On June 30, 2013, the World Bank completed the third year of implementing its landmark policy on Access to Information (AI policy). In this third year, which covers the fiscal year period of July 1, 2012, through June 30, 2013 (FY 2013), the public made in excess of one million visits to the World Bank's Documents and Reports database, viewed more than 6.6 million pages and downloaded more than one million files.
... Подробнее + Through its dedicated public Access to Information (AI), the World Bank has made available to the public, for direct searching and browsing, more than 150,000 documents, which includes over 72,000 operational documents, 18,000 legal documents, and 46,000 publications and research reports. This includes over 18,000 documents that the World Bank newly declassified in FY 2013. The World Bank continued to make available to the public through its AI website the documents of its Board of Executive Directors (Board), including the Boards work program and scheduled discussions, and documents released to the public before Board discussion (i.e., simultaneously disclosed Board documents). In FY 2013, the World Bank simultaneously disclosed 99 Board documents.
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Tracking progress in sustainable agriculture and forest management is challenging: distances are long, populations are sparse, interventions range from policies to crop and livestock practices, and the voice of the farmer is critical for success.
... Подробнее + Recent approaches focusing on climate impacts and land use pressures (climate-smart agriculture and landscape approach) add to the complexity and require efficient data collection and analysis methods. The systemization of information and communication technology (ICT) in the monitoring and evaluation (M and E) process enables accountability- from field staff to regional and central governments and development partners. The leapfrog effects of ICT have increased access to quality information, eased knowledge sharing among practitioners and resource-constrained governments, and created opportunities to improve accountability. The expansion of ICT has also made the work of development practitioners easier and more accurate. In some regions there are already more mobile phone subscriptions than people, and even internet access has become more common. This report identifies where ICT has expanded the capacity to perform good M and E and, more importantly, it identifies where it has not. It identifies where and how it can expand data collection and M and E, but also why and how technology is not a replacement for human agency and involvement in analysis and interpretation tasks. This report seeks to present solutions to some of the questions concerning data collection and M and E. It is designed to be an operational piece that addresses how governments and practitioners can use ICT to improve their data collection and M&E efforts in rural development projects. The first section gives overview. The second section of the report focuses on the most important aspect of ICT use: articulating the needs of the project and users. The third section provides an overview of five models currently used to implement and integrate information technology into M and E efforts. The crux of the report centers on choosing the right product or set of products for the project, and it includes cross-comparative guidance on application features such as data validation, offline capacity, dashboards, and built-in analytics in section four. The service design section deals with issues inherent to the provision of public services, such as how to provide appropriate incentives for the participation necessary to sustain the program and why post-data collection efforts are critical to success is discussed in section five. Along with these practical approaches to deploying ICT, the report describes five case studies on mobile-based data collection in the agriculture and forest sectors in section six. The conclusion section follows the case studies in section seven.
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Рабочие документы (нумерованная серия) 83305 DEC 01, 2013
Evidence-gap maps present a new addition to the tools available to support evidence-informed policy making. Evidence-gap maps are thematic evidence collections covering a range of issues such as maternal health, HIV/AIDS, and agriculture.
... Подробнее + They present a visual overview of existing systematic reviews or impact evaluations in a sector or subsector, schematically representing the types of interventions evaluated and outcomes reported. Gap maps enable policy makers and practitioners to explore the findings and quality of the existing evidence and facilitate informed judgment and evidence-based decision making in international development policy and practice. The gap map also identifies key "gaps" where little or no evidence from impact evaluations and systematic reviews is available and where future research should be focused. Thus, gap maps can be a useful tool for developing a strategic approach to building the evidence base in a particular sector. This paper provides an introduction to evidence-gap maps, outlines the gap-map methodology, and presents some examples.
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Рабочий документ в рамках исследования вопросов политики WPS6725 DEC 01, 2013
Snilstveit, Birte; Vojtkova, Martina; Bhavsar, Ami; Gaarder, Marie
This paper studies the relationship between inequality of opportunity and development outcomes in a cross-country setting. Scholars have long debated the impact of inequality on growth, development, and the quality of institutions in a society.
... Подробнее + The empirical relationships are however confounded by the notion that "inequality" can be seen as a composite of inequality arising from differences in effort and ability, which would tend to encourage competition and productivity, and inequality attributable to unequal opportunities, particularly in terms of access to basic goods and services, which might translate to wasted human potential and lower levels of development. The analysis in this paper applies a measure of educational opportunities that incorporates inequality between "types" or circumstance groups. Theories from economic history are used to instrument for this type of inequality in a large cross-country dataset. The results seem to confirm the hypothesis that this measure of inequality of opportunity is a better fit for structural inequality than the Gini index of income. The results suggest that inequality of endowments at the outset of history led to unequal educational opportunities, which in turn affected development outcomes such as institutional quality, infant mortality, and economic growth. The findings are robust to several checks on the instrumental variable specification.
