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Beyond crop per drop - David O. Treguer - Bog - World Bank Publications - Plusbog.dk

With growing water scarcity in many parts of the world and projections that indicate the need to increase agricultural production and, concurrently, agricultural water use, it is increasingly advocated to focus efforts on improving agricultural water productivity and efficiency—and thus achieve more crop per drop. Many international organizations concerned with water management are also promoting these efforts, and significant public and private investments are being made in both developed and developing countries. Yet some serious problems are associated with this approach. They include conceptual issues, the methods used for measuring agricultural water productivity and efficiency, and the application of these concepts and methods in different contexts—all of which influence the choice of interventions and the evaluation of their implementation. The report aims to shed further light on these issues: first, by clarifying some of the underlying concepts in the discussion of agricultural water productivity and efficiency; second, by reviewing and analyzing the available methods for assessing water productivity and efficiency, including single-factor productivity measures, total factor productivity indices, frontier methods, and deductive methods; and, third, by discussing their application and relevance in different contexts. As a background for this analysis, the report highlights the central role of water use in irrigated agriculture and its link with increasing water scarcity. An underlying framework of the analysis is the view of the water economy transitioning from an expansionary to a mature phase. The report further develops this framework to reflect water management issues in irrigated agriculture. The framework is then applied to make the case that, with increasing water scarcity, the ongoing efforts for improving agricultural water productivity and efficiency need to move beyond crop per drop approaches, because they are in many circumstances an insufficient and sometimes counterproductive attempt to adapt agricultural water management to a maturing water economy.

DKK 337.00

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Four Decades of Poverty Reduction in China - Development Research Center Of The State Council The People's Republic Of China - Bog - World Bank

Over the past 40 years, the number of people in China with incomes below US$ 1.90 per day has fallen by close to 800 million. This report explores the key drivers for China's achievements in poverty, considers lessons for other developing countries, and puts forward suggestions for China?s future policies.

DKK 374.00

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From uneven growth to inclusive development - World Bank - Bog - World Bank Publications - Plusbog.dk

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, and their technological complexity is increasing rapidly. Yet, Romania remains the country in the EU with by far the largest share of poor people, with over a quarter of the population living on less than $5.50 a day. There are widening disparities in economic opportunity and poverty across regions and between urban and rural areas. Although Bucharest has already exceeded the EU average income per capita, and many secondary cities are becoming hubs of prosperity and innovation, Romania remains one of the least urbanized countries in the EU. Access to public services remains constrained for many citizens, particularly in rural areas, and there is a large infrastructure gap, which is a drag on the international competitiveness of the more dynamic areas of Romania while limiting economic opportunities in lagging and rural areas. Growth is constrained by weak commitment to policy implementation, creating a poor business environment and misallocation of resources to politically connected firms. Equal opportunities are constrained by weak local service delivery and an inability to ensure sufficient local funding due to patronage-based politics. And resilience to natural disasters and climate change is constrained by lack of coordination between central and local authorities. As argued in this report, Romania has no choice but to address these institutional challenges if it is to sustain the impressive growth performance of recent years, share prosperity among all of its citizens, and improve its resilience to natural hazards.

DKK 367.00

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Understanding the income and efficiency gap in Latin America and the Caribbean - World Bank - Bog - World Bank Publications - Plusbog.dk

The countries of the Latin America and Caribbean region (LAC), like other emerging economies, have benefited from a decade of remarkable growth and some income per capita convergence towards the United States and other industrialized countries. However, even nearly ten years of solid growth in the first decade of the 21st century could not guarantee that LAC would move on to a sustained long-term income convergence path. In fact, despite this recent progress, LAC still faces a significant per capita income gap with the developed world. The papers in this volume contribute to the ongoing debate on the reasons for this persistent income gap and the potential drivers of convergence, and propose some broad avenues for reform. This volume presents new macro-, sectoral-, and micro-level evidence that: (i) differences in total factor productivity (TFP), or efficiency in using the production factors, such as physical and human capital, explain a large part of LAC''s persistent income gap; and (ii) resource misallocation is the main factor behind LAC''s large efficiency gap. At the same time, the findings of this volume indicate there is significant room for further economic growth gains from technology adoption and innovation more broadly. In fact, the quality of the available technology in LAC is low, and there is very little innovation. Although firms can use innovation to reach productivity at the global productivity frontier, weak institutions reduce incentives to innovate. This volume also proposes that the main priorities for improving resource allocation and the incentives to innovate include: (i) enhancing market competition in key network industries (transport, financial, telecommunications, logistics, communication and distribution services); (ii) increasing labor market flexibility (including skill-mismatches and social barriers); (iii) removing informational frictions (including complex tax regimes and credit rationing); (iv) strengthening property rights; and (v) improving the rule of law.

