The World Bank assessed the insolvency and creditor or debtor regimes (ICR) of Moldova pursuant to the joint international monetary fund (IMF) and World Bank initiative on the observance of standards and codes (ROSC). The Moldovan authorities have made remarkable progress over the last decade in taking on board a broad range of reform related to the commercial law regime, including the laws pertaining to creditor protection and insolvency.

This paper considers the importance of macroeconomic factors as well as investment climate for foreign direct invest­ ment attraction in the Baltic states. It reviews some of the indicators for measuring the investment climate and their usefulness as indicators of strength of FDI attraction and uses the results of econometric analysis to consider relative importance of various macroeconomic factors. The results suggest that perceptions of corruption and fiscal policy are some of the more important drivers of FDI attraction.

Women in post-conflict economies face a
number of challenges. Often their businesses stay at
embryonic stages only, due to three key limitations relating
to: knowledge of business vision and management; access to
finance and markets; and access to role models and networks.
Added to the complexity is the risk of having to start all
over again due to their countriesapos; political instability
and the limited infrastructure to make their businesses

As a result of a determined regulatory
reform process and an economic modernization process over
the past two decades, Cambodia has experienced extraordinary
economic growth. In 2004, Cambodia became the first
low-income country to join the World Trade Organization
(WTO). Since then, Cambodia has grown to become one of East
Asia s most open economies, especially in the services
sector. Cambodia s impressive economic growth owes much of

Croatia, the newest member-state of the
European Union (EU), undertook significant justice reforms
during the last decade. Many were part of its
justice-related EU accession process, including the
enactment and implementation of new laws and amendment of
others, improved case management and enforcement and
computerization of land registers. Benchmarking
Croatia's justice sector indicates that it compares

This paper studies the credit market
implications and real effects of one the largest borrower
bailout programs in history, enacted by the government of
India against the backdrop of the 2008-2009 financial
crisis. The study finds that the stimulus program had no
effect on productivity, wages, or consumption, but led to
significant changes in credit allocation and an increase in
defaults. Post-program loan performance declines faster in

In this issue: dollar a day revisited;
focus: strategies for developing countries; farm policy in
developing countries: what next? Land in transition: reform
and poverty in rural Vietnam; unpredictable aid;
microfinance meets the market; and development impact of the
war on drugs.

In this issue: making finance work for
Africa; focus on water in the Middle East: how to manage
scarcity; fungibility, and the apos;flypaper effectapos; of
aid; do girls gain from migration-induced male absence? The
distributional effects of World Trade Organization (WTO)
agricultural reforms in rich and poor countries;
clientelism, credibility, and policy choices of young
democracies; and entry regulation as a barrier to entrepreneurship.

The Great Timber Heist: The Logging Industry in Papua New Guinea, exposes massive tax evasion and financial misreporting by foreign logging companies, allegedly resulting in nonpayment of hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes.

An Integrated Fiduciary Assessment (IFA)
was conducted for the proposed Transformation of Agriculture
Sector Program Phase-3 (PSTA 3) Program-for-Results (PforR)
operation. The assessment used the DRAFT Guidance Notes on
Program-for-Results Operations and Requirements of OP/BP
9.00, Program for Results, (PforR). The OECD-DAC four
pillars approach was also used to define the inherent risks
in the procurement environment. The assessment covered the

Through steady structural reforms and
good macroeconomic management, Tunisia has been successful
in sustaining growth. The country enjoyed a 4.8 percentage
average annual growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over
most of the 2000`s, placing the country among the leading
performers in the region. Most of the growth was driven by
private enterprises in the export sectors. Tunisia did
better than most countries in the region because it started

Despite decades of war and instability,
Iraq's abundant natural resources, strategic geographic
location and cultural history endow it with tremendous
potential for growth and diverse economic development.
Driven by windfall oil revenues in recent years the
Government of Iraq (GoI) has invested heavily in rebuilding
infrastructure with abundant oil reserves ensuring steady
progress. However, decades of socialist policies have