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The Little Data Book 2016 is a pocket edition of World Development Indicators 2016. It is intended as a quick reference for users of the World Development Indicators database, book, and mobile app. The database covers more than 1,200 indicators and spans more than 50 years. The 214 country tables present the latest available data for World Bank member countries and other economies with populations of more than 30,000. The 14 summary tables cover regional and income group aggregates.

Tajikistan’s economy exceeded expectations during the first six months of 2015 despite a challenging external environment. According to official data, GDP growth slowed only moderately from 6.7 percent in the first half of 2014 to 6.4 percent year on year (y/y) in the first half of 2015, even as remittances from Russia fell, global demand weakened, and prices for the country’s key export commodities such as aluminum and cotton dropped significantly. Domestic factors continued to drive growth, and both the construction and industrial sectors expanded as the economy’s focus shifted from consumption to investment. The state budget surplus reached 1 percent of GDP, and the external public debt to GDP ratio dropped to below 20 percent. The sharp decline in remittances is limiting the growth of household consumption and could threaten the sustainability of recent gains in poverty reduction and shared prosperity. According to the National Bank of Tajikistan (NBT), remittances dropped by 32 percent (y/y), in US dollar terms during the first six months of 2015. Although the decline was less dramatic (about 18 percent) in Tajikistan somoni (TJS) terms, income losses were much larger than implied by GDP statistics. Falling remittances, limited employment creation outside the public sector, and rising prices are slowing the rate of poverty reduction. Moreover, the lack of well-targeted social programs leaves households vulnerable to economic shocks.

The Kenya water supply and sanitation (WSS) sector has been on a long path of facilitating commercial lending to Water Service Providers (WSPs). A key component of this effort is the evolution of rating the credit risk of WSPs for local lenders. However, the trade-off in credit rating WSPs is to provide the best credit analysis to help lenders assess the creditworthiness of WSPs, yet have a system that is simple and affordable enough to replicate on an annual basis. To solve this trade-off, the Water Services Regulatory Board (WASREB) and the Water and Sanitation Program of the World Bank have created a Creditworthiness Index for the WSPs in Kenya. In lieu of performing a full shadow rating analysis, which is much more thorough yet also more time-consuming and costly, the Creditworthiness Index provides a simplified snapshot of the financial and operational performance of WSPs.

The Little Data Book on Financial Development 2015/2016 is a pocket edition of the Global Financial Development Database, published as part of the work on the Global Financial Development Report 2015/2016: Long-Term Finance. It contains 39 indicators of financial development in 202 economies, including measures of (1) financial depth, (2) access, (3) efficiency, and (4) stability of financial institutions and markets.

This note aims to build understanding of the existing disaster risk financing and insurance (DRFI) tools in use in The Marshall Islands and to identify gaps where potential engagement could further develop financial resilience. The likelihood that a hazardous event will have a significant impact on the Marshall Islands has risen with the increasing levels of population and assets in the urban areas of Majuro and Ebeye. The low-lying atolls are at risk of damage to both assets and people as a result of storm surges and tsunamis. The Marshall Islands is expected to incur, on average over the long term, annual losses of US$3 million due to earthquakes and tropical cyclones. In the next 50 years, the Marshall Islands has a 50 percent chance of experiencing a loss exceeding US$53 million. The government takes an ex-ante approach to financing the cost of disasters, but the resources available are limited. The Marshall Islands has a maximum amount of US$15.6 million potentially available in ex-ante instruments to facilitate disaster response. The government s post-disaster budget execution process relies on a variety of financial tools, but the size of the economy limits access to immediate post-disaster cash resources. A number of options for improving disaster risk financing and insurance are presented here for consideration: (a) develop an integrated disaster risk financing and insurance strategy; (b) assess the domestic insurance market for both public and private assets to establish what products are currently offered and to determine their level of uptake; (c) carry out a quantitative analysis to determine whether contingent credit could be an effective tool to access additional liquidity post-disaster; and (d) investigate the possibility of establishing policies for financial assistance to disaster victims in remote communities.

The Philippine economy has emerged as one of the fastest growing economies in East Asia, with growth accelerating to 7.1 percent in the third quarter. The acceleration of domestic demand since the first quarter of 2012 reflects the country's strong macroeconomic fundamentals, stronger government finances, and high confidence in the Aquino government's commitment to reform. Sound macroeconomic fundamentals, as seen in low inflation, and large current account surpluses and foreign exchange reserves, have continued to shield the economy from external headwinds, while a more diversified export basket allowed total exports to grow, despite the decline in electronics exports. Overall, the economy is expected to expand by over six percent this year, up from 3.9 percent last year. However, more structural reforms are needed to create more and better jobs, as the overall labor market outcome has been less responsive to the higher economic growth. The economy needs to shift from consumption towards investment, both public and private. The special focus sections of this update demonstrate that the implementation of such reforms can have high payoffs in terms of jobs and inclusive growth. Finally, by scaling-up and broadening several open government/open data initiatives in the country, the strengthening of inclusive institutions would be greatly enhanced, in line with the core principles of this government.

The corporate scorecard is designed to provide a snapshot of the Bank's overall performance, including its business modernization, in the context of development results. It facilitates strategic dialogue between management and the Board on progress made and areas that need attention. With the results measurement system, which was adopted for the 13th replenishment of the International Development Association (IDA13) in 2002, the Bank became the first multilateral development institution to use a framework with quantitative indicators to monitor results and performance. The corporate scorecard expands this approach to the entire World Bank covering both the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and IDA. The corporate scorecard uses an integrated results and performance framework, which is organized in a four-tier structure that groups indicators along the results chain. Tier one is development context. Tier two is development results supported by the Bank. Whether the Bank is managing its operations and services effectively is shown in tier three. Tier four focuses on whether the Bank is managing skills, capacity, resources, and processes efficiently; and is business modernization on track?