DKK 347.00

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State water agencies in Nigeria - Berta Macheve - Bog - World Bank Publications - Plusbog.dk

"Investments on the order of US$6 billion are estimated to be needed in the water sector in Nigeria in the next 10 years if the country is to achieve universal water supply coverage. This is the main finding of State Water Agencies in Nigeria: A Performance Assessment, in which the objective is to provide the government of Nigeria with a structured and coherent quantitative snapshot of the state of its urban water sector. The report focuses on water provision services from the States'' Water Authorities or Water Boards (SWAs) as they are the major and only regulated agencies that provide water to the urban population. Sanitation provision is not addressed because the majority of SWAs do not provide this service to their customers.This report highlights the issues related to the performance of SWAs, tariffs levels and structures, financing mechanisms, and concerns with governance within the SWA and state governments. For example, due to accelerated urbanization and migration of the population to the large cities, the average coverage by SWAs is about 40 percent, and the average domestic water consumption was 26 liters per capita per day in 2013, well below the recommended average. The remaining majority of the population relies on alternative service providers.To the extent possible, the report also shows the impact of these institutional weaknesses on customers'' costs, fiscal subsidies to the sector, and financing requirements that are needed to scale up the investment and showcase that the related operational and maintenance expenditure of the SWAs can actually be covered from the various financing sources. In fact, the coping costs of the population getting water from alternative water providers is assessed at US$700 million a year, and this number is growing. In addition, utilities get about US$100 million in operational subsidies that cover labor, electricity, and other operational costs.State Water Agencies in Nigeria: A Performance Assessment provides the government of Nigeria with a structured and coherent quantitative snapshot of the state of its urban water sector. Ultimately, this report is a first step toward performance benchmarking in Nigeria''s water and sanitation sector. The findings summarized in this publication should eventually serve as a tool for utilities and their authorities and stakeholders, as well as for bilateral and multilateral donors in their efforts to monitor the performance and progress of each water provider and the sector as a whole."

DKK 308.00

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Designing and Implementing Health Care Provider Payment Systems - - Bog - World Bank Publications - Plusbog.dk

"Strategic purchasing of health services involves a continuous search for the best ways to maximize health system performance by deciding which interventions should be purchased, from whom these should be purchased, and how to pay for them. In such an arrangement, the passive cashier is replaced by an intelligent purchaser that can focus scarce resources on existing and emerging priorities rather than continuing entrenched historical spending patterns.Having experimented with different ways of paying providers of health care services, countries increasingly want to know not only what to do when paying providers, but also how to do it, particularly how to design, manage, and implement the transition from current to reformed systems. ''Designing and Implementing Health Care Provider Payment Systems: How-To Manuals'' addresses this need.The book has chapters on three of the most effective provider payment systems: primary care per capita (capitation) payment, case-based hospital payment, and hospital global budgets. It also includes a primer on a second policy lever used by purchasers, namely, contracting. This primer can be especially useful with one provider payment method: hospital global budgets. The volume''s final chapter provides an outline for designing, launching, and running a health management information system, as well as the necessary infrastructure for strategic purchasing."

DKK 432.00

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ECONOMIC GROWTH IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN-STYLIZED FACTS EXPLANATIONS AND FORECASTS - - Bog - World Bank Publications - Plusbog.dk

The 1960s and 70s were decades of solid growth rates for Latin America and the Caribbean region as a whole. This changed in the 1980s, when the growth rate of output per capita fell to negative values and its volatility increased notably. However, Latin America's economic growth became positive again in the 1990s, with truly remarkable turnarounds in Argentina, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Peru. This recovery was driven in most cases by large increases in the growth of total factor productivity, reflecting the initial benefits from the process of economic reforms initiated in the 1990s. Economic Growth in Latin America and the Caribbean analyzes whether economic reforms have been beneficial to growth in the region. In doing so, it recognizes that growth is driven by a variety of factors - in some cases poor growth is due to insufficient structural reforms (e.g., low trade openness), in others to inappropriate stabilization policies (e.g., exchange rate overvaluation), and still in others to negative international conditions (e.g., growth slowdown in industrial countries). It is obvious but still correct to say that identifying the problem is the first step towards the solution. This book contributes to this effort by examining the growth performance of countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, explaining the underlying sources of their economic growth, and designing a strategy for further growth.

DKK 253.00

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World Bank Group support to public-private partnerships - World Bank: Independent Evaluation Group - Bog - World Bank Publications - Plusbog.dk

"Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are long-term contracts between a private party and a government agency that strive to provide a public asset or service in which the private party bears both some risk and some management responsibility. If implemented well, PPPs can help overcome inadequate infrastructure that constrains economic growth, particularly in developing countries. The use of PPPs has increased in the last two decades; they are now used in more than 134 developing countries, contributing about 15-20 percent of total infrastructure investment. The World Bank Group has expanded its support to PPPs through a wide range of instruments and services. During the last 10 years, its support has increased about threefold, to nearly $3 billion per year. The Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) assesses how effective the World Bank Group has been in helping countries use PPPs. In the evaluation, IEG examines the relevance of Bank Group support, how successful projects were, how the Bank Group coordinated support among its business lines (support to the public sector versus the private sector), and how it compares with the experience of other multilateral development banks with PPP support. IEG distills lessons to apply to the Bank Group''s support of PPPs. Finally, IEG presents six recommendations that apply to both the organizational and the operational aspects of this work."

DKK 308.00

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Capitalizing on the Demographic Transition - Preeti Kudesia - Bog - World Bank Publications - Plusbog.dk

Increasing life expectancy in South Asia is resulting in a demographic transition that can, under the right circumstances, yield dividends through more favorable dependency ratios for a time. With aging, the disease burden shifts toward noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) which can threaten healthy aging. However, securing the gains expected from the demographic dividend-where developing countries' working and nondependent population increases and per capita income thus rises- is both achievable and affordable through efficiently tacking NCDs with prevention and control efforts. This book looks primarily at cardiovascular disease (CVD) and tobacco use since they account for a disproportionate amount of the NCD burden-the focus is strategic, rather than comprehensive. The goal of this book is to encourage countries to develop, adopt, and implement effective and timely country and, where appropriate, regional responses that reduce both population-level risk factors and the NCD burden. The work develops (i) an NCD burden and risk factor profile for all countries and the region as a whole; (ii) a rationale for public policy and action for NCDs; (iii) a framework to guide the formulation of public policies and strategies for NCDs; (iv) a country profile, including capacity and ongoing NCD activities, as well as policy options and actions for NCDs that will help stimulate policy dialogue within and among countries; and (v) a regional strategy for NCD prevention and control where regional collaboration offers added value. The achievements of this book are (i) developing a framework for policy options to identify key areas for strategic country- and regional-level policy and actions; (ii) bringing together demographic and aging trends, disease and risk factor burden data, alongside analyses of capacities and accomplishments to tackle NCDs; and (iii) using these inputs to develop policy options for country and regional strategies.

DKK 268.00

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More and Better Jobs in South Asia - The World Bank - Bog - World Bank Publications - Plusbog.dk

South Asia has created nearly 800,000 jobs per month during the last decade. Robust economic growth in large parts of the region has created better jobs -- those that pay higher wages for wage workers and reduce poverty for the self-employed, the largest segment of the region’s employed. Going forward, South Asia faces the enormous challenge of absorbing 1 to 1.2 million entrants to the labor force every month for the next two decades at rising levels of productivity. This calls for an agenda that cuts across sectors and includes improving the reliability of electricity supply for firms in both urban and rural settings, dealing decisively with issues of governance and corruption, making access to land easier for urban informal firms and strengthening transport links between rural firms and their markets. It requires improving nutrition in early childhood to avoid cognitive impairment, intensifying the focus on quality of learning in education systems, equipping workers with the skills that employers demand, and reorienting labor market regulations and programs to protect workers rather than jobs. The continuance of high economic growth to help improve job quality is not assured. But the region’s demography can provide a favorable tailwind. The growth of workers exceeds that of dependents in much of the region. The resources saved from having fewer dependents can be shifted to high-priority investments in physical and human capital accumulation necessary to create productive jobs in countries with an enabling policy framework. But the demographic window of opportunity is open for only the next three decades, a fact which lends urgency to the reform agenda. This book will be of interest to policy makers, their advisers, researchers and students of economics who seek solutions, not only to the challenge of creating more and better jobs in South Asia but globally as well. It is the first title in South Asia Development Matters,a new series that will serve as a vehicle for in-depth synthesis of economic and policy analysis on key development topics for South Asia.

DKK 386.00

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Great teachers - Barbara Bruns - Bog - World Bank Publications - Plusbog.dk

