities that completed a social fund project were less likely than the comparison group to complete other local infrastructure projects, suggesting that social capital was expended in these early projects. By contrast, communities that joined the social fund later and had not yet completed their projects took more initiatives not supported by the social fund. In centrally planned economies, national governments exerted tremendous economic control. This control extended to investment in local infrastructure, including building and maintaining roads, schools, and water systems. When these economies collapsed, governments became bereft of resources. Systems for maintaining local infrastructure began to fail; as deep economic recession took hold, schools and water systems fell into disrepair. Local public services deteriorated, compounding other hardships for people living in postcommunist conditions. But because communities were accustomed to relying on central authorities to meet local needs, they often were unable to address their problems.

Lebanon faces serious challenges from a volatile security environment and spillovers from the ongoing Syrian conflict which pose serious risks to an already fragile internal political situation. Security incidents have become increasingly more common and the volatile security environment is weakening consumer and investor sentiments and adversely affecting tourism, a central contributor to economic growth and employment in Lebanon. The influx of Syrian refugees to Lebanon persists, with officially registered refugees reaching close to 1 million (i.e., 21.6 percent of Lebanon’s pre-conflict population), which poses significant fiscal, health and educational challenges.

This paper examines the design of social investment funds (SIFs) and explores the ways they affect agents incentives to propose, select, and implement good projects. Compared with other forms of decentralized service provision, SIFs possess features of administratively delegated authority and deep political devolution. Where existing political institutions fail to deliver assistance to vulnerable groups, a well-designed SIF may represent a useful administrative alternative. This article reviews several features that provide incentives for both SIF staff and project beneficiaries and concludes with practical guidelines for designing and appraising social investment funds.

Doing Business in Italy 2013 is a new subnational report of the Doing Business series. It measures business regulations and their enforcement across 4 indicators in 13 Italian cities: Bari (Apulia), Bologna (Emilia-Romagna), Cagliari (Sardinia), Campobasso (Molise), Catanzaro (Calabria), L'Aquila (Abruzzo), Milan (Lombardy), Naples (Campania), Padua (Veneto), Palermo (Sicily), Potenza (Basilicata), Rome (Latium), and Turin (Piedmont) and the indicator trading across borders in 7 ports: Cagliari (Sardinia), Catania (Sicily), Genoa (Liguria), Gioia Tauro (Calabria), Naples (Campania), Taranto (Apulia), Trieste (Friuli-Venezia Giulia). The cities were selected by the Department for Planning and Coordination of Economic Policy (DIPE) of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers of the Italian Republic. The cities can be compared against each other, and with 185 economies worldwide. Doing Business investigates the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. Regulations affecting 5 stages of the life of a business are measured at the subnational level in Italy: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, registering property, trading across borders and enforcing contracts. These indicators were selected because they cover areas of local jurisdiction or practice. The indicators are used to analyze economic outcomes and identify what reforms have worked, where and why. The data in Doing Business in Italy 2013 are current as of June 1st, 2012.

This issue includes the following headings: mass rapid transit: a tool for urban expansion; financing: beyond sovereign guarantees; and low-income housing: lessons from Latin America.

Facility for Investment Climate Advisory Services (FIAS) Since investment climate reforms in developing countries started gaining traction in the 1990s, most efforts have focused on issues at the national level, achieving varying degrees of success for reasons that are relatively well understood. This handbook provides an overview of efforts and achievements in subnational investment climate reforms. It is organized as follows. Chapter 2 reviews a number of countries experiences with subnational reforms, noting both success stories and disappointments and pointing toward lessons learned. Chapter 3 sets out the basic principles of subnational revenue, including business taxation. Chapter 4 describes sound licensing practices for subnational governments, including establishing licensing fees. Chapter 5 provides recommendations for subnational reform projects where both the regulatory authority and taxation require attention, which is the most common situation. Finally, the Appendix offers nine case studies covering subnational reform efforts in the following countries: Canada (British Columbia), The Russian Federation, China, Kenya, Tanzania, Peru (Lima), The Balkans (Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina), Tajikistan, and Zambia.

