The World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
The World Bank Open Knowledge Repository (OKR) is The World Bank’s official open access repository for its research outputs and knowledge products.
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Total publications: 38,566
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Publication Procuring Low Growth: The Impact of Political Favoritism on Public Procurement and Firm Performance in Bulgaria(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-14) Fazekas, Mihaly; Poltoratskaya, Viktoriia; Schiffbauer, Marc; Tóth, BenceThis paper assesses the impact of favoritism in public procurement on private sector productivity growth. To this end, it combines three novel microeconomic data sets: administrative data on firms, including more than 4 million firm-year observations and rich financial and ownership information; public procurement transaction data for 150,000 published contracts and their tenders; and a newly assembled data set on firms’ political connections, drawing on asset declarations, sanction lists, and offshore leaks. This comprehensive data set allows tracing the impact of favoritism in allocating government contracts to economic growth. The findings show that politically connected firms are 18 to 32 percent more likely to win public procurement contracts due to their preferential access to uncompetitive tenders. Public procurement results in higher subsequent productivity and employment growth only if it has been awarded through competitive tenders. Firms winning contracts through uncompetitive procedures have flat growth but higher profit margins. Consistent with these findings, the paper shows that firms that are awarded uncompetitive public procurement contracts obtain rents of 9 to 11 percent from overpaid contracts. The results suggest that aggregate annual total factor productivity growth would have been 8 percent higher in the absence of favoritism in public procurement.Publication RIGHT+ Framework for Physical Learning Environments (PLEs): Guidance for Resilient, Inclusive, Green, Healthy, and Teaching and Learning-Conducive (RIGHT) PLEs Effectively Implemented (+)(World Bank, Washington DC, 2025-03-14) Alasino, Enrique; Martinez, Angeles; Barrett, Peter; Ramirez, Fernando; Shmis, Tigran; Teixeira, JanssenIn the context of the global learning crisis, climate change, and increasing disasters, Physical Learning Environments (PLEs) can play an important role in increasing education outcomes globally, especially in the most vulnerable populations. For this framework, PLEs comprise the physical elements of the learning environment at three different levels: spaces; the school as a whole; and the network of education facilities. In low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), PLEs face common challenges that result in the exclusion of vulnerable populations, hinder students’ learning outcomes, and threaten students’ and teachers’ health and well-being. The main issues relate to insufficient supply of places in schools, poor physical conditions, and lack of safety. Furthermore, the design of the PLEs is often conceived to support only traditional pedagogical practices, limiting the effectiveness of the teaching-learning process. As a crosscutting challenge, the management of the education infrastructure is critical. The intended use of this framework is not to be a one-fit-all solution that must be fully implemented using a top-bottom approach. Instead, its objective is to provide education practitioners with an organizational scheme to assess the PLE’s situation and propose solutions for rehabilitating existing PLEs or constructing new ones. The proposed six strategies, characteristics, and attributes are intended to be used to interpret PLE needs and guide the appropriate design of interventions. To maximize impact, it emphasizes taking advantage of the entry points and building on existing demands, expanding them to maximize impact, creating synergies among factors, and prioritizing interventions based on context and needs. The flexible framework is a reference for local solutions, allowing communities to diagnose and design their proposals with local solutions. To successfully implement the RIGHT+ framework, task teams must use a comprehensive approach to PLEs that prioritizes the learning process, expands solutions to address the broader context, scales interventions to benefit all education infrastructure, and relies on data-driven decision-making, all complemented with capacity-building processes. By adopting this approach, task teams can promote PLEs that genuinely support learning and development for all, with the potential to impact the education sector.Publication Lebanon Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment (RDNA)(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-14) World BankThis report presents the Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment (RDNA) related to the impact of the 2023–2024 conflict that affected Lebanon, conducted by the World Bank at the request of the Government of Lebanon and in collaboration with the National Council for Scientific Research - Lebanon (CNRS-L). The RDNA estimates the impact of the conflict in terms of physical damage and economic losses and identifies preliminary recovery and reconstruction needs over the immediate, short, and medium term. The RDNA covers the entire country, assessing both direct and indirect impacts of the conflict across 10 sectors: agriculture and food security; commerce, industry, and tourism; education; environment and debris management; energy; health; housing; municipal and public services; transport; and water, wastewater, and irrigation. Alongside these estimates, the report summarizes the macroeconomic impacts of the conflict as well as displacement patterns. Unless indicated otherwise, data for the assessment covers October 8, 2023, and December 20, 2024 (inclusive). The rest of the report presents the detailed findings of the assessment. This includes a factsheet, key assessment findings on damage, losses, and needs, a macroeconomic impact assessment, displacement analysis, summary findings for each sector, and information on the methodology used. The annexes include a detailed methodology note, unit cost assumptions, and maps and figures that support the assessment.Publication A Review of the Global Rapid Post-Disaster Damage Estimation Assessments: The Frontier in Rapid Post-Disaster Damage Estimations for Developing Countries 2015-2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-14) World BankThis report is a review of GRADEs conducted since 2015, and GRADE’s efficiency, comparative advantage through detailed analysis, and future. First, the GRADE approach and how it has been used and evolved since its inception are described, and the GRADE assessments conducted in the last 10 years are reviewed. It is expected that the resultant database of damage from 66 events will be critical for discussions about not only disaster risk management, but also climate resilience, including ongoing loss and damage dialogues. The in-depth case studies presented in this report - the 7.5-magnitude earthquake in Palu, Indonesia (September 2018); Tropical Cyclone Idai that affected Malawi, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe (March 2019); the situation in Ukraine at the end of March 2022; the 2022 floods in Pakistan; the Kahramanmaraş Türkiye earthquakes in February 2023; Category 5 Hurricane Beryl that hit Grenada in July 2024 - demonstrate the strengths and flexibility of GRADE and its application, challenges, and lessons learned. The report then assesses the speed and accuracy of the GRADE approach by examining various post-disaster assessment methodologies and comparing GRADE with other detailed, on-the-ground post-disaster assessments such as PDNAs to assess the performance, accuracy, and reliability of GRADE results.Publication Growing Resilience: Unlocking the Potential of Nature-based Solutions for Climate Resilience in Sub-Saharan Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-14) Collins, N.; van Zanten, B.; Onah, I.; Marsters, L.; Jungman, L.; Hunter, R.; von Turkovich, N.; Anderson, J.; Vidad, G.; Gartner, T.; Jongmanrtner, B.This report aims to identify strategic actions to increase investment in NBS for climate resilience in SSA by evaluating over a decade of NBS project investment and assessing a range of policy, financial, institutional, social, and technical barriers to adoption. We examined historical and projected data for climate hazards in the region to provide background on the challenges SSA faces. To establish a baseline of the status of NBS in the region and evaluate the types of projects being implemented, this report presents an inventory of NBS projects from across the region that were initiated between 2012 and 2023. In addition, we conducted over 50 interviews with project developers, funders, and investors of NBS projects in SSA to gain insights on the key barriers to NBS project investment and implementation. This report synthesizes results from the analysis and interviews to offer targeted recommendations for how actors such as governments and multilateral organizations can effectively scale up NBS in the region.