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...

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 Country Diagnostic (SCD) identifies the binding constraints to reducing extreme poverty and promoting shared prosperity in Ethiopia. Achieving those goals requires a two pronged strategy of building on the strengths of past performance as well as introducing new elements....

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...

South Africa has come a long way since the advent of democracy, but its transition remains incomplete. The first three clauses of the Freedom Charter-the historic 1955 document setting out the central objectives of the democratic movement-were (i) the people shall govern; (ii) all national...

Solomon Islands is a small, remote archipelago in the South Pacific that faces a fairly unique set of development challenges. Solomon Islands is now at a critical juncture in its development trajectory. Neither the economic geography nor the present political economy of Solomon Islands is...

Liberia's status as a fragile state is deeply rooted in the political and economic exclusion practiced by the country's founders. Although they constituted just 5 percent of the population, freed American slaves and their descendants dominated the country's intellectual and ruling class from...

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a classic example of the paradox of plenty, since the country is extremely rich in natural resources while its population is extremely poor. It is the largest country in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) with a total surface area of about 234 million hectares...

This document presents the Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) for the Republic of Burundi (Burundi). The SCD identifies the key challenges and opportunities for Burundi to accelerate progress in poverty reduction and shared prosperity in a sustainable manner, while acknowledging: (i) the need...