The aim of this report is to identify a set of concrete steps that the government of Mongolia might take to promote private-sector activity and greater integration with the global economy in a way that leads to job creation, broad-based growth and most importantly, poverty reduction. It does this by combining an assessment of the investment climate faced by firms (through analyses of firm and household surveys and supply chains in selected sectors) with a diagnostic trade integration study. The report is structured as follows.

A joint team from the International
Monetary Fund's (IMF's) Monetary and Financial
Systems Department (MFD) and the World Bank visited Egypt
between May 6 and May 21, 2007 to update the assessment of
the Egyptian Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) that
had been conducted in June 2002 and completed in September
2002. The work under the FSAP update aimed to assess
progress in reforming the financial sector and strengthening

Albania has undertaken major reforms in
its system of local government finance since 2000. What had
been a system in which local functions were ambiguous and
financing was largely provided through tightly controlled
earmarked grants is now one in which functions are
relatively clear and local governments have more autonomy
over the allocation of funds. A new system of competitive
grants for infrastructure investment has been introduced.

The study on the sources of rural growth
in Burundi results from a meticulous work carried out by
eminent experts of the World Bank in response to a request
of the Government of Burundi. It describes the global
environment, which explains poverty aggravation and builds
proposals to overcome most binding constraints to growth in
Burundi. This study is an important contribution in the
fight against poverty, as it identifies ways to resume

The private enterprise sector in Bosnia
and Herzegovina (BiH) has been expanding steadily, and
estimates are that it presently contributes close to 50
percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The BiH private
enterprise sector initially developed following the
privatization program starting in 1999. Under that program,
the majority of state owned enterprises (SOEs) that were
privatized were done so using the voucher privatization

This report deals with medium and
long-term growth issues rather than the challenges posed by
the world financial crisis, the structural policy options
presented in the report become even more important in that
context, and can help to partially mitigate the impact of
the crisis on Macedonia. Section B looks at poverty and
inequality issues. Section C examines Macedonia's past
growth in terms of total factor productivity analysis,

The present study examines the
challenges facing municipal governments in FYR Macedonia.
The introductory chapter provides some further context for
these developments, in terms of the challenges they pose
for urban areas and their governments. Chapter Two examines
issues for financial management of municipalities under the
decentralized regime, and the attendant need for improving
local government capacity. The third chapter highlights

This report deals with medium and
long-term growth issues rather than the challenges posed by
the world financial crisis, the structural policy options
presented in the report become even more important in that
context, and can help to partially mitigate the impact of
the crisis on Macedonia. Section B looks at poverty and
inequality issues. Section C examines Macedonia's past
growth in terms of total factor productivity analysis,

This report describes the results of a
ROSC assessment of the accounting, financial reporting and
auditing requirements and practices of the Republic of
Tajikistan's enterprise and financial sectors. The
report assesses the quality of the Tajik financial reporting
framework and makes policy recommendations for improvement.
With a gross national income per capita of US$430,
Tajikistan remains the poorest country in the former Soviet

This paper revisits the institutional
determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) using a
comprehensive new data set on the regulations that govern
FDI in more than 80 countries. It exploits the presence of
confirmed zero investment flows between countries to
estimate productivity cut-offs of firms that invest abroad
profitably. This approach corrects likely biases arising
from firm heterogeneity and country selection in a

Cambodia's growth over 1998-2008
has been remarkable (almost 10 percent per annum for a
decade). This paper applies a "growth diagnostic"
approach to understand how this happened and how it can be
sustained. Past growth has been driven by the coincidence of
a set of historical and geographic factors (including
opportunistic policy responses), together with the use of
natural assets (although in a non sustainable way) and the

The Country Environmental Analysis,
presents a review of environmental priorities, public
environmental expenditures and the supporting institutional
framework and makes recommendations to improve the
efficiency and effectiveness of public environmental
expenditure in Azerbaijan. The focus is to identify areas
for improvement and changes to ensure that the process of
establishing environment-related priorities is sufficiently