Frequently referred to as the Giant of Africa, Nigeria is growing slower than its population and large numbers of people are poor. With gross national income per capita of US $2,100 (in 2017; Atlas method, WDI), Nigeria is classified as a lower-middle-income country. It is richly endowed, has a...

Guinea-Bissau is fighting a battle against poverty, low growth, and political fragility. Each of these areas presents both a formidable challenge as well as an opportunity for serious, long-lasting and much-needed change. Poverty is entrenched, inequality is high and other human development...

This Systematic County Diagnostics is organized into six parts. The first part presents a brief overview of the country's recent socio-political and economic context. The second part examines the links between poverty, income distribution and economic growth, through the labor market, against...

The Yugo, a communist-era car from the former Yugoslavia, was widely ridiculed for shedding its parts on roads across Europe and the United States. Zastava, which made Yugo, fared even worse than its product. After the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s, the factory was reduced to producing only...

Guinea is a country with a rich historical legacy, abundant natural resources, a privileged geographical location - and a rapidly growing population. A successful political transition and the emergence of a vibrant civil society have helped to ensure ethnic peace and the absence of civil wars in...

The objective of this Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) is to describe the current development challenges facing Sierra Leone and offer a set of priority areas of intervention to further the twin goals of reducing extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity. The SCD is designed to be an...

Since its independence in 1991 and until prior to the global financial crisis (GFC) in 2008-09, Armenia was considered an important success story among the transition economies. Indeed, over several years, the country displayed a record of sustained macroeconomic achievements, reflected in high...

Four mutually supportive strategic pillars and related policy priorities would help Kazakhstan continue the structural transformation that stalled during the oil booms, in order to eliminate poverty and build a large and secure middle class: 1. economic management for diversification, to...

Reforms spurred by accession to the European Union (EU) boosted productivity and integrated Romania into the EU economic space. Gross domestic product per capita rose from 30 percent of the EU average in 1995 to 59 percent in 2016. Today, over 70 percent of the country's exports go to the EU,...