From transport to health, food to construction and textiles, plastics are among the most abundant materials in our economy. Globally, the plastic industry is valued at USD 600 billion and provides employment to millions of people worldwide. But plastic pollution has become a crisis of monumental proportions, with 8 million tons ending up in oceans annually. Around the world, different regions face unique challenges ranging from community awareness to waste and recycling capacity, to weak stakeholder engagement.
Lao People's Democratic Republic
Although Tajikistan enjoyed impressive economic growth in the first decade of the new millennium, most of the growth was based on good fortune and focused narrowly in a few sectors. Needing a strategy to sustain and diversify growth over the medium to long term, the government of Tajikistan (GOT) began the long process of developing its hydropower resources for domestic and export markets.
Complementing a Bank-financed project, transport officials and provincial governors from Lao PDR visited South Africa to learn from its national roads agency and other organizations. Delegates increased their skills in road administration, asset management, and public-private partnerships. Laotian officials leveraged know-how to introduce pilot PPPs and identify ways to improve the country’s road administration agency.
With the continued economic growth of East Asian and Pacific (EAP) developing countries, public concern has increased about the appropriateness of and transparency around public expenditures. Recent corporate collapses and increased corruption cases focused attention once again on auditors’ roles and performance, since government auditing plays a vital part in safeguarding public assets. Compared with others in EAP, Mongolia’s and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic’s (Lao PDR) government auditors or Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) are weak.