The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section two describes the state of the rural population in Sudan, by first discussing the spatial distribution of poverty across the states as well as changes in poverty levels between 2009 and 2014-15. It also describes the profile of poor...

Several key gender issues likely act as an impediment to poverty reduction and shared prosperity in Sudan. While many of these issues are common across countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa region, some of them are accentuated by the status of Sudan as a fragile state. Fragility and conflict...

The report is structured as follows: section two provides an overview of the existing literature on undernutrition and its determinants. Section three describes the methodology used in this report, the UNICEF conceptual framework and the MICS data collected in 2010 and 2014. The analysis section...

The study described in this policy brief quantified the impacts of water shocks (too much, too little and too dirty) on economic outcomes in Colombia, using combined hydrological and econometric modeling, and offers recommendations for putting the country on the path to water security (see...

The weak performance of public institutions in Kosovo challenges efficient public service delivery and could impede faster growth. Effective public administration is a key factor for an economy that aims to generate jobs and improve citizens' well-being. The recently adopted Law on Salaries, Law...

Like many European countries, Bulgaria's workforce is facing dynamic developments influenced by negative demographic trends, seasonal and long-term migration of the population both in the country and abroad, imbalanced economic development of the Bulgarian regions, learning opportunities in the...

Georgia has long been one of the most trade-open economies in the world. It joined WTO in 2000 and currently has a free trade agreement with the EU and EFTA, as well as with Turkey, the CIS and China. Georgia has been also one of the most business-friendly countries. The basic objectives of...

By 2030, labour demand could be equal to labour supply in most of the EU, creating significant challenges for policy-makers and firms. The 'tipping point' at which labour demand will become equal to labour supply in the EU – that is, when labour will become a constraint on economic growth –...

Trade in services was overshadowed by trade in goods in the Brexit debate, undeservingly so as services account for almost half of the UK cross-border exports and the EU is a major market for UK services exporters. Leaving the EU Single Market in services will cause increased regulatory costs of...

Exploring the determinants of credit risk has gained importance in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, which caused a sharp increase in non-performing loans (NPLs) in Central, East and Southeast Europe. In this note we first analyse the post-crisis trends in NPLs comparing five...