The Agro-Sylvo Pastoral Exports and Markets Development Project of Niger objective and the main components of the Additional Financing (AF) will remain the same as the original project.
... Voir la suite The AF will build on past successes to ensure the consolidation and scaling-up of sub-projects implemented in the original project, the diversification into new value adding segments (storage, processing, and marketing), and the linkages with the commercial banking sector. An additional focus of the AF will be the enhanced support to the operational strengthening of established Interprofessions or Inter professional organizations: livestock products, onion, cowpeas, sesame, tiger nuts, and gum Arabic). This Project Paper seeks the approval of the Executive Directors to provide Additional Financing to the Republic of Niger in the amount of US$13.8 million for the Niger Agro-Sylvo-Pastoral Exports and Markets Development Project (PRODEX). The PRODEX aims at adequately addressing the numerous constraints that continue to hinder the competitiveness of supply chains and the development of agriculture and livestock in Niger. The proposed Additional Financing would help finance the costs associated with the scaling up of PRODEX activities, with a view to securing a higher level of Development Objective achievements over an additional two-year project implementation period. The AF will enhance the project impact by expanding its coverage to a larger group of emerging market-oriented small and medium enterprises in project-targeted agriculture and livestock Value Chains. Project impact will also be enhanced by laying the groundwork for a sound exit strategy and strong sustainability.
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The Joint Ministerial Committee of the Boards of Governors of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on the Transfer of Real Resources to Developing Countries, the Development Committee, held its eighty-ninth meeting on April 12, 2014, in the Preston Auditorium of the World Bank in Washington, DC.
... Voir la suite The meeting consisted of a single session, preceded by an informal Ministerial-level lunch for Members only on the same day. Members circulated their written statements in advance and these are part of this document. Also included is a note by the International Monetary Fund Managing Director distributed ahead of the meeting. The meeting started at 3:15 p.m. with opening statements by Dr. Kim, President of the World Bank Group, and Ms. Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund, and ended at 5:30 p.m. It was chaired by Mr. Marek Belka, President, National Bank of Poland. The Agenda (Annex A) was adopted at the beginning of the meeting, followed by a discussion of the agenda topic: a paper entitled 'growth in the post-crisis global economy: policy challenges for developing countries'. In addition to the above discussion topic, a paper entitled 'progress report on mainstreaming disaster risk management in World Bank Group Operations' was submitted to the Committee as a background report. Ministers commented on these documents in their written statements to the Development Committee. The Communique (Annex B) was adopted at the end of the meeting and records the salient points and outcome of the Ministerial discussion.
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The development objective of the Deepening Medium Term Budget Framework (MTBF) and Strengthening Financial Accountability Project for Bangladesh is to deepen and institutionalize the MTBF and build a more strategic and performance oriented budget management process, while strengthening financial accountability across the expenditure management cycle.
... Voir la suite This restructuring will bring the following changes: (i) partial extension of the closing date by two months, from July 31, 2014 to September 30, 2014 in order to provide the additional time needed for 26 scholarship students already enrolled in overseas master's programs to complete studies and fund costs related to scholarships for August and September 2014 from the project grant. Only expenditures related to the completion of overseas master's programs for the 26 scholarship students already enrolled will be eligible after July 31, 2014; (ii) a reallocation between spending categories to create a new spending category exclusively for expenditures eligible in the extension period; and (iii) an amendment to the grant agreement (GA) to formalize the above changes.
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Restrictions on economic activity in area C of the West Bank have been particularly detrimental to the Palestinian economy. Area C constitutes about 61 percent of the West Bank territory.
... Voir la suite Area C is richly endowed with natural resources and it is contiguous, whereas areas A and B are smaller territorial islands. Mobilizing the area C potential will help a faltering Palestinian economy. Since area C is where the majority of the West Bank's natural resources laid, the impact of these restrictions on the Palestinian economy has been considerable. Thus, the key to Palestinian prosperity continues to lie in the removal of these restrictions with due regard for Israel's security. This report shows that rolling back the restrictions will bring substantial benefits to the Palestinian economy and can usher in a new period of increasing Palestinian gross domestic product (GDP) and substantially improve prospects for sustained growth. This report examines the economic benefits of lifting the restrictions on movement and access as well as other administrative obstacles to Palestinian investment and economic activity in area C. It focuses on the economic potential of area C and does not prejudge the status of any territory which may be subject to negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis. The authors examine potential direct, sector-specific benefits, but also indirect benefits related to improvements in physical and institutional infrastructure, as well as spillover effects to other sectors of the Palestinian economy. Realizing the full potential of such investments requires other changes as well - first, the rolling back of the movement and access restrictions in force outside area C, which prevent the easy export of Palestinian products and inhibit tourists and investors from accessing area C; and second, further reforms by the Palestinian authority to better enable potential investors to register businesses, enforce contracts, and acquire finance.
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Publication 89370 JUL 02, 2014
Niksic, Orhan; Eddin, Nur Nasser; Cali Massimiliano
Global growth is projected to pick up to 3.4 percent in 2015 and 3.5 percent in 2016, propelled by highincome countries. Developing country growth will benefit from these tailwinds, with growth projected to increase from 4.8 percent in 2014 to 5.5 percent in 2016broadly in line with potential.
... Voir la suite Global growth projections for 2014, however, have been marked down from 3.2 percent to 2.8 percent on account of the bumpy start this year, buffeted by poor weather in the United States, financial market turbulence and the conflict in Ukraine. The outlook for the East Asia and the Pacific region continues to reflect several counterbalancing factors, including domestic policy adjustment, volatile financing conditions, political crisis in Thailand, and sustained recovery in global demand for exports. Regional GDP growth is expected to slow down slightly to 7.0 percent by 2016, about 2 percentage points slower than the pre-crisis boom years but broadly in line with potential. Regional risks include volatility and eventual tightening of global financing conditions, possible setbacks in Chinas restructuring and a weaker contribution from net exports than assumed in the baseline. Potential escalation of regional political tensions presents additional risk to the outlook.
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Ponzis are among the most ubiquitous and least understood phenomena of economic life. They acquired a certain salience with the global financial crisis of 2008 and the crash of Bernie Madoffs celebrated Ponzi scheme.
... Voir la suite This paper explains the structure of Ponzi schemes and goes on to argue that what makes this such a troubling phenomenon is its ability to be camouflaged amidst legitimate practices. It is shown, for instance, that the common practice of giving stock options to employees could be a potential Ponzi that allows corporations to flourish for a while by borrowing from its own future. The paper goes on to discuss the need for intelligent regulation to incise harmful Ponzis (not all Ponzis are harmful) while taking care not to damage other legitimate activities that surround them.
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Document de travail de recherche sur les politiques WPS6967 JUL 01, 2014
This paper uses a panel of annual observations for 198 banks in 19 Middle East and North Africa countries over 2001-12 to develop an early warning system for forecasting bank insolvency based on a multivariate logistic regression framework.
... Voir la suite The results show that the traditional CAMEL indicators are significant predictors of bank insolvency in the region. The predictive power of the model, both in-sample and out-of-sample, is reasonably good, as measured by the receiver operating characteristic curve. The findings of the paper suggest that banking supervision in the Middle East and North Africa could be strengthened by introducing a fundamentals-based, off-site monitoring system to assess the soundness of financial institutions.
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Document de travail de recherche sur les politiques WPS6969 JUL 01, 2014
This report contains the World Bank Group Boards' calendar for the period of July to September 2014, specifying the Boards' engagements, such as meetings and briefings.
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Ratings for the Southern Africa Regional Gas Project for Mozambique were as follows: outcome was satisfactory, risk to development outcome or global environment outcome was moderate, Bank performance was satisfactory, Borrower (of guaranteed loan) and implementing party performance was satisfactory, and Government performance was satisfactory.
... Voir la suite Some lessons learned included: a relatively small financial commitment by the Bank facilitated a much larger investment in the project. Where possible, the Bank should enter the project preparation process as early as possible. A financially strong and technically capable stakeholder (Sasol in this case) is critical to moving forward a large and cross-border project in a timely manner. The World Bank Group (WBG) (WB, International Finance Corporation (IFC), and Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA)) can collaborate in a highly effective and complementary manner- to the benefit of the project goals. Participation of the WBG in firsts in countries can be highly impactful and may pave the way for future large investments in countries with high political risks and may also provide the best long term returns. Use of International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) enclave guarantee instrument proved to be extremely effective in this context. IFC was used in a highly strategic manner to enable the government to fund its equity in the project. Packaging and sharing knowledge from such transactions within the Bank is important. By building flexibility or optionality into the original design of the project, the project was able to adapt to the changing circumstances and priorities of the Government of Mozambique (GoM) over the years. The project indicators can have been more reflective of development within the national gas and power sector.
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Bilan de fin d’exécution et de résultats ICR86374 JUN 30, 2014
Ratings for the Rio Grande do Sul Integrated Municipal Development Program Project for Brazil were as follows: outcomes were moderately satisfactory, risk to development outcome was significant, Bank performance was moderately satisfactory, and Borrower performance was moderately satisfactory.
... Voir la suite Some lessons learned included: investment projects with small and medium-sized municipalities require sustained efforts to construct and enhance the institutional capacity of the Borrowers. The design of investment projects with subnational clients (especially those of small and medium scale) should take the Borrower's implementation capacity into account when introducing innovative and or multi-faceted approaches. The success of a project depends not only on the project management units (unidades de gestao do projeto) (UGP's) internal structure and capacity, but also on the level of coordination between the UGP and the Borrower's decision making structure and the commitment of policy makers. In the case of small to medium size municipalities, counterpart funding requirements should be carefully assessed at entry, considering the financial and fiscal situation of the particular Borrower. While grouped projects can present advantages in economies of scale, these gains must be balanced against the operational burden on the Bank to ensure a cost-efficient project. Horizontal adaptable programmatic loans (APLs) can be appropriate instruments for designing successful, relevant, and efficient multi-Borrower programs, provided some technical and institutional conditions are met.
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Bilan de fin d’exécution et de résultats ICR2315 JUN 30, 2014