"The seven million teachers of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) are the critical actors in the region''s efforts to improve education quality and raise student learning levels, which lag far behind those of OECD countries and East Asian countries such as China. This book documents the high economic stakes around teacher quality, benchmarks the current performance of LAC''s teachers, and delineates the key issues. These include low standards for entry into teacher training, poor quality training programs that are detached from the realities of the classroom, unattractive career incentives, and weak support for teachers once they are on the job. New research conducted for this report in close to 15,000 classrooms in seven different LAC countries - the largest cross-country study of this kind to date - provides a first-ever insight into how the region''s teachers perform inside the classroom. It documents that the average teacher in LAC loses the equivalent of one day of instructional time per week because of inadequate preparation, excessive time on administration (taking attendance, passing out papers) and a surprisingly high share of time physically absent from the classrooms where they should be teaching. Teachers also make limited use of available learning materials, espcially those using information and communications technology (ICT), and are unable to keep the majority of their students engaged. The book sets out the three priority lines of reform needed to produce great teachers in LAC: policies to recruit better teachers; programs to groom teachers and improve their skills once they are in service; and stronger incentives to motivate teachers to perform their best throughout their career. In every area, the book distills the latest evidence from inside and outside the region to provide practical guidance to policymakers in the design of effective programs and sustainable reforms. A final chapter analyzes the politics of recent major teacher reforms in Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Mexico, chronicling the prominent role of teachers'' unions and the political and communications strategies that have underpinned successful reforms."

DKK 386.00

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Technology Adoption and Inclusive Growth - Truman G. Packard - Bog - World Bank Publications - Plusbog.dk

While adoption of new technologies is understood to enhance long-term growth and average per-capita incomes, its impact on lower-skilled workers is more complex and merits clarification. Concerns abound that advanced technologies developed in high-income countries would inexorably lead to job losses of lower-skilled, less well-off workers and exacerbate inequality. Conversely, there are countervailing concerns that policies intended to protect jobs from technology advancement would themselves stultify progress and depress productivity. This book squarely addresses both sets of concerns with new research showing that adoption of digital technologies offers a pathway to more inclusive growth by increasing adopting firms' outputs, with the jobs-enhancing impact of technology adoption assisted by growth-enhancing policies that foster sizable output expansion. The research reported here demonstrates with economic theory and data from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico that lower-skilled workers can benefit from adoption of productivity-enhancing technologies biased towards skilled workers, and often do. The inclusive jobs outcomes arise when the effects of increased productivity and expanding output overcome the substitution of workers for technology. While the substitution effect replaces some lower-skilled workers with new technology and more highly-skilled labor, the output effect can lead to an increase in the total number of jobs for less-skilled workers. Critically, output can increase sufficiently to increase jobs across all tasks and skill types within adopting firms, including jobs for lower-skilled workers, as long as lower-skilled task content remains complementary to new technologies and related occupations are not completely automated and replaced by machines. It is this channel for inclusive growth that underlies the power of pro-competitive enabling policies and institutions--such as regulations encouraging firms to compete and policies supporting the development of skills that technology augments rather than replaces--to ensure that the positive impact of technology adoption on productivity and lower-skilled workers is realized.

DKK 89.00

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New Century, Old Disparities - Hugo Nopo - Bog - World Bank Publications - Plusbog.dk

After a sustained economic growth period at the end of the last century and the beginning of this one, Latin America still faces high inequality and lower well-being indicators among women, afro-descendants, and indigenous peoples. This is a period in which the world and particularly Latin America has experienced important changes regarding the role of women and men. Marriage, education and work decisions have evolved and, as a result, women’s visibility at home, at school, in the labor markets and in society have evolved as well. But there are still, however, important challenges in the labor markets. Earnings differentials as well as occupational and hierarchical segregation are commonly accepted as the norm in the region’s labor markets. For the diverse racial and ethnic groups the situation has been less auspicious than for women. Statistics reveal that traditionally excluded ethnic groups have worse poverty and income outcomes, reflected in issues such as restricted access to public services, poorer health conditions, lack of political representation, confinement into low productivity activities and prevalent discrimination. The evidence points that in Latin America, a racially and ethnically diverse region, the benefits of the recent progress have not reached equally indigenous peoples and Afro-descendants. This pattern can be traced to lower human capital endowments, manifested in poorer educational performance and fewer years of job experience. In this way, these groups have been less able to benefit from the economic opportunities generated within this prosperous period. This book is about gender and ethnic differences in labor markets earnings. It revolves around the question: to what extent the gender (ethnic) differences in earnings are a result of gender (ethnic) differences in observable individuals’ characteristics that the labor markets reward? Such question is answered with a novel methodological approach based on matching comparisons, resembling the Oaxaca Blinder (OB) decompositions, extending their scope. What would the distribution of females’ and males’ earnings be if they had equal levels of education, if they worked the same quantity of hours per week, if they worked in the same kind of formal jobs, or in firms of the same size? What would happen with the earnings gap, for instance, if men and women had the same occupations or were distributed equally through economic sectors? Further on, what would happen if all men and women in the labor markets were equally distributed along all of these characteristics at the same time? The novelty of the methodology introduced in this book is that it allows us to create fictional labor markets where these counterfactuals are true. Furthermore, this book addresses not only the extent to which those differentials can be explained by individuals’ characteristics, but also how have these gaps evolved during the last two decades. In this way, it allows the discussion of policy options for these pressing issues in the region.

DKK 314.00

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