This note, prepared as background for the G20 submission, explores the potential for Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) to increase the volume of climate financing by leveraging and intermediating resources, through two main avenues: leveraging shareholder capital through the MDBs non-concessional windows, by raising debt from capital markets to finance climate investment; and mobilizing and 'pooling' concessional flows to support climate investment beyond the MDBs own balance sheets. The note is organized along these two lines, with the aim of providing some insights into the feasibility for MDBs to mobilize resources to leverage a significantly larger volume of climate financing assistance. The next section of this note provides information on how MDBs can support concessional flows to climate investments through pooling of external concessional flows beyond traditional balance-sheet capital. Leveraging shareholder capital and mobilizing and-pooling concessional flows are two potential avenues through which MDBs can leverage and intermediate resources to ultimately increase the volume of climate financing. The experience gained by the MDBs and their clients and donors from implementing these financing arrangements should provide helpful lessons for the development community as it considers how to develop the green climate fund and other future climate change initiatives.

Output-Based Aid (OBA) and other results-based financing mechanisms are gaining popularity in the development context for many reasons, in particular, the desire to link scarce public funding with actual results on the ground. But withholding disbursements until the delivery of 'results' or 'outputs' requires that the service providers delivering the results must have access to finance (A2F) to pay for the 'inputs' in the first place. Such finance is not always available or affordable. The purpose of this working paper is to outline some of the key issues related to OBA and A2F. The analysis focuses on the energy, water, and health sectors. Micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) financing is the main topic; however, OBA is ultimately about poor households affording access to basic services, and many OBA schemes attempt to address A2F for households, so some of these innovations are also described. The working paper is expected to support a consultative process between experts dealing with A2F challenges and experts on OBA. This process should help raise awareness of the OBA approach among potential financiers, and help consider solutions (instruments, partnerships, capacity building) so that OBA and other similar results-based financing mechanisms can be brought to scale and integrated into broader sector policy, where appropriate.

Egypt's growth accelerated in the second half of FY10. Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in FY10 reached 5.8 percent, up from 4.4 percent in FY09 and 4.8 percent in FY10, taking up overall GDP growth to an average of 5.3 percent for the full FY10. Egypt's macroeconomic outlook is stable. Assuming that domestic demand holds up, and Egyptian exports continue their observed recent trend, we expect that the Egyptian economy grows in the range of 6.0 to 6.2 percent in FY11. This is underpinned by strong commitment to maintain structural reforms momentum, and a relatively stable global economy. However, unemployment will remain a challenge as growth as high as 6 percent will barely absorb the increasing number of new entrants to the labor market. Unemployment will continue to be an overriding concern and will gradually fall to around 8.7 percent in FY11. Finally, inflationary pressures are expected to rise, as global prices are likely to filter to domestic consumer prices, domestic demand will gain more solid ground, and gradual adjustment of energy prices will be implemented. Interest rates are not thus expected to rise, yet real interest rates will remain low or negative. This outlook is consistent with that of standard and poor's ratings services which affirmed in 2010.

The Indonesian economic quarterly reports on and synthesizes the past three month s key developments in Indonesia s economy. It places them in a longer-term and global context, and assesses their implications for the outlook for Indonesia s economic and social welfare. Its coverage ranges from the macro economy to financial markets to indicators of human welfare and development. Indonesia s economy appears to be broadly backed on track. Economic activity has been picking up, inflation has remained moderate, financial markets have risen, and the newly reelected government, having established the strong fundamentals that supported Indonesia through the global crisis, appears to be now gearing up for new investments in Indonesia s physical infrastructure, human services and institutions of state. Indonesia seems well-positioned to get back on its pre-crisis growth trajectory, with the possibility of further acceleration and more inclusive growth. The sustainability of the global recovery is still not entirely clear and portfolio flows into emerging markets, which have surged in the last nine months, may as easily be reversed as policy makers elsewhere move to unwind the large monetary and fiscal stimulus efforts initiated over the last year.

A solid financial armor could not protect Thailand against the impact of the global financial crisis on its real economy. Despite a sound banking system and low external vulnerabilities, the Thai economy contracted 5.7 percent between October 2008 and March 2009, as the magnitude and speed of the contraction in foreign demand, and resulting shock to the real economy, has been greater than anticipated. There continues to be little impact of the global financial crisis on Thailand's banks: liquidity remained adequate as financial institutions did not face solvency concerns given their adequate capitalization and lack of exposure to 'toxic' assets or risky derivative contracts. The combination of a sound financial sector, low external roll-over and balance-of-payment financing requirements, and, more recently, large current account surpluses, has led to capital inflows, build-up in reserves and an appreciation of the Baht relative to other currencies in the region. However, the impact of the global crisis on the real sector was far more severe than expected. Export volumes contracted by 8.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008, compared to the World Bank's forecast in December of a 3.0 percent expansion. Exports contracted a further 16 percent in the first quarter of 2009. The aggravation of Thailand's political crisis, which had been dampening investor and consumer confidence since 2006, compounded the shock to the real economy. As a result, real gross domestic product (GDP) contracted in the fourth quarter of 2008 and first quarter of 2009 after 38 quarters of growth, and is expected to contract for 2009 as a whole, the first annual contraction since the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998.

The Little Data Book 2015 is a pocket edition of World Development Indicators 2015. It is intended as a quick reference for users of the World Development Indicators database, book, and mobile app. The database covers more than 1,200 indicators and spans more than 50 years. The 214 country tables present the latest available data for World Bank member countries and other economies with populations of more than 30,000. The 14 summary tables cover regional and income group aggregates.