Timor-Leste faces a defining moment in its economic journey. As the country seeks to transition from petroleum dependency to a more diverse and resilient economy, the stakes cannot be higher. The Petroleum Fund, a lifeline that has sustained much of the national budget, risks depletion by 2035,...

Since it became the first new sovereign state of the 21st century on May 20, 2002, the Government of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste has demonstrated commendable leadership in rebuilding the country's economy with reasonably steady degrees of poverty reduction. The nation's unwavering...

This paper analyzes Timor-Leste's historical economic performance and structure under dollarization. It considers several dimensions that determine the benefits and costs of the regime: (i) growth and inflation performance; (ii) business and financial cycle synchronization; (iii) adjustment to...

Timor-Leste has made impressive progress since independence but remains a fragile post-conflict nation with an under-diversified private sector. The economy remains highly dependent on the public sector, which has been financed primarily by proceeds from the Petroleum Fund, in which the state...

Timor-Leste has made impressive progress since independence in 2002 but remains a fragile post-conflict nation with pressing development needs. With oil and gas production having recently come to a halt, progress on diversifying the economy and developing the private sector is urgently needed....

This costing analysis presents nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive cost categories, covering costing estimates for the period 2023-2030 for each of the sectors. The costing is indicative and based on estimates of scaling up nutrition interventions to a targeted increase in coverage by...

The final national accounts for 2022 have slightly raised the non-oil growth rate, with consumption driving economic activities. The IX Constitutional Government has an ambitious target of creating some 50 000 jobs over the next five years, but the lack of economic dynamism hinders job creation...

World Trade Organization (WTO) accession is a challenging process typically commanding a heavy price in terms of resources and time expended while also calling for the expense of non-trivial political capital by an acceding country's policymakers. Nevertheless, gaining membership of the world...

<Cite>Economic Diversity in Contemporary Timor-Leste</cite> analyses various economic dynamics in past and present Timor-Leste. Comprising 14 research chapters, the volume brings to the fore: 1) local, community-based economic values and arrangements; 2) community-based entanglements with a market-driven...

Timor-Leste has made important development gains since independence in 2002 but is now at a critical juncture. The government has successfully rebuilt public infrastructure, reduced poverty, and quickly built from scratch a network of functional public institutions. Despite these achievements,...

Timor-Leste's economy continued its recovery in 2022, expanding by 3.9 percent, fueled by public consumption and investment. Private investment rose from an exceptionally low level while net exports continued to be a drag on growth. Headline inflation soared in March 2023 at 9.6 percent, spurred...

Timor-Leste is facing a human capital crisis. Children born in Timor-Leste today will be less than half as productive as adults as they could be if they enjoyed complete education and full health. Moreover, the Petroleum Fund, the main driver of the economy since the country's independence in...

This report seeks to support the GoTL in its efforts to build an Adaptive Social Protection (ASP) system. It aims at enhancing knowledge and understanding of ASP and assessing the country's current capacity to provide agile responses to shocks and building resilience. The ASP assessment follows...

This paper investigates China's growing influence in the Asia-Pacific region through an in-depth analysis of its foreign aid activities in Timor-Leste. By examining the motivations, modalities, and implications of Chinese aid, this study sheds light on the underlying mechanisms behind China's...

The global economy continues to face steep challenges, but Timor-Leste's economy is slowly recovering. Nevertheless, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita has not returned to pre-pandemic levels. Consumer price inflation reached 7.9 percent yoy in August 2022, one of the highest in the East...

Buffeted by COVID-19 and Tropical Cyclone Seroja, the non-oil economy grew by 1.5 percent in 2021. A record-high budget with expenditure of nearly 90 percent of GDP bolstered government consumption. A series of fiscal and quasi-fiscal stimulus measures supported employment and incomes, thereby...

Timor-Leste has made impressive strides in economic development and institution building. Yet, it is a low-income and fragile country with pressing development needs. A large fraction of the population faces chronic food insecurity, and significant gaps exist in health, education, and...

Although Timor-Leste has made considerable progress in many areas since its independence in 2002, it faces significant medium-term challenges. The nation has pressing development needs, young institutions, and is highly dependent on oil. Oil revenues from active fields, which have been the main...

Given the finite nature of petroleum resources and associated sovereign wealth fund, it iscritical for Timor-Leste to build a strong foundation for sustainable revenue mobilization tofinance public spending on development and poverty reduction. Timor-Leste faces the risks ofa fiscal cliff as,...

Tropical Cyclone (TC) Seroja impacted Timor-Leste with heavy torrential rains over a 24-hour period on April 4, 2021, with an average intensity of over 14 millimeters per hour and a peak intensity of over 70 millimeters per hour. The heavy precipitation and the country's natural topography led...

Strengthening the role of women and promoting gender equality are key priorities for the Timor-Leste government and essential for achieving the World Bank's twin goals of eradicating extreme poverty and sustainably boosting shared prosperity. The Timor-Leste Country Gender Action Plan (CGAP)...

COVID-19 is spreading quickly throughout the country, despite early successes in containing the virus. Meanwhile, flooding and landslides have caused considerable human loss and economic damage. These compounding health and humanitarian emergencies are undermining the economic recovery in 2021,...

The Country Opinion Survey in Timor-Leste assists the World Bank Group (WBG) in gaining a better understanding of how stakeholders in Timor-Leste perceive the WBG. It provides the WBG with systematic feedback from national and local governments, multilateral/bilateral agencies, media, academia,...

This 2019 Article IV Consultation highlights that Timor-Leste remains a fragile post-conflict nation with weak human and institutional capacity and large infrastructure gaps. The main challenge facing Timor-Leste is to effectively manage its petroleum wealth to reduce public-sector dependence,...

For the people of Timor-Leste, independence promised a fundamental transformation from foreign occupation to self-rule, from brutality to respect for basic rights, and from poverty to prosperity. In the eyes of the country's political leaders, revenue from the country's oil and gas reserves is...

Gross domestic product (GDP)1 growth is expected to have fallen sharply in 2017 to a projected -1.8 percent from 5.3 percent the year before. This contraction is driven by a reversal of trend in government spending. In the last six months, the political impasse has worsened, with the President...

Building a capable public service is fundamental to postconflict state building. Yet in postconflict settings, short-term pressures often conflict with this longer-term objective. To ensure peace and stabilize fragile coalitions, the imperative for political elites to hand out public jobs and...

The attraction of foreign investment, particularly in the field of infrastructure building and maintenance, plays a central role in the development of Timor-Leste. This paper discusses the advantages and potential risks of using international investment agreements as a tool to promote foreign...

This book aims to foster a better understanding of the particular challenges faced by resource-dependent countries or jurisdictions in managing their resource revenues through natural resource funds (NRFs). It explores the varieties of natural resource management strategies as dictated primarily...

There is an inherent tension between traditional norms and survey protocols for quantitative data collected in the developing world. Unexpected interactions between the interviewer and respondent can lead to interviewer effects in the data, particularly in the case of subjective or sensitive...