The Investment Climate Study is a
evaluation of the Operations Evaluation Department (OED).
The OED report reviews the Bank’s investment climate lending
and non-lending activities during fiscal years 1993 through
2002-03. The report presents the collected findings of
several evaluative exercises: a literature review; an
analysis of investment climate themes in country assistance
strategies and sector strategies; an analysis of lending

(covering the activities of IBRD/IDA), the Operations Evaluation Group (covering IFC), and
the Operations Evaluation Unit (covering MIGA). The purpose of the evaluation is to assess
the effectiveness of the World Bank Group (WBG) in helping its member countries improve
their investment climates, within the context of the WBG’s overall mission of poverty
reduction and sustainable development. Its findings and recommendations provide guidance for
the WBG’s future strategy and activities in this area. The evaluation was conducted in parallel

The paper analyzes the linkages between the reform strategies in transition countries and
economic performance. We focus on agriculture because of the sharpness of the policy
changes, fundamental differences among countries, and relative simplicity of agricultural
relationships. We document post reform performance in the transition countries of Asia and
Europe. We show how: a.) pricing reform and subsidy reductions; b.) land rights reform
and policies that affect farm restructuring; and c.) the presence institutions that facilitate

Bleak short-term economic outlook raises the risk that social and environmental
achievements may not be sustained. The changed economic circumstances have exposed shortcomings in Brazil’s development model, epitomized by the struggle to achieve a sustainable fiscal policy. Against this background, some Brazilians are now asking whether the gains of the past decade might have been an illusion, created by the commodity boom, but unsustainable in today’s less forgiving international environment. Brazil thus finds itself at an important juncture and, to a certain extent, the policy

Sri Lanka is in many respects a
development success story. With economic growth averaging
more than 7 percent a year over the past five years on top
of an average growth of 6 percent the preceding five years,
Sri Lanka has made notable strides towards the goals of
ending extreme poverty and promoting shared prosperity (the
‘twin goals’). The national poverty headcount rate declined
from 22.7 to 6.7 percent between 2002 and 2012/13, while

Afghanistan is a deeply fragile and
conflict affected state. It has been in almost constant
conflict for over 35 years since the Soviet invasion of
1979. Today the country is at a crossroads in its
development with economic growth down sharply and poverty
incidence stubbornly high. Afghanistan faces tremendous
development challenges. Gross domestic product (GDP)
per-capita is among the lowest in the world, poverty is deep

This Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD)
covers eight small Pacific island countries (PIC8):
Kiribati, Marshall Islands, the Federated States of
Micronesia, Palau, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. The
objective of the SCD is to identify the most critical
constraints and opportunities facing the PIC8 to meet the
global goals of ending absolute poverty and boosting shared
prosperity in a sustainable manner. The report is intended

Ecosystem accounting is a coherent and integrated approach to the assessment of

Although weather shocks are a major
source of income fluctuation, most of the world's poor
lack insurance coverage against them. Absence of formal
insurance contributes to poverty traps, as investment
decisions are conflicted with risk management ones:
risk-averse farmers tend to underinvest and produce lower
yielding yet safer crops. In the past few years, weather
index insurance has gained increasing attention as an

China Railways Corporation (CRC) is
considering new ways to attract capital to support the
strategic development of the railway sector. Currently,
government is the predominant equity financier, with debt
being supplied by domestic bank credits and limited amounts
borrowed from International Financial Institutions such as
the World Bank and Asian Development Bank. Considering its
high level of accumulated debt and liabilities (RMB 3.7

Once concentrated among a few large
economies, global flows of goods, services, and capital now
reach an ever-larger number of countries worldwide. Global
trade in goods and in services both increased 10 times
between 1980 and 2011, while foreign direct investment (FDI)
flows increased almost 30-fold. A value chain is global when
some of these stages are carried out in more than one
country, most notably when discrete tasks within a

The countries comprising the Southern
African Customs Union (SACU) are currently not very
integrated into global value chains (GVCs), potentially
missing out on important development opportunities.
Accordingly, we explore high level options for promoting
their integration. Given East Asia’s spectacular success
with integrating into GVCs, we first assess the probability
that SACU can copy their flying geese pattern. That was