The cost of energy in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, as elsewhere, is an important policy issue, as shown by the concerns for energy affordability during the past harsh winter. Governments try to moderate the burden of energy expenditures that is experienced by households through subsidies to...

Improving access to productive employment is a key policy challenge, especially in low-income countries (LICs), where the only asset in abundance is labor. Building on ongoing research on earnings mobility, this study uses unusually rich longitudinal data from Ghana and Tanzania to identify...

From its creation in the 1990s, the Chilean monitoring and evaluation (M and E) system has represented a substantial part of the effort to improve the use of Chile's public resources within a broader context of multiple initiatives designed to modernize and improve public management in many...

Events of the past decade have underscored the vital need for social safety net (SSN) programs in all countries, especially in times of crisis. Many countries have some form of targeted SSN program, especially in high- and middle-income countries, but SSNs are increasingly spreading to the...

A series of global initiatives have been launched over the last decade by the international community to accelerate progress toward meeting the Millennium Development Goals. These initiatives entailed commitments to provide more aid and efforts to strengthen aid effectiveness. They culminated in...

The way countries finance health care influences how well a health system performs and achieves its expected outcomes, including how equitable and efficient it is. Countries decide how to mobilize revenues from different sources for financing health care, how to pool revenues in public and...

The aim of this report is to inform the design and the implementation of Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA's) new Strategic Directions FY12-14 by drawing lessons from recent experience with one of the main pillars of the MIGA, financial sector guarantees, the fastest growing...

This second report of a two-phase evaluation of the World Bank Groupapos;s unprecedented response to the 2008-09 global economic crisis addresses questions raised by the findings of the first phase evaluation regarding the Bankapos;s crisis lending in the financial, fiscal, and social protection...