Abstract

This report provides a diagnostic and a set of recommendations for the coordination of infrastructure investments in three main sectors in Romania: roads; water and wastewater; and social infrastructure (education, health, culture, and sports). The proposals formulated are targeted primarily at the main client of this work, the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Administration (MRDPA) and specifically at the Directorate General for Regional Development and Infrastructure (DG RDI), which manages the most important state-budget-funded program for local infrastructure investments – the National Local Development Program (PNDL). Other key stakeholders include the Center of Government (CoG), the Ministry of Public Finances, the Ministry of European Funds, other central authorities in charge of EU and/or state-funded investment programs, Regional Development Agencies, and county and local councils. While customized for the PNDL, the recommendations that follow can be replicated across all state-budget-funded investment programs. This report presents multiple instruments for promoting coordination: dedicated platforms, harmonization of investment programs (design, financing criteria, producers), and knowledge sharing of good practices at the local level.

Abstract

The LPI has provided valuable information for policy makers, traders, and other stakeholders, including researchers and academics, on the role of logistics for growth and the policies needed to support logistics in areas such as infrastructure planning, service provision, and crossborder trade and transport facilitation. The results of Connecting to Compete 2016 point to Germany as the best performing country, with an LPI score of 4.23, and Syria as the lowest, with a score of 1.60 (equivalent to 19 percent of Germany’s score on a scale from 1 to 5). The converging trend between the top and worst performers that appeared in the previous LPI surveys (2007, 2010, 2012, and 2014) seems to have slightly reversed. The average scores in each quintile reveal that the gap between the top 2 quintiles and the countries at the bottom in performance is widening again.

Abstract

The trade facilitation facility (TFF) was launched to help low-income countries improve their competitiveness by reducing the costs of engaging in international trade, thus supporting their efforts to reduce poverty and achieve the millennium development goals. This report summarizes the outcomes of the TFF between its establishment in 2009 and its end in 2015. The report highlights and reviews the accomplishments and lessons learned of TFF; it also discusses and reflects the perspective of task team leaders and relevant World Bank Group officials on the Bank Group’s continuing work in the trade facilitation sphere. The report presents results of TFF-funded activities and programs managed by staff from a large cross section of Bank Group sectors, including transport, agriculture, governance (customs), international trade, and private sector development. The report is organized as follows: chapter one give introduction. Chapter two provides an overview of the TFF portfolio. Chapter three looks at TFF as enabler of deepening regional integration, highlighting some of the facility’s accomplishments from a geographic and thematic perspective, particularly the extent to which TFF complemented Bank infrastructure operations and nurtured progress on trade facilitation instruments that countries and regional economic communities (RECs) have adopted but failed to implement. Chapter four, expanding thematic insights, addresses conceptual themes in trade facilitation. Chapter five, conclusions and contributions, sums up the areas in which TFF has contributed to moving the regional and multilateral trade facilitation agenda.

Abstract

n efficient system to transport goods domestically and internationally is a key element of the logistics chain. Road freight transport has a direct impact on poverty as it employs millions of people and generates a significant portion of Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, especially in low and middle-income countries. Trucking is the primary form of transportation for domestic, trans-border, and international cargo, in Central America. Road freight transport is now vital to production, distribution, and mobilization, driving economic, social, and environmental progress. In short, trucking is the backbone of economies around the world. In the past 20 years, the industry has advanced as technology has improved communication, management, productivity, including vehicle efficiency. Their objective in doing so is to expand markets, generate wealth on the basis of efficient specialization, introduce competition, and lower costs for production, distribution, services, and research and development. When road freight transport services are efficient, they support these objectives; when they are not they act as nontariff barriers to trade, creating delays, raising costs, worsening congestion and pollution. Such barriers prolong and destabilize delivery schedules, hinder 'just in time' inventory management and industrial processes, and impede the efficient combination of factors of production.