Poor Places, Thriving People: How the Middle East and North Africa Can Rise Above Spatial Disparities

Published in 2011

It is now well known that the clustering of production in major cities is a driving force of economic growth. However, the governments of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are determined to make sure that their citizens benefit from their national development no matter where they live. The principle of economic justice makes wide gaps in living standards between leading and lagging areas politically intolerable. So the key question is this: how can MENA reap the benefits of economic agglomeration while mitigating geographic disparities in well-being? It is hard for policy makers to find straightforward advice on lagging…

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Partenariats public-privé dans le secteur des infrastructures : guide pratique à l’intention des décideurs publics

Published in 2010

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World Development Indicators 2010

Published in 2010

The Millennium Declaration, adopted unanimously by world leaders at the United Nations in September 2000, was not the first effort to mobilize global action to end poverty. The First United Nations Development Decade, proclaimed in 1961, drew attention to the great differences among development outcomes and called for accelerating growth. Subsequent Development Decades formulated new development strategies. But not until the 1990s did a consensus emerge that eliminating poverty, broadly defined, should be at the center of development efforts. Analytical work at the World Bank (World Bank 1990) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP 1990) shaped a view of…

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Telecommunications Regulation Handbook

Published in 2010

Telecommunications are a means to an end. That end, for The World Bank, is a world free of poverty. We live in a world where, infamously, more Africans have access to a mobile phone than to a plumbed toilet. When I consider today s communications landscape, it is almost unrecognizable compared to the environment in which we developed the first Telecommunications Regulation Handbook ten years ago. I am reminded of the remark by writer William Gibson; The future is here already. It s just unevenly distributed. The future of telecommunications is being written in SMS and IP, and implemented in…

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Awakening Africa’s Sleeping Giant : Prospects for Commercial Agriculture in the Guinea Savannah Zone and Beyond

Published in 2009

For the foreseeable future, reducing poverty in Africa will depend largely on stimulating agricultural growth. Within agriculture, a powerful driver of growth is commercial agriculture. Commercial agriculture can develop along a number of pathways, yet many developing regions have not progressed very far along any of these. African agriculture continues to lag, as reflected in the erosion during the past 30 years in the international competitiveness of many traditional African export crops, as well as in the competitiveness of some food crops for which import dependence has increased. In contrast, over the same period two relatively backward and landlocked agricultural…

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Extending Reach and Increasing Impact

Published in 2009

Information and communication technology (ICT) is transforming interactions between people, governments, and firms worldwide. In developing countries, farmers receive updated crop prices and public health officials monitor medical inventories by text messages. Women are empowered to make decisions and access new opportunities through online information. Entrepreneurs obtain business licenses in a fraction of the standard time by applying for them through municipal government Web sites. And in an increasingly integrated global economy, ICT enables people to access and share knowledge and services around the world. Information and Communications for Development 2009: Extending Reach and Increasing Impact is the second report…

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Engendering Information and Communication Technologies: Challenges and Opportunities for Gender-Equitable Development

Published in 2004

Information and communication technologies cover a wide range, from radio and television to telephones and the Internet. Although such technologies have delivered enormous benefits around the world, much of their potential remains untapped particularly for groups facing severe time constraints, suffering from social isolation, or lacking access to knowledge and productive resources. Women in developing countries are among the most important of these groups. Life is very different for women and men in developing countries, with women usually enjoying far fewer rights and resources. These inequalities limit women’s abilities, opportunities, and achievements. But in today’s knowledge-driven global economy, information and…

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Telecommunications and information services for the poor: toward a strategy for universal access

Published in 2002

The significant social and economic impact of the information and communications revolution and the threat of a widening digital divide as a key dimension of poverty, have prompted policy- makers and development institutions worldwide to take measures to ensure that all have access to communications, information, and ultimately knowledge. Extending the underlying telecommunications and information infrastructure to reach the poor is now acknowledged as one major dimension of the fight against poverty, in which the World Bank Group undoubtedly has a key role to play. Under liberalized conditions, the telecommunications market has proved remarkably effective in extending the communications network…

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