Papua has abundant natural and fiscal resources but also faces great development challenges. On the one hand, Papua currently has the largest per capita fiscal capacity after West Papua. Papua is rich in natural resources such as non-oil-and-gas minerals and forest products. On the other hand, development challenges in Papua are significant, including geography, terrain and demography. In general, Papua is still underdeveloped both socially and in economic terms compared to other regions in Indonesia. This underdevelopment is evident in most poverty, education, health, and infrastructure indicators. The economy and investment in Papua are dominated by the mining sector and, in a distant second place, the agricultural sector. Between 2004 and 2007, the mining sector accounted for more than 50 percent of the Papua's gross regional domestic product (GRDP). As a consequence, economic growth was determined by fluctuations in mineral commodity prices. The second largest sector is agriculture, which accounts for about 14-18 percent of GRDP. This sector absorbed the most workers in Papua province until 2008. Meanwhile, industry continues to lag and contributed less than 10 percent to GRDP. The PEA is a part of the PEACH (Public Expenditure Analysis and Capacity Harmonization) program. This program is an initiative of the Government of Papua to continuously improve its public financial management performance. Consequently, the analysis contained in this report addresses issues that are the region's main focus. Today, the Government of Papua is trying actively to achieve a 'New Papua' through implementing the following agenda: a) restructuring the local government; b) developing a prosperous Papua; c) developing a safe and peaceful Papua; and d) improving and accelerating the development of basic infrastructure and facilities.

Tanzania's land, local government and forest laws mean that rural communities have well defined rights to own, manage and benefit from forest and woodland resources within their local areas through the establishment of village forests. This approach, known by practitioners as Community Based Forest Management (CBFM) results in the legal establishment of village land forest reserves, community forest reserves or private forests. By 2008, 1,460 villages on mainland Tanzania1 were involved in establishing or managing village forests covering a total of over 2.345 million hectares. A further 863 villages are currently involved in Joint Forest Management (JFM) approaches within government forest reserves, in which management responsibilities are shared between government and local communities. 1.78 million hectares of forest reserve under central or local government jurisdiction are now under JFM arrangements. Since 2008, the Tanzanian government has been making preparations for the establishment of systems and structures for REDD Plus (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation). Tanzania is being supported in its preparations by the World Bank's Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), UN-REDD plus and the Norwegian Forests and Climate Initiative as well as a number of local and international Non Government Organizations (NGOs). This report has been prepared to provide inputs to the development of policy processes currently evolving in Tanzania regarding REDD plus. This review draws on almost two decades of experience within Tanzania on the development and establishment of Participatory forest management (PFM) an approach which (like REDD plus), aims to achieve the combined objectives of sustainable forest management with secure rights, improved local forest governance and secure livelihoods for forest-dependent communities.

This paper reviews the experiences of intergovernmental fiscal systems (IGFS) to look for possible lessons for how Official Development Assistance (ODA) is delivered. Specifically, it compares IGFS and ODA in two specific respects. The first is the proportion of public resources that central governments make available to sub-national governments on a conditional basis, and how that compares with the proportion of non-earmarked ODA given to low income countries. The second is the role of performance outcome in resource allocation to sub-national governments and how that compares with the role of performance in ODA, particularly multilateral ODA allocation. The comparisons show that: (i) the share of earmarked ODA is more than three times higher than that of conditional grants in intergovernmental systems, suggesting that donors in ODA rely more on earmarking to influence the spending decisions of the recipient countries than their federal governments do on conditional grants to induce policy changes in their own sub-national governments; and (ii) none of the OECD countries currently use outcome measures in determining resource allocation to their sub-national governments for a variety of good reasons, and the recent debate as to whether multilateral ODA allocation should be based on development outcomes seems to ignore this experience.

These organizations have joined together to recommend the principles presented below. The document concludes with anticipated next steps, which point toward a toolkit of best practices, guidelines, governance frameworks, and possibly codes of practice by the major sets of private actors.