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Рабочий документ в рамках исследования вопросов политики WPS6735 DEC 01, 2013
During the period of July - October 2013, the World Bank conducted its third annual Access to Information (AI) survey. This survey sought to obtain public feedback that could help the institution assess the public's satisfaction with the Bank's AI systems and processes, and identify opportunities to improve.
... Подробнее + It focused on three issues: 1) the adequacy of the Bank's information systems; 2) the quality of the Bank's service in support of the public's requests for information; and 3) the ability of the Bank to meet the requesters' information needs. Results show that the public's overall satisfaction levels in 2013 stayed relatively the same as in the previous year. Eighty-eight percent of the survey responses rated the adequacy of the Bank's information systems in the satisfactory range. With respect to the Bank's quality of service, seventy-six percent of the survey responses gave the Bank a rating in the satisfactory range. Lastly, with respect to the Bank's ability to meet the requesters' information needs, eighty-four percent of the survey responses rated the Bank in the satisfactory range.
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The Fourth Adaptable Program Loan (APL4) for Central African Backbone Project of Gabon main objective is to contribute to extend the geographic coverage and use of the services of the regional broadband telecommunications network and to reduce their prices in the Republic of Gabon.
... Подробнее + The project activities will have negative impacts on the environment. Summary of negative environmental impacts are: Impacts on air quality through temporary and local deterioration of the air quality; Risk of coastal erosion at the beach of la Sablière; Risk of change in soil structure and erosion risks along the route of the project; Potential impacts on flora (minor); Disturbance of natural habitats in the marine environment; Impact on the marine environment and risks of pollution of marine waters: Environmental pollution by discharges of waste from the work; Increased turbidity of water, thus increasing the suspended sediments; Pollution of the environment and marine waters by waste from work; disturbance of the seabed during the burial of the cable, and therefore the marine habitats; Risk of spread of STIs/HIV/AIDS among the populations and the workers.
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Оценка состояния окружающей среды E2925 OCT 10, 2013
The objective of the Sava Waterway Rehabilitation Project for Bosnia and Herzegovina is to improve the operational performance and safety of commercial and leisure vessels on the Sava River, thereby contributing to improved utilization of the river ports.
... Подробнее + Negative impacts include: air pollution, dust, flora and fauna, noise pollution, soil erosion, and waste management. Mitigation measures include: a) prohibit tourist recreational traffic and traffic of high-speed boats in the vicinity of known spawning places; b) provide safe disposal of sanitary waste water from ships in ports. The ships should undertake ballast water management measures in accordance with requirements of the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships Ballast Water and Sediments; c) provide appropriate procedures for managing chemical and fuel storage areas. Fuelling, loading and unloading activities on ships should be conducted by properly trained personnel according to pre-established formal procedures; d) prohibit tourist recreational traffic and traffic of high-speed boats in the vicinity of known spawning places; and e) allow passage of vessels that transport hazardous cargo and substances (chemical, oil, etc.) only with police entourage.
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Оценка состояния окружающей среды E4213 OCT 07, 2013
The purpose of this study is to investigate the association between electronic filing (e-filing) and the total tax compliance costs incurred by small and medium size businesses in developing countries, based on survey data from South Africa, Ukraine, and Nepal.
... Подробнее + A priori, most observers expect that use of e-filing should reduce tax compliance costs, but this analysis suggests that the assumption should be more nuanced. In particular, policies that require business taxpayers to submit paper-based information in addition to their e-filing roughly negate savings that would otherwise be realized. In addition, adoption of e-filing requires an up-front investment by the business not only in capital assets, but also in the time, effort, and resources required to learn how to use e-filing properly and efficiently. Small businesses, in particular, are likely to face a steep "learning curve" and should probably not be forced to use e-filing before the majority of them have access to computers (with reliable electricity service) and have had a chance to become familiar with both computer use and the Internet.
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Рабочий документ в рамках исследования вопросов политики WPS6647 OCT 01, 2013
This paper examines the specialization and diversity of manufacturing industries within Indian districts. Prior to India's recent economic growth and liberalization, specialization levels in 1989 were substantially higher than similar metrics calculated for the United States.
