Kosovo is Europe's youngest country in terms of history and demographics. Both characteristics are defining the country's overarching development challenges. The country's geographical position along major trade routes made its territory a pawn in the hands of powerful neighbors, from the Romans...

The rate of Burkina Faso's progress towards the eradication of extreme poverty and the reduction of inequalities over recent years has been sub-optimal. This Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) is an analytical report prepared by the World Bank Group (WBG) in an attempt to identify and analyze...

Lao PDR has made important gains in development in recent decades. Incomes rose, poverty declined, access to several key public services improved, and Lao PDR met a number of its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Lao PDR's asset endowments, geography, and economic and social legacies have...

This systematic country diagnostic for Iraq identifies the three characteristics that underlie Iraq's predicaments: its poor governance, dependence on oil wealth, and ethnic and regional diversity. It posits that the combination of oil wealth and ethnic and religious fragmentation has led to...

Tanzania began its independence as a socialist country, but in the 1980s economic difficulties pushed it to adopt macroeconomic reforms, among them removing direct controls on prices and exchange and interest rates and opening up industry to private investment. Reforms intensified in the second...

The pathway to shared prosperity in Poland is built around growth, inclusion, and sustainability objectives, but success will ultimately depend on a more strategic, effective, and accountable state. Poland has done remarkably well, boasting strong growth over three decades. Looking forward, this...

Bleak short-term economic outlook raises the risk that social and environmental achievements may not be sustained. The changed economic circumstances have exposed shortcomings in Brazil's development model, epitomized by the struggle to achieve a sustainable fiscal policy. Against this...

This Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) is designed to assess the key constraints and opportunities facing Mozambique as it strives to sustain robust growth and macroeconomic stability while accelerating poverty reduction and promoting greater economic inclusiveness. The SCD is organized into...

Cameroon is a lower-middle income country with social indicators and levels of poverty which are below those for comparator countries. Large and rising inequalities between north and south, inefficiencies in public resource allocation and an adverse business environment explain this. While...