Regulatory reform has emerged as an important policy area in developing countries. For reforms to be beneficial, regulatory regimes need to be transparent, coherent, and comprehensive. They must establish appropriate institutional frameworks and liberalized business regulations; enforce competition policy and law; and open external and internal markets to trade and investment. This report analyses the institutional set-up and use of regulatory policy instruments in Uganda. It is one of five reports prepared on countries in East and Southern Africa (the others are on Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Zambia), and represents an attempt to apply assessment tools and the framework developed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in its work on regulatory capacity and performance to developing countries.

Local and Community Driven Development (LCDD) is an approach that gives control of development decisions and resources to community groups and representative local governments. Poor communities receive funds, decide on their use, plan and execute the chosen local projects, and monitor the provision of services that result from it. It improves not just incomes but people's empowerment and governance capacity, the lack of which is a form of poverty as well. LCDD operations have demonstrated effectiveness at delivering results and have received substantial support from the World Bank. Since the start of this decade, our lending for LCDD has averaged around US$2 billion per year. Through its support to local and community-driven programs, the Bank has financed services such as water supply and sanitation, health services, schools that are tailored to community needs and likely to be maintained and sustainable, nutrition programs for mothers and infants, the building of rural access roads, and support for livelihoods and micro enterprise. This eBook brings together the thoughts and experiences of many of the leading proponents and practitioners of LCDD, a phrase that evolved from Community-Driven Development, and most clearly describes the process of empowering communities and their local governments so they drive economic and social development upwards and outwards. This, too many, appears as a new paradigm, though it has actually evolved over the decades, since it emerged from India in the 1950s. While many LCDD projects have taken root, the key challenge now is how such islands of success, that is, the discrete LCDD projects, can be scaled up into sustainable national programs that build skills in decision-making, management, and governance.

This paper provides background for the Government of Indonesia as it considers if and how to introduce more robust local government performance incentives into the intergovernmental fiscal framework. The next section briefly examines the forces that have driven the recent national wave of interest in improving local government performance. This is followed by a review of the relatively limited set of local government performance incentives currently in force in Indonesia. The fourth section provides a conceptual overview of how to think about the possible expansion of local government incentive programs, outlining the potential role(s) of such programs in general and the key issues involved in designing and implementing them. The fifth section tentatively considers a number of options for additional local government incentives in Indonesia that the central government may wish to consider pursuing. The paper concludes with an outline of next steps for moving forward with the possible development of more purposeful and meaningful performance incentives in Indonesia's intergovernmental fiscal framework.

All countries have a formal economy and an informal economy. But, on average, in developing countries the relative size of the informal sector is considerably larger than in developed countries. This paper argues that this has important implications for housing policy in developing countries. That most poor households derive their income from informal employment effectively precludes income-contingent transfers as a method of redistribution. Also, holding fixed real economic activity, the larger is the relative size of the informal sector, the lower is fiscal capacity, and the more distortionary is government provision of a given level of goods and services, which restricts the desirable scale and scope of government policy. For the same reasons, housing policies that have proven successful in developed countries may not be successful when employed in developing countries.

This paper reviews the evidence about the effects of urbanization and cities on productivity and economic growth in developing countries using a consistent theoretical framework. Just like in developed economies, there is strong evidence that cities in developing countries bolster productive efficiency. Regarding whether cities promote self-sustained growth, the evidence is suggestive but ultimately inconclusive. These findings imply that the traditional agenda of aiming to raise within-city efficiency should be continued. Furthermore, reducing the obstacles to the reallocation of factors across cities is also desirable.