... Подробнее + From 1989 to 2010, average specialization levels for Indian districts declined to a level that is now quite comparable to the United States. Diversity levels similarly increased. Specialization and diversity levels in India are becoming more persistent with time. Manufacturing plants display higher productivity in districts that display both properties. From 1989 to 2010, manufacturing employment growth was higher in districts that were more specialized at the start of the period.
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Рабочий документ в рамках исследования вопросов политики WPS6648 OCT 01, 2013
On September 25, 2013, the Committee on Governance and Executive Directors' Administrative Matters (COGAM) endorsed Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA's) proposal of a new framework for developing, issuing, managing, and disseminating regulatory documents for MIGA (MIGA policy and procedure (P & P) framework).
... Подробнее + The purpose of the MIGA P & P framework is to organize MIGA's P & P documents in a more efficient and user-friendly manner and to create a searchable repository to facilitate their storage and access. The MIGA P & P framework is consistent with the P & P frameworks of the Bank and International Finance Corporation (IFC) in terms of categorization, design, and other aspects. MIGA coordinated with the Bank and IFC in developing the MIGA P&P framework and will continue to collaborate with them during the implementation process. This paper provides an update on the implementation of the MIGA P&P framework. It summarizes: (a) the actions taken since Board approval of the MIGA P&P framework, and (b) the MIGA P&P framework implementation plan, including completion date targets for each task.
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Transparency -- sunshine -- is often touted as a core element of the governance agenda, and one that is most important in environments with low transparency to begin with.
... Подробнее + In a provocative paper published in the American Political Science Review, Edmund Malesky, Paul Schuler, and Anh Tran present the results of a creative experiment in which they provided an additional spotlight on the activities of a random sample of delegates to Vietnam's National Assembly. They report that the effect of sunshine was negative, that delegates subject to this treatment curtailed their speech, and that those who spoke most critically were punished through the subsequent election and promotion processes. The present paper argues that Malesky, Schuler, and Tran's results, if interpreted correctly, actually predict a net positive effect of transparency. The differences in interpretation stem primarily from three sources: the interpretation of regression results for models with interaction terms, the interpretation of the variable for Internet penetration, and significant pre-treatment differences between treated and control delegates. For the context in which more than 80 percent of delegates operate, Malesky, Schuler, and Tran's results predict a positive but insignificant effect of transparency. In addition, Internet penetration, itself a measure of access to information, is positively associated with critical speech. The paper draws lessons for the design and interpretation of randomized experiments with interaction effects.
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Рабочий документ в рамках исследования вопросов политики WPS6602 SEP 01, 2013
The objective of the Sava Waterway Rehabilitation Project for Bosnia and Herzegovina is to improve the operational performance and safety of commercial and leisure vessels on the Sava River, thereby contributing to improved utilization of the river ports.
... Подробнее + Negative impacts include: air pollution, dust, flora and fauna, noise pollution, soil erosion, and waste management. Mitigation measures include: a) prohibit tourist recreational traffic and traffic of high-speed boats in the vicinity of known spawning places; b) provide safe disposal of sanitary waste water from ships in ports. The ships should undertake ballast water management measures in accordance with requirements of the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships Ballast Water and Sediments; c) provide appropriate procedures for managing chemical and fuel storage areas. Fuelling, loading and unloading activities on ships should be conducted by properly trained personnel according to pre-established formal procedures; d) prohibit tourist recreational traffic and traffic of high-speed boats in the vicinity of known spawning places; and e) allow passage of vessels that transport hazardous cargo and substances (chemical, oil, etc.) only with police entourage.
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Оценка состояния окружающей среды E4213 SEP 01, 2013
Animation schools in Cambodia are using the power of international trade to reach the poor. Computer animation has become increasingly sophisticated in recent decades.
... Подробнее + It has moved from two-dimensional graphics to three-dimensional (3D). It has also become a highly tradable service. Exports of animation from South Korea were estimated to be worth almost United States (U.S.) 400 million dollars in 2012. While Cambodia's contribution to the industry is still small, demand is growing worldwide for good, low-cost animation. Industries beyond film and television are increasingly using animation to get their point across: institutions use animation in instructional or promotional films; governments use it in public service announcements; and it is used in more industrial settings, too, for example in architecture and in courtroom evidence. At least three institutions in Cambodia are developing students' technical skills related to 3D animation, each with different aims. The government should take care to support these and similar initiatives with policies that foster the development of the high-tech and creative services industries, such as a recent United Nations led effort to increase Cambodians' access to broadband internet. The government should execute stable and predictable policies in the internet and communications technology (ICT) and telecom related industries- areas in which it has lagged.
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