Main pharmaceutical policy goals in Ghana are access to essential medicines for everybody, quality assurance for all drugs on the market, a functioning and efficient supply chain as well as rational use of medicines by professionals and patients. There is also a commitment to strengthen the domestic pharmaceutical industry, outlined under health industry in the national health policy.

This paper tracks the process through which FIAS, the investment climate advisory service of the World Bank Group advised the government of Latvia from 1998 to 2004 on ways to improve the business environment, achieve higher rates of economic growth, and thereby alleviate poverty. This case study shows that it is reasonable to describe how assistance by FIAS led to an improved business environment.

After decades of war, with a dilapidated infrastructure and millions of people dead, wounded or displaced, Vietnam could have been considered a hopeless case in economic development. Yet, it is now about to enter the ranks of middle-income countries. The obvious question is: How did this happen? This paper goes one step further, asking not which policies were adopted, but rather why they were adopted. This question is all the more intriguing because the process did not involve one group of individuals displacing another within the structure of power.

Brazil grew 2.4 percent per year on average in the last 25 years-somewhat less than Latin America, a good deal less than the world, far less than the emerging countries of Asia in the same period, and indeed far less than Brazil itself in previous decades. If anything stands out favorably in recent Brazilian experience, it is not growth but stabilization and the successful opening of the economy. The purpose of this paper is more modest.

The paper focuses its analysis on the last three decades of the twentieth century. The basic assumption is that Egypt's economic performance during this period was less than satisfactory compared with the most successful examples in the far East and elsewhere. The paper also assumes that Egypt's initial conditions at midcentury compared favorably with the winners in the development race at the end of the century. Egypt has achieved positive progress, no doubt, yet compared with the higher performers in Asia, and given its favorable good initial conditions, the record seems quite mediocre.

Contents of the report are: introduction; by Penelope J. Brook, and Sabine Hertveldt; how to reform in 3 months. Azerbaijan registers businesses faster by setting-up a one-stop shop; by Svetlana Bagaudinova, Dahlia Khalifa, and Givi Petriashvili; one-stop shopping in Portugal; by Camille Ramos; competitiveness from innovation, not inheritance; by Karim Ouled Belayachi, and Jamal Ibrahim Haidar; harnessing the internet to streamline procedures; by K.

Women, business and the law focuses on this critical piece of the puzzle, objectively highlighting differentiations on the basis of gender in 141 economies around the world, covering six areas: accessing institutions, using property, getting a job, providing incentives to work, building credit and going to court. Women, business and the law describes regional trends and shows how economies are changing across these six areas, tracking governments' actions to expand economic opportunities for women.

The objectives of the study are to: a) increase understanding of the effects and effectiveness of the implementation of the local government reform launched in 2006; and b) assess the impact of a World Bank-supported intervention that aimed to enhance effectiveness of the reforms by increasing local capacity and local participation. In line with these objectives, the study assessed the perceived effects and effectiveness of the implementation of the local government reform in selected provinces.

There is broad recognition, across the political spectrum and in both 'northern' and 'southern' countries, that justice reform, and more generally the promotion of the 'rule of law', are central to development policy, particularly in conflict-affected, fragile and violent contexts. More recently an increased focus on global security and the interaction between security and development as put a renewed emphasis on such efforts.

Governance quality plays a key role in private sector development: competent bureaucrats not only create good policies and regulations, but also effectively implement them to shape the business environment. This paper exploit Vietnam’s decentralization of administrative tasks since the early 2000s to test this hypothesis. The paper examines how changes in the provincial administration of national business regulations affect firms through two channels: within-firm productivity levels and resource allocation across firms.

In the wake of the revolution, Tunisian society is currently undergoing a significant transformation. In late 2011, the country's first representative government in more than three decades was formed, as the Constituent Assembly was seated. Hundreds of legitimate candidates ran in an election that was free, fair, and enjoyed nearly 90 percent participation by eligible voters.

Extreme fragile situations are now home to at least a quarter of the worlds people. In the worst cases, where fragility has given way to open violence - people are more than twice as likely to be malnourished, more than three times as likely to be unable to send their children to school, twice as likely to see their children die before age five, and more than twice as likely to lack clean water. It is unsurprising that not a single low-income country in these circumstances has been able to achieve even one Millennium Development Goal (World Bank 2011).