The operations policy on Development Policy Lending (DPL), approved by the Board in August 2004, requires that the Bank systematically analyze whether specific country policies supported by an operation are likely to have "significant effects" on the country's environment, forests, and other natural resources. The implicit objective behind this requirement is to ensure that there is adequate capacity in the country to deal with adverse effects on the environment, forests, and other natural resources that the policies could trigger, even at the program design stage. DPL operations are associated with a whole array of policies such as macro policy reforms, fiscal policies, and specific sectoral policies, particularly in key sectors such as agriculture, health and education, energy, etc. In some cases, the operation may deal directly with reforms in certain environmentally sensitive sectors such as energy, transport, water and sanitation, agriculture, and forestry. In these cases, there is an obvious need for careful analysis of environmental, natural resource, and forestry impacts. In other cases, such as public sector reform and governance, there is less potential for likely significant impacts on the natural environment and natural resources. The toolkit is designed to be concise and user-friendly. It consists of three specific modules. The first module identifies relevant transmission channels through which the proposed reform would have a likely effect on the identified environmental, forest, and other natural resource priorities. The second module provides assistance in identifying key environmental issues in the country, regions, or sectors likely to be influenced by the DPL program. The third module presents different tools and methodologies for rapid assessment of the likely significant effects of each reform.

Based on more than 240 real-life examples in over 60 countries, Developing Value is the first large-scale study analyzing the business case for sustainability in emerging markets, the opportunity for businesses to achieve benefits such as higher sales, reduced costs and lower risks from better corporate governance, improved environmental practices, and investments in social and economic development. It pinpoints the many opportunities available to diverse businesses in Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Latin America. The report aims to help business people in emerging markets, identify opportunities to increase profits, by making progress on sustainability. It provides tools to assess, and conduct each business case, analyzing relevancy to emerging markets, i.e., opportunities for businesses to achieve high sales, reduced costs, and lower risks, from improved governance, environmental practices, and investments in socioeconomic development. The companies examined are ordinary businesses taking practical steps to address issues, and, evidence shows there are compelling reasons for action. Other specific opportunities to pursue sustainability include building regulations, developing human capital, and improving access to capital. All these opportunities are documented through case studies from Brazil, China, the Czech Republic, and South Africa. The study further examines variations in businesses by region, and company size, i.e., for small and medium sized enterprises, national companies, and multinational corporations, as well as foreign multinationals headquartered in developed countries, in addition to export-oriented companies, and those focused on domestic markets. Significantly, the study presents a business success case matrix, related to key aspects of sustainability, and recognized business factors, discussing practical steps towards implementation of strategies, priorities, and monitoring. The report is a joint effort by the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank, SustainAbility (United Kingdom), and Ethos Institute - Business and Social Responsibility (Brazil)

Although the link between improved infrastructure services and economic growth is uncertain, it is clear that reforms aimed at creating competition and regulating natural monopolies establish an environment conducive to private sector participation, incentives for companies to strive for efficiency savings that can ultimately be passed on to consumers, and greater provision of services (such as faster roll-out of infrastructure or innovative solutions to service delivery for customers not connected to an existing network). In determining the form that infrastructure restructuring might undertake or the design of a regulatory agency, policymakers can generally benefit from a review of the experiences of other countries. A key element of any decision making process should be a review of how the various types of reform will affect the efficiency of the sector and whether they will increase private financing of its significant investment needs.

Major changes are needed if Africans and their children are to claim the 21st century. With the rapidly growing population, 5 percent annual growth is needed simply to keep the number of poor from rising. Halving severe poverty by 2015 will require annual growth of more than 7 percent, along with a more equitable distribution of income. Trends in Africa will need to change radically for a catch-up process to materialize. This will require determined leadership within Africa. It will require better governance developing stable and representative constitutional arrangements, implementing the rule of law, managing resources transparently, and delivering services effectively to communities and firms. It will require greater investment in Africas people as well as measures that encourage private investment in infrastructure and production. And it will require better support and perhaps more support from the international development community. In facing these challenges, Africa has enormous potential including the potential of its women, who now provide more than half of the regions labor but lack equal access to education and factors of production. This report brings together the recent body of work particularly that emanating from Africa itself to show how some African countries are approaching common issues. African economies and sub-regions are diverse and each will have to find its way to address the challenges of the 21st century.