The World Bank In Turkey 1993 2004 00

This book examines the objectives set by the World Bank for its operations in Turkey in the period 1993-2004 and the extent to which those objectives were met.

The persistent potential for large scale natural disasters has become a real concern for the Turkish government since the late 1990s, which ultimately led to the establishment of the Turkish Catastrophe Insurance Pool (TCIP). Among the main rationale of the creation of the TCIP were a grave government fiscal exposure to natural disasters and a disproportionately low level of catastrophe insurance penetration for such a disaster-prone country. Since the commencement of this program in 2000, the TCIP has provided coverage to more than 2 million households, being by far the largest insurance program in the country. In four years, the TCIP has managed to become one of the most trusted brand names in the Turkish insurance industry, and one of the largest catastrophe insurance pools in the world. Its success has also brought an international recognition, inspiring more than a dozen of countries world wide. The TCIP experience has also been a watershed for the World Bank as it has led to a rethinking of the roles of ex ante risk management relative to ex post donor support. This book presents the main technical imperatives and challenges in the development and the implementation of the TCIP and shows how a public-private partnership may be the way forward in the financing of natural disasters. If offers valuable advise and guidelines to policymakers involved in the development of catastrophe insurance programs.

This report was prepared by a team led by Roberto Zagha, under the general direction of Gobind Nankani.

At the start of each decade the World Development Report focuses on poverty reduction. The World Development Report, now in its twenty-third edition, proposes an empowerment-security-opportunity framework of action to reduce poverty in the first decades of the twenty-first century. It views poverty as a multidimensional phenonmenon arising out of complex interactions between assets, markets, and institutions. This Report shows how the experience of poverty reduction in the last fifteen years has been remarkably diverse and how this experience has provided useful lessons as well as warnings against simplistic universal policies and interventions. It shows how current global trends present extraordinary opportunities for poverty reduction but also cause extraordinary risks, including growing inequality, marginalization, and social explosions. The World Development Report 2000/2001 explores the challenge of managing these risks in order to make the most of the opportunities for poverty reduction.

Rising densities of human settlements, migration and transport to reduce distances to market, and specialization and trade facilitated by fewer international divisions are central to economic development. The transformations along these three dimensions density, distance, and division are most noticeable in North America, Western Europe, and Japan, but countries in Asia and Eastern Europe are changing in ways similar in scope and speed. 'World Development Report 2009: Reshaping Economic Geography' concludes that these spatial transformations are essential, and should be encouraged. The conclusion is not without controversy. Slum-dwellers now number a billion, but the rush to cities continues. Globalization is believed to benefit many, but not the billion people living in lagging areas of developing nations. High poverty and mortality persist among the world's 'bottom billion', while others grow wealthier and live longer lives. Concern for these three billion often comes with the prescription that growth must be made spatially balanced. The WDR has a different message: economic growth is seldom balanced, and efforts to spread it out prematurely will jeopardize progress. The Report: documents how production becomes more concentrated spatially as economies grow. proposes economic integration as the principle for promoting successful spatial transformations. revisits the debates on urbanization, territorial development, and regional integration and shows how today's developers can reshape economic geography.