World Bank's Approach Research Articles

Socio-economic development of tourist destinations: A cross-country analysis

The study aims to investigate the characteristics of socio-economic development in the context of countries’ tourism advancement. The paper analyzes the Travel & Tourism Development Index (TTDI) and the Happiness Rating (HR). The sample covers data from 102 countries for the year 2021. The analysis showed that there are differences in the relationships between TTDI and HR, as well as their sub-indices, among groups of countries distributed according to income level. The research methodology includes the use of such methods as correlation analysis to determine the relationships between indicators like factor analysis to identify the degree of indicators' influence on the sample and a graphical method to visualise the analysis results. The study uses the World Bank approach to classify countries into income groups. The study confirms that a country's welfare level is one factor that determines patterns in various areas, including tourism.

IMF and World Bank Approach to Cross-Border Payments Technical Assistance

IMF and World Bank Approach to Cross-Border Payments Technical Assistance

INCOME DISTRIBUTION OF RED CHILLI FARMER, AT MEREMBU VILLAGE, LABUAPI DISTRICT, WEST LOMBOK REGENCY 2021

Red chili is an agricultural commodity planted by farmers on the sidelines of rice planting as the main agricultural commodity, especially in Merembu Village, Labuapi District, West Lombok Regency. This study aims to determine the level of income distribution of chili farmers in Merembu Village, Labuapi District, West Lombok Regency. The sample respondent as many as 35 red chili farmers in the research area. The analysis technique uses income distribution analysis with three approaches, namely Gini Coefficient approach, Lorenz Curve and World Bank Criteria Approach. The results of the Gini Ratio calculation for the 35 respondents studied, obtained a Gini Index or Gini Coefficient of 0.143, this shows the income inequality of red chili farmers in Merembu Village, Labuapi District in the mild or low category. This statement is reinforced by the Lorenz Curve approach and the World Bank Criteria Approach, namely the results of calculations based on the World Bank approach obtained that 40% of the population with low incomes receive an income of 29.6% or greater than 17% (Low Category) of the total existing income. This indicates that the category of the level of income distribution of chili farmers in Merembu Village, Labuapi District is relatively low

Financial Development in Developing Countries and Its Impact on Economic Growth between 2008 and 2017

This article examines how the level of financial development has changed in the ten years between 2008 and 2017 in connection to the most significant events in the global economy and finance and how financial development has influenced economic growth in developing countries. The study measures financial development following the World Bank (2020) approach and using indicators of financial access, financial depth, financial efficiency and financial stability, corresponding to financial institutions and financial markets. Based on a two-way fixed effects model, we find that financial development has positively and significantly contributed to economic growth in these countries during the ten years between 2008 and 2017, through increased access of individual consumers and firms to financial products and services. Other variables such as the depth, efficiency and stability of financial institutions and markets do not correlate significantly with the economic growth of developing countries between 2008 and 2017. This paper concludes that the access to financial institutions for individuals living in developing nations is favourably and significantly connected to economic growth in these countries.

The Investments Efficiency Toward Economic Growth: ICOR of the Republic of Croatia and Slovenia - Comparative Analysis

Most developing and developed countries, today are faced with a lot of economic, social, and political challenges as a result of internal or external factors such as the World Financial Crisis and Covid19. In these circumstances, the crucial objective of any government is to improve the national economic performance by increasing domestics and foreign investments. Investments efficiency is the main pillar in the increase of the economic growth of any economy. This paper aims to measure the efficiency of the investments towards economic growth in the Republic of Croatia and Slovenia by applying a comparative analysis. The specific objective of our paper is to determine the best ICOR level, the correlation between ICOR and GDP, and the impact on the economic growth of both countries. The research methodology will include the analysis of the efficiency of the investment measured by the indicators Incremental Capital-Output Ratio (ICOR) based on the World Bank approach. The period of observation includes the period from the year 1995 to 2020. The investment efficiency (ICOR) in both countries is expected to move between 1 and 6. The findings of this research are that each one-point decrease of the ICOR level of Croatia increases the economic growth by 1.961 percent, while the ICOR level of Slovenia increases less the Economic growth by 0.259 percent.

The Investments Efficiency Toward Economic Growth: ICOR of the Republic of Croatia and Slovenia - Comparative Analysis

: Most developing and developed countries, today are faced with a lot of economic, social, and political challenges as a result of internal or external factors such as the World Financial Crisis and Covid19. In these circumstances, the crucial objective of any government is to improve the national economic performance by increasing domestics and foreign investments. Investments efficiency is the main pillar in the increase of the economic growth of any economy. This paper aims to measure the efficiency of the investments towards economic growth in the Republic of Croatia and Slovenia by applying a comparative analysis. The specific objective of our paper is to determine the best ICOR level, the correlation between ICOR and GDP, and the impact on the economic growth of both countries. The research methodology will include the analysis of the efficiency of the investment measured by the indicators Incremental Capital-Output Ratio (ICOR) based on the World Bank approach. The period of observation includes the period from the year 1995 to 2020. The investment efficiency (ICOR) in both countries is expected to move between 1 and 6. The findings of this research are that each one-point decrease of the ICOR level of Croatia increases the economic growth by 1.961 percent, while the ICOR level of Slovenia increases less the Economic growth by 0.259 percent.

Success and failure in the political economy of solar electrification: Lessons from World Bank Solar Home System (SHS) projects in Sri Lanka and Indonesia

This study contrasts two national solar home system (SHS) programs that relied on the same World Bank approach, but reached dramatically different results. The Energy Services Delivery Project (ESDP) in Sri Lanka was an exemplary renewable energy access program, successfully installing 21,000 off-grid SHSs alongside grid-connected mini-hydro capacity and off-grid village hydroelectric systems. It reached all of its targets ahead of schedule and below cost. By contrast, the Indonesia Solar Home System Project (ISHSP), which ran from 1997 to 2003, sought to reach one million rural Indonesians through the sales and installation of 200,000 SHSs. However, by project closing in 2003, less than five percent of the original sales target, or only 8054 units, had been installed. The ESDP and ISHSP were the World Bank's first foray into a “market-based renewable energy services provision model.” Based on original research interviews and field observation, the article finds that contrasting the two programs—one a success, the other a failure—offers lessons for energy and development practitioners, namely that effective programs are those that select appropriate technology, often with input from households themselves; they promote community participation and ownership; and they have robust marketing, demonstration, and promotion activities.

Nuevos cambios, viejos esquemas: las políticas de salud en México y Colombia en los años 2000

Recent years have witnessed discussion on the need for changes in the health systems of Latin America. This initiative, spearheaded once again by the World Bank as Universal Health Coverage, focuses on strategies for protection against financial risks and unified access to essential services and medicines. Although the World Bank approaches have been incorporated in different ways by the region's countries since the 1980s, there have also been important breaks with this trend, for example in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Ecuador, which have sought at different times to implement policies and programs emphasizing non-market-driven values. Nevertheless, recent political changes with the crisis of the so-called progressive governments have meant that the market-driven view of health has reappeared insistently on the public agendas. Middle-income countries like Mexico and Colombia have implemented changes based on this model, and in both cases different stakeholders have pushed the readjustment of the health systems towards the perspective of the international financial agencies. The current study contends that these changes, promoted as a "renewed" alternative to respond to the problems resulting from the transformations, conducted for slightly more than twenty years, actually maintain the basis of the neoliberal model for health care.

KINERJA MANAJEMEN DAN STRATEGI PENGEMBAGNGAN LEMBAGA KEUANGAN MIKRO AGRIBISNIS SEDYO MAKMUR KABUPATEN BANTUL

The aims of this study were to observe the performance of KSU LKM-A Sedyo Makmur between 2011-2013 and to formulate operated strategis for its future development. The performance indicator was portofolio quality, leverage, productivity, efficiency, profitability, financial feasibility, scale and depth of outreach, by means of World Bank approach of micro finance indicators. To formulate the strategies SWOT analysis was used.Result showed that performance of KSU LKM-A Sedyo Makmur was good on its leverage, productivity, efficiency, operational sel-sufficiency, and scale and depth of outreach between 2011-2013, bt its portofolio quality, profitability, and financial self sufficiency was still poor. For this study, the best SWOT strategy was the S-O that takes an advantage of the opportunity by using the strenghs. This can be done by add capital by leveraging existing network increase the offer of credit to customer/members who have good credit collectability, expand the market with regard to the principles of prudential financial institutions, and optimize the performance of loan officers to support market expansion and better members/potential customers management.

The World Bank at 75

As the World Bank approaches its 75th anniversary, it faces a rapidly changing global environment. Economic growth among developing countries means that, according to our projections, up to 42 current International Development Association (IDA) countries and 36 current International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) countries could be eligible to graduate from their respective lending windows by 2019 under the bank's current rules. Changing dynamics in financial supply, both within and outside of the bank, and demand, e.g., for massive infrastructure investment or global public goods, indicate a need to rethink the bank's core lending model. This paper examines ways in which seeming immoveable forces underlying the World Bank's work might finally be ripe for change in the face of shifting development needs.

The Contradictions of Pro‐poor Participation and Empowerment: The World Bank in East Africa

ABSTRACTParticipatory approaches remain central to development practice and the World Bank continues to espouse them with the promise to make its aid more pro‐poor. Yet participation's (in)effectiveness has become the focus of renewed, polarizing debates, and assessments of the form and function of the World Bank's participatory paradigm are still contested and unresolved. Through extensive field data collected in East Africa, this article seeks to move the debate forward. It presents three interrelated arguments: (1) the World Bank's participatory approach remains largely circumscribed by a Post‐Washington Consensus neoliberalism; (2) the approach, nonetheless, pro‐actively supports pro‐poor gains, and creates space for more alternative initiatives; (3) however, its effectiveness in fostering pro‐poor empowerment is undermined by deep inequalities and political economy dynamics on the ground. Two implications are discussed, which challenge conventional wisdom. First, the World Bank's approach could be seen as a hierarchical system of elements in which certain aspects, but not others, are insulated from popular deliberation. Second, participatory development should be (re)imagined as an open‐ended process rooted in the politicization of inequality and embedded in the dynamics of capitalist development, which also points to the critical role of a developmental state.

Urban heritage ‘space’ under neoliberal development: a tale of a Jordanian plaza

What happens when urban heritage spaces within developing countries, such as Jordan, are subject to touristic development funded by international bodies, such as the World Bank? This question is explored theoretically and practically by considering a popular local plaza in the secondary Jordanian city of Jerash that has been subject to three tourism development projects funded by the World Bank. The study, which incorporates and critiques the discourse of neoliberalism within urban heritage development studies, seeks to analyse the World Bank projects and, more specifically, how they have defined, approached and produced outcomes in the Jerash plaza and its context. In so doing, the study triangulates the analysis with accounts by local respondents that identify major drawbacks in the World Bank approach, particularly its emphasis on conventional ‘readings’ of urban space that highlight universal values and histories, while neglecting and marginalising local values and understandings. The triangulation offers attentive ‘readings’ of the plaza as a place understood and experienced by a people. The challenge is to break with the neoliberal paradigm that dominates urban heritage development programmes (and their associated West–East dualisms and top-down approaches) by presenting local sociocultural and economic contexts as assets to enrich development projects, rather than obstacles to be ‘fixed’ and ‘fitted’ for tourism.

Towards better results from the World Bank

This article briefly reviews the World Bank document The World Bank Approach to Public Sector Management 2011–2020: Better Results from Public Sector Institutions. The document proposes an eclectic, experimental, contingent approach to reform – ‘what works’ – as opposed to doctrinaire, ‘best practice’ orthodoxies. However, the document is frank in discussing the obstacles to realizing this vision, including among other things the incentives to which Bank staff themselves are subject. In overall terms, the document is noteworthy for its frank appraisal of the Bank’s efforts to support public sector reform in developing countries. Points for practitioners This article is of interest to practitioners involved in public sector reform in developing countries, particularly those who deal with the World Bank and other aid donors, because it reviews a document which represents an important statement of the World Bank’s thinking on the subject of public sector management and reform.

The World Bank Approach to Public Sector Management 2011–2020: lessons from the Malaysian experience

Drawing upon the Malaysian experience as reflected in interviews with selected senior bureaucrats across the Malaysian public service in addition to the first-hand experience of the author in the reform effort, this commentary seeks to analyse the extent to which Malaysia’s approach to public management reform resonates with the proposed approach of the World Bank. The World Bank Approach highlights the central importance of context in reform. Reforms that pre-specify their intended impact upon service delivery have a better chance of success as, among other things, they are better able to attract a disproportionate amount of resources and offer a platform for a blend of top-down and bottom-up approaches to reform where practitioners take heed of the collective wisdom by consulting all stakeholders, including the public. Notwithstanding, reforms on the back of best practices should not be discounted. Combined, these reforms, with the general purpose of enhancing government performance, do impact on service delivery. While a problem-oriented approach to reform is a prerequisite, Malaysia's experience indicates that it is the follow-through of the implementation effort that ultimately determines reform success.

The Prospects and Challenges of Reforming the World Bank's Approach to Gender and Education: Exploring the Value of the Capability Policy Model in The Gambia

The World Bank is currently the lead education research and lending body operating internationally, including in the area of girls’ education. As such, the World Bank wields considerable power in terms of shaping the policy agendas of borrower nations and for this reason is scrutinized in this paper for its privileging of an economic-instrumentalist normative framework for education policy development within which formal schooling is viewed exclusively as a means for economic growth, rather than as a potential tool for the achievement of social justice. An analysis of World Bank work in The Gambian education sector is used to illustrate the limits of a human capital-driven, economic-instrumentalist approach to education policy, with specific attention paid to gender and education issues and related policy solutions. We ultimately argue the value of the World Bank adopting the human capability policy approach as a means to advance World Bank education sector work.

Economic clustering of countries in the Asia‐Pacific region

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the possibility of using non‐income indicators and the self‐organizing map (SOM) approach as an alternative analytical tool to map countries' welfare status.Design/methodology/approachUsing data from 27 countries of the East Asia‐Pacific region, a welfare analysis based on non‐income indicators is implemented. The set of the selected indicators employed includes measures of social indicators as well as indicators related to the overall development framework. The empirical approach of the present paper can be described as a two‐stage procedure. In the first stage, the standard incremental SOM algorithm has been used and the two‐dimensional map produced in a hexagonal grid is presented together with the weight maps. In the second stage, the k‐means methodology has been used to cluster the prototypes produced by the SOM.FindingsThe classification produced by the two‐stage approach of the empirical analysis is compared with the baseline World Bank's income categories (based on Gross National Income per capita) offering an opportunity to assess the usefulness of non‐parametric approaches that are based on non‐income indicators vis‐à‐vis World Bank's approach in analysing welfare outcomes. The emerging picture of the empirical analysis supports the potential of the SOM as a useful and prolific analytical tool in mapping welfare outcomes.Originality/valueThis study proposes a methodology beyond the conventional ordinal rankings of the welfare of the countries based on non‐income indicators and the SOM.

Social Funds, poverty management and subjectification: beyond the World Bank approach

Revisiting, from a Marxist perspective, the World Bank’s discourse on Social Funds, we highlight three findings. One, Social Funds gets deployed in the context of a larger Third Worldist discourse of poverty management, which in turn helps deepen the logic of capitalist development. Two, generating a class-focused understanding of Social Funds (via the concept of social surplus), we argue that class processes and need processes constitute one another and through this conduit emerges a relation between global capital and the poverty alleviation programme of Social Funds. Lastly, interrogating the management approach underlying Social Funds leads us to question claims of decentralisation and participation. Our analysis exposes an underlying process of subjectification by way of a control mechanism exercised through the code of conduct encapsulated in that managerial approach.

Do Fragile Countries Experience Worse MDG Progress?

While it is regularly stated that development progress in so-called fragile states is lagging behind, only very limited empirical analysis exists that investigates to what extent the levels and trends in achievements in MDG indicators differ between fragile and other developing countries, and between different definitions of fragile states. We analyse levels of MDG indicators and progress towards achieving the MDGs between 1990 and 2008 of fragile and non-fragile countries. We focus particularly on the widely used World Bank approach to define fragility, but also compare it with other definitions. We show that fragile countries are, indeed, performing worse in terms of achievement levels of MDG indicators. However, progress in these measures is, on average, not slower in fragile states using most definitions of fragility, and highly heterogeneous among the both fragile and non-fragile countries; only if fragility is defined very narrowly do we see lower progress towards the MDGs. As a result, we suggest that current definitions of fragility are not useful aggregations to predict, monitor and explain development progress using MDG indicators.

How Not to Count the Poor

The World Bank's approach to estimating the extent, distribution and trend of global income poverty is neither meaningful nor reliable. The Bank uses an arbitrary international poverty line that is not adequately anchored in any specification of the real requirements of human beings. Moreover, it employs a concept of purchasing power equivalence that is neither well defined nor appropriate for poverty assessment. These difficulties are inherent in the Bank's money-metric approach and cannot be credibly overcome without dispensing with this approach altogether. In addition, the Bank extrapolates incorrectly from limited data and thereby creates an appearance of precision that masks the high probable error of its estimates. It is difficult to judge the nature and extent of the errors in global poverty estimates that these three flaws produce. However, there is reason to believe that the Bank's approach may have led it to understate the extent of global income poverty and to infer without adequate justification that global income poverty has steeply declined in the recent period. A new methodology of global poverty assessment, focused directly on what is needed to achieve elementary human requirements, is feasible and necessary. A practical approach to implementing an alternative is described.

Public sector governance reform: the World Bank's framework

PurposeGood governance is often regarded as essential for a country's economic development. The World Bank's governance framework has guided development projects and governance reform in many developing nations over the past few decades. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the World Bank's approach towards governance reform in the public sector, especially in developing economies of the world.Design/methodology/approachThe paper highlights various aspects of good governance that are relevant to the delivery of social and infrastructural services in developing countries. The paper also discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the World Bank's governance framework, especially pertaining to social and infrastructure sectors in developing economies.FindingsIn light of its past experience, the World Bank has expanded the reach of its developmental activities to incorporate governance reform in accordance with the institutional realities prevailing in a developing economy, instead of following a “one‐size‐fit‐all” approach to public sector governance reform. The bank has also encouraged the use of decentralized decision making and private sector participation to achieve greater efficiency, transparency and accountability in the delivery of social and infrastructural services.Originality/valueThe paper provides a useful contribution to the literature concerning the role of international development organizations in formulating strategies that developing economies can follow to pursue public sector governance reform.