Other Infrastructure Study

377 items available

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https://hdl.handle.net/10986/2204

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Azerbaijan Rural Digital Needs Assessment
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-17) World Bank
This report identifies the unique technological challenges and opportunities faced by various Azerbaijani communities when using digital tools and services, particularly in rural areas. The findings will support the Government of Azerbaijan in its design of the interventions necessary to create a more equitable digital landscape for all and to bridge the gap between the urban and rural areas. The assessment is comprehensive, and the threefold data collection included (a) a survey of household and village needs, (b) focus group discussions (FGD), and (c) semi-structured interviews. To comprehend the current existing digital landscape, the survey established the current digital skills and needs of village households; the FGDs included a diverse population segment that provided qualitative insight into community digital access and usage; and the interviews were held with local stakeholders (i.e., Internet service providers (ISP), small businesses, and local government officials). These three approaches helped identify the various challenges relating to rural and urban communities and the opportunities available to them, thus informing the strategies to establish Azerbaijan’s digital future more inclusively. The assessment was conducted under the Azerbaijan Rapid Technical Assistance Facility (AZTAF), financed by the European Union (EU) and implemented by the World Bank.
Digital Public Infrastructure and Development: A World Bank Group Approach
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-11) Clark, J.; Marin, G.; Ardic Alper, O.P.; Galicia Rabadan, G.A.
DPI is an approach to digitalization focused on creating “foundational, digital building blocks designed for the public benefit.” By providing essential digital functions at society scale that can be reused across sectors, DPIs enable public and private service providers to build on these systems, innovate, and roll out new services more quickly and efficiently. Common systems built as DPIs include digital identity and electronic signatures, digital payments, and data sharing. However, to provide DPI functionality, these systems must embed principles such as inclusion, openness, modularity, inclusivity, user-centricity, privacy-by-design, and strong governance. This paper provides a common framework and primer on DPI for policymakers, practitioners, WBG staff, and the broader development community, including: • DPