Introduction Chairman Addison, thank you for your remarks. And thank you, Governors, Kristalina, and distinguished guests for joining us today. I wanted to provide an update on what the World Bank Group (WBG) has accomplished since last year’s Annual Meetings, particularly our response to COVID-19 and progress made on debt transparency. The COVID-19 pandemic’s toll has be
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Acknowledgement This study was prepared by a multidisciplinary team led by Wael Mansour (Senior Economist) and Bledi Celiku (Senior Economist) under the guidance of Eric Le Borgne (Practice Manager). Contributing authors are as follows: Fragility and Diversified Growth: Stephan Massing (Senior Strategy and Operations Officer), Roland Lomme (Senior Governance Specialist
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The Great Lockdown The COVID-19 pandemic is inflicting high and rising human costs worldwide, and the necessary protection measures are severely impacting economic activity. As a result of the pandemic, the global economy is projected to contract sharply by –3 percent in 2020, much worse than during the 2008–09 financial crisis. In a baseline scenario--which assumes that the p
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1 Introduction The effectiveness of foreign aid remains controversial. A large literature studies how aid is spent (Werker et al., 2009); how it is absorbed in the domestic economy (Temple and van de Sijpe, 2017); and how much it ultimately stimulates growth (Dalgaard et al., 2004), improves human development outcomes (Boone, 1996), and reduces poverty (Collier and Dollar, 2
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Under Article IV of the IMF’s Articles of Agreement, the IMF holds bilateral discussions with members, usually every year. In the context of the 2019 Article IV consultation with Iraq, the following documents have been released and are included in this package: A Press Release summarizing the views of the Executive Board as expressed during its July 19, 2019 cons
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