Commodities are often at the heart of local and sometimes national economies. Commodity prices are notoriously volatile, creating instability and uncertainty for commodity-dependent developing countries. Commodity price instability undermines economic growth and skews the distribution of income....

A well-designed public safety net can provide aid to the poor in times of need. Two basic principles should guide safety net policies: 1) Safety nets should efficiently insure the poor; to do so they must respond flexibly to the needs of the poor. 2) Safety nets should be an intrinsic part of...

Transport can make a big difference in increasing women's productivity and promoting social equity. Yet, little attention appears to have been paid to women's needs in transport projects. How best can transport policies and projects identify and respond to the needs of women? Making transport...

This note focuses on export processing zones as potential, useful tools in export promotion, and, outlines the general features, and objectives of these zones, highlighting country experiences, and offering policy recommendations for establishing them. It identifies three main goals of export...

This economic policy note presents the dilemma between private infrastructure and public risk. The note examines the fact that, increasingly, governments in many developing countries are relying on the private sector to provide infrastructure services, thus being forced - because of policy...

The economic policy note discusses the issue of serious fiscal instability faced by many governments as a result of their contingent liabilities, which are associated with major hidden fiscal risks. Direct liabilities are predictable obligations that will arise in any event, and are the main...

Traditional financial institutions in many countries, have often failed to provide the needy with financial services to increase their income and reduce poverty. Hence, microcredit programs have been developed to fill in this gap. This note analyzes the outreach on the poor, with particular...

The World Bank has helped Albania, Georgia, and Latvia measure corruption and design strategies to combat it and improve governance. This note explains how empirical surveys can inform and transform the policy dialogue, so that a workable anticorruption agenda can be established. Early results...

This economic policy note examines the disparity in per capita incomes of both backward and advanced regions in developing countries, and explores a number of possible causes and policy intervention to bring about equalization (convergence). Among the causal factors discussed are transportation...

This poverty note analyzes the usefulness of poverty maps, and how they can be constructed using census and survey data, for the use and benefit of policy makers to focus scarce development resources. The note goes on to describe various kinds of poverty maps, such as those based on indexes of...