In preparation for its 2019-2022 Country Partnership Framework with South Africa, the World Bank Group has drafted a Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) which forms the basis of this book. Its aim is to strengthen understanding of the constraints in achieving two goals in South Africa: to eliminate poverty by 2030, and to boost shared prosperity. These goals are enshrined in South Africa’s Vision 2030 in the National Development Plan.

This book is the result of consultations and conversations with key government departments, the National Planning Commission, the private sector, academics and trade unions. It identifies five broad policy priorities: to build South Africa’s skills base; to reduce the highly skewed distribution of land and productive assets; to increase competitiveness and the country’s participation in global and regional value chains; to overcome apartheid spatial patterns; and to increase the country’s strategic adaptation to climate change. The key obstacle to growth that has been identified is ‘the legacy of exclusion’.

Undoing this is a long-term process, but renewed commitment by the political leadership to strengthen institutions and rebuild the social contract present an enormous opportunity in achieving progress towards South Africa’s Vision 2030.

The World Development Report 2006: Equity and Opportunity presents a social development strategy organized around the themes of social inclusion, cohesion, and accountability. It examines equality of opportunities--a potentially important factor affecting both the workings of the investment
environment and the empowerment of the poor--by building on and extending existing accountability frameworks presented in the 2005 Report.
The Report is divided into three parts. Part I describes patterns of inequality in a range of variables both at the national and global level-incomes, educational achievements, health indicators, power, and influence. Part II highlights reasons why some levels of inequality in the variables
presented in Part I may be too high-whether for intrinsic reasons or because they harm the attainment of competing values, such as the level of goods and services in the economy. Part III discusses policies that affect the relationship between equity and the development process at a national and
global level. This section includes policies that could help reduce the levels of some intermediate inequalities and focuses on circumstances in which these polices form the basis for more rapid overall development and faster poverty reduction.
Now in its twenty-eighth edition, the World Development Report offers practical insights for policymakers, business developers, economic advisers, researchers, and professionals in the media and in non-governmental organizations. It is also an essential supplement to economic and development courses
in both academic and professional settings.

According to the Global Burden of Disease 2019 study, air pollution from fine particulate matter caused 6.4 million premature deaths and 93 billion days lived with illness in 2019. Over the past decade, the toll of ambient air pollution has continued to rise. Air pollution's significant health, social, and economic effects compel the World Bank to support client countries in addressing air pollution as a core development challenge. This publication estimates that the global cost of health damages associated with exposure to air pollution is $8.1 trillion, equivalent to 6.1 percent of global GDP. People in low- and middle-income countries are most affected by mortality and morbidity from air pollution. The death rate associated with air pollution is significantly higher in low-and lower-middle income countries than in high-income countries. This publication further develops the evidence base for air-quality management through up-to-date estimates of air pollution's global economic costs. The analyses presented here build on previous cost estimates by the Bank and its partners, as well as on more comprehensive air-quality data from monitoring stations in many cities across the world. By providing monetary estimates of air pollution's health damages, this publication aims to support policy makers and decision-makers in client countries in prioritizing air pollution amid competing development challenges. Its findings build a robust economic case to invest scarce budgetary resources in the design and implementation of policies and interventions for improving air quality. Such investments will deliver benefits for societies at large, and particularly for vulnerable groups. This publication builds a strong case for scaling up investments for air pollution control in low-and middle-income countries.

This publication briefly describes the processes and methodologies for building and sustaining multistakeholder coalition to drive reforms in the health sector. It is based on the experiences of three East African countries Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya. It outlines, by chapter, each country s experience in identifying, mobilizing, and coalescing key stakeholders to address governance bottlenecks in pharmaceutical procurement and supply chain management . It highlights challenges, successes as well as lessons learned to guide other countries."

Women, Business and the Law 2022 is the eighth in a series of annual studies measuring the laws and regulations that affect women's economic opportunity in 190 economies. The project presents eight indicators structured around women's interactions with the law as they move through their careers: Mobility, Workplace, Pay, Marriage, Parenthood, Entrepreneurship, Assets, and Pension. Amid a global pandemic that threatens progress toward gender equality, 'Women, Business and the Law 2022' identifies barriers to women's economic participation and encourages reform of discriminatory laws. This year, the study also includes pilot research related to childcare and implementation of the law. By examining the economic decisions women make throughout their working lives, as well as the pace of reform over the past 50 years, Women, Business and the Law makes an important contribution to research and policy discussions about the state of women's economic empowerment. The indicators build evidence of the critical relationship between legal gender equality and women's employment and entrepreneurship. Data in 'Women, Business and the Law 2022' are current as of October 1, 2021.

What needs to be done to enable the domestic private sector to expand its role in the provision of safe water and improved sanitation to the poor in developing countries? Is an expanded role constrained because there is limited market potential, or is the problem the fact that business models cannot support an expansion of supply? Are government policies and the investment climate making expansion too costly or risky for enterprises to scale up their operations? This book presents the results of a detailed examination of market opportunities for the domestic private sector in the provision of piped water and on-site sanitation services in rural and semi-urban areas and of the commercial, policy and investment climate that affect the response to these opportunities. It is based on case studies conducted in Bangladesh, Benin, Cambodia, Indonesia, Peru and Tanzania. The results of focus group discussions with poor households, surveys of enterprises directly serving poor households and analysis of the supply chains that support them provide insights into the nature of demand for services, the prevailing business models adopted by enterprises and the impact of policy on decisions to invest or expand operations. The issues preventing the large market for providing poor and nonpoor households with piped water and on-site sanitation differ in important ways. This book therefore addresses the two sectors separately. The first part of the book analyses the challenges facing domestic providers of piped water in Bangladesh, Benin and Cambodia, countries where very different models of private provision have emerged in response to differing approaches taken by government. The second part analyses providers of on-site sanitation services in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Peru and Tanzania, where the models are similar and all providers face demand- and supply-side challenges that are largely unaffected by government policy. This book will be of interest to governments and their multilateral and bilateral development partners, as well as local and international nongovernment agencies concerned with reducing the heavy toll that lack of access to safe water and hygienic sanitation is imposing on poor people around the world. It proposes recommendations that each of these actors can adopt to harness the entrepreneurial capabilities of the domestic private sector to address this continuing challenge.