The Government of the Republic of Uganda
has requested an update of the 2006 Diagnostic Trade
Integration Study (DTIS) and has asked the World Bank to
take the leading role in this exercise. The update's
objectives are: (a) to take stock of progress in the
mainstreaming of trade in the national development plan and
of the implementation of action matrix recommendations; (b)
to complement and deepen the analysis in selected areas; and

The second quarter of 2013 was an
eventful one as Indonesia's economy, policy settings
and financial markets adjusted to pressures which have been
mounting over recent quarters and to shifts in the global
environment. Following slightly weaker-than-expected growth
in the first quarter, there are signs that domestic demand,
particularly investment, has continued to moderate. On the
fiscal front, the combination of lower revenues and higher

In order to have both dynamic and better
balanced growth, Serbia needs to rely more on exports. In
the last decade, Serbia's growth has depended primarily
on demand that was fueled by excessive debt finance. In the
future, the Serbian economy would be better served by
increasing its reliance on exports as a new, potentially
powerful source of growth. Serbia's export share of
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is currently 25 percent, but

The global dialogue surrounding the
United Nations framework convention for climate change has
focused on two strategies for addressing challenges
associated with climate change: (1) mitigation (reducing the
accumulation of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere);
and (2) adaptation (reducing the vulnerability of societies
and ecosystems to the impacts of climate change). Forests
feature in both of these strategies. The role of forests as

Sustainable forest management (SFM)
certification emerged in the 1980s and 1990s as a mechanism
to promote responsible forest use and as an alternative to
boycotts of forest products amid growing concerns about
forest degradation and destruction. Since then, forest
certification has evolved into a multifaceted market-based
mechanism to promote compliance with sets of ecological,
social, and economic criteria to enhance sustainability.

This note on gender-sensitive
post-disaster assessments is the eighth in a series of
guidance notes on gender issues in disaster risk management
(DRM) in the East Asia and the Pacific region. Targeting
World Bank staff, clients and development partners, this
note gives an overview of the main reasons for assessing
gender impacts as part of a post-disaster needs assessment,
identifies the key challenges, and recommends strategies and

The rural sector, defined here as the
economic sector that falls under the scope of the Ministry
of Agriculture and Water (MAH), the Ministry of Animal
Resources (MRA), and the Ministry of the Environment and
Sustainable Development (MEDD), is one of the pillars of the
Burkina Faso economy. Although its contribution to GDP has
decreased in recent times from 35 percent in 1999 to 30
percent in 2011 due to the development of the other sectors

The design, implementation, and
monitoring and evaluation of livestock sector public and
private sector investments are based on evidence and
information generated by a multitude of data collection
systems, including regular and one-off, or ad-hoc, surveys.
This note reviews the major survey methods that are
regularly implemented by developing country governments,
including: the agricultural and livestock census;

Despite the widespread tariff reductions
sparked by the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade
Agreement, borders in the region remain thick, with many
hurdles standing in the way of regional trade. Although
anecdotal evidence suggests that nontariff measures raise
trade costs and inhibit trade in the region, little is known
about the magnitude of these economic effects. This paper
uses a newly collected data set to quantify the incidence of

After a policy-engineered slowdown in
2012, which saw GDP growth decline to 4.8 percent, the
lowest since 2008, Bhutan's economy is expected to
rebound to 6.5 percent this year, supported by hydropower
construction and higher electricity and food production,
following favorable rains. The tight fiscal stance
introduced in 2012 has been maintained to bring spending in
line with lower non-hydro revenues and a slowdown in foreign

This Africa's pulse newsletter
includes the following headings: Sub-Saharan African
countries continue to grow at a steady pace; the
region's decade-long economic expansion appears
sustainable; and for newly resource-rich countries, strong
governance will be key to harnessing resource wealth for development

In 2009 the Gabonese authorities defined
a new vision whose strategic guidelines are detailed in an
operational plan, the strategic plan for an emerging Gabon
(PSGE) whose goal is to turn Gabon into an emerging country
within one generation. PSGE includes an ambitious public
investment program to develop basic infrastructure and to
create the necessary economic environment for the emergence
of a diversified economy. The major challenge for PSGE, and