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Authors assess the dynamics behind the high net resource transfers by donors and creditors to Sub-Saharan African countries. Analyzing the determinants of overall net transfers for a panel of 37 recipient countries in 1978-98, Authors find that country policies mattered little. Donors especially bilateral donors actually made greater transfers to countries with high debt, largely owed to multilateral creditors, when policies were 'bad'. Authors conclude that comprehensive debt relief has the potential, though not the certainty, to restore selectivity in support of good policies. That would make development assistance more effective going forward and increase public support in donor countries.

In 2011, India's economic growth has slowed to below 7 percent and the stock markets mirrored the weakening economic conditions, but recovered somewhat in early 2012. Industrial sector output growth briefly slipped into negative territory. On the demand side, fixed investment and consumption growth slowed. India's exports were growing very strongly through 2011 despite the worsening economic conditions in Europe, which continued to be India's most important export market. The balance of payments continued to be in surplus during April-September 2011, but the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) reserves declined by a small amount since then. The rupee nevertheless depreciated by 20 percent between August and December, before recovering somewhat in early 2012. Macroeconomic policies presented a mixed picture: the central government is likely to miss the ambitious target for fiscal consolidation it had set in the FY2011-12 budget by about one percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Slippages are due to lower-than-expected revenues and increasing outlays on subsidies, which had been given low budgetary allocations in anticipation of strong policy changes, which failed to materialize. In India, the slowdown in GDP growth witnessed over the last two quarters is likely to extend into the coming fiscal year because of the weakness in investment. In FY2011-12 and FY2012-13, GDP growth is forecast to reach around 7-7.5 percent, a significant slowdown from the 9-10 percent growth in the run-up to the global financial crisis. The slowdown is at least partly caused by structural problems (power projects facing delays due to the lack of coal and gas feedstock, mining and the telecom sectors hit by corruption scandals, unavailability of land and infrastructure).

These regional highlights present some of the key trends in developing countries, drawn from the data presented in World Development Indicators 2012, the World Bank's annual compilation of relevant, high-quality, and internationally comparable statistics about development and the quality of people's lives. Charts and short narratives highlight the state and progress of various development topics such as poverty, health, education, the environment, the economy, governance, investment, aid, trade, and capital flows. A global review of progress toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) is presented in the introduction to the world view section of World Development Indicators 2012. The high income economies are the largest emitters of carbon dioxide, but East Asia and the Pacific produces the largest share of global carbon dioxide emissions among developing regions-more than a quarter of total global emissions. As the global economy becomes more integrated, air transport is increasingly important for delivering not only perishable goods such as flowers, but also highly specialized component parts used in transnational production networks. Agriculture is a declining industry in Europe and Central Asia. The share of agriculture in regional Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fell from 19 percent to 7 percent over the last two decades. People in the developing economies of Europe and Central Asia have greater access to commercial bank branches and automated teller machines than people in other developing regions-about 18 commercial bank branches and 45 ATMs per 100,000 adults. Governments and citizens in Latin America and Caribbean spend more on health care as a share of GDP than other developing regions, which is reflected in generally good health outcomes. Poverty is falling in the Latin America and Caribbean, most notably in Brazil-the most populous country in the region. South Asia has the second lowest business start-up costs among developing regions.

The Indian economy recovered from the slowdown at the time of the global financial crisis with strong Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth, in particular over the first half of FY2010-11. The agricultural sector bounced back strongly after the 2010 monsoon brought normal levels of rainfall, and the industrial sector registered double-digit growth for three consecutive quarters. Inflation came down to 7.5 percent in November but then accelerated again to 8.4 percent in December because of a renewed food supply shock. The current account deficit in FY2009-10 was the largest ever (in US$ terms) and the monthly deficit widened further during the first half of FY2010-11, but the trend then reversed with import growth slowing and export growth accelerating in September-December 2010. With the significant inflation differential between India and its trading partners, the rupees real effective exchange rate (REER) strengthened. On the fiscal side, massive windfall revenue from wireless spectrum auctions and buoyant tax revenue are likely to be offset by two supplementary spending bills. Monetary policy tightening continued with increases in policy rates. This update also discusses several medium-term issues: the link between the real exchange rate and growth, a long-term look at education, demographics and growth, the challenges facing the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), and the mid-term evaluation of the eleventh development plan. On the real exchange rate, economists have pointed out that the most successful emerging market economies have maintained an undervalued exchange rate to promote exports. In India, the real exchange rate has been broadly stable since the early 1990s, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) judges it fairly valued with respect to different measures of equilibrium. However, the growing trade deficit and a large fiscal deficit do not quite fit this picture. Discussing policies, we argue that it would be best to focus on policies that increase productivity and competitiveness.

The global financial crisis and ensuing credit crunch has revived the discussion on the role of public sector in the financial system around the world and in El Salvador, authorities have announced plans to step up their activities. A clearly defined strategy for the public banks, focused on complementing private sector activity, is necessary as their activities expand to improve access to finance and diversify the sources of funding. Any process of growth needs to accompany by improvement in risk management processes, governance arrangements and enhanced supervision. Going forward, the two public retail banks should increase their specialization in different market segments. The development bank role can be enhanced while maintaining its second tier status. To make the guarantee funds effective, in addition to scale their size, several operational features need to be improved.

Many countries in the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region, especially in South America, fared well during the global crisis and are now on a strong growth path. The region s recession in 2009 was relatively short lived and, with the notable exception of Mexico, remarkably mild. The current pace of economic recovery is exceeding expectations, with gross domestic product (GDP) projected to grow in the 5-6 percent range in 2010. This report discusses LAC's newfound resilience in the midst of financial globalization, examining key features of the cyclical behavior of LAC economies in comparison to other emerging economies and to its own past. Resilience is defined throughout this report in a broad sense to denote the ability of an economy to navigate with minimum disturbances through shocks, cushioning their negative spillovers in bad times, and recovering fast after a downturn. The report is structured as follows: first, it evaluates the relative performance of LAC countries during the contractionary period generated by the recent global crisis, to shed light on LAC's ability to shield its economies or soften the blow of a large external shock. Second, a similar exercise is conducted for the recovery phase of the cycle, when in the aftermath of an external shock more resilient countries will be expected to have a faster and more robust recovery. Third, it takes a deeper look at the different driving forces behind the recovery, including the role of domestic demand, commodity prices, and the connection to emerging Asia. Fourth, it provides evidence of the ability of different countries in LAC to conduct counter-cyclical policies in response to the global financial crisis. Lastly, a concluding section warns about the main macro-financial tensions and challenges lying ahead for the region.

The article empirically examines the determinants of debt distress, defined as periods in which countries resort to any of three forms of exceptional finance: significant arrears on external debt, Paris Club rescheduling, and non-concessional International Monetary Fund lending. Probit regressions show that three factors explain a substantial fraction of the cross-country and time-series variation in the incidence of debt distress: the debt burden, the quality of policies and institutions, and shocks. The relative importance of these factors varies with the level of development. These results are robust to a variety of alternative specifications, and the core specifications have substantial out-of-sample predictive power. The quantitative implications of these results are examined for the lending strategies of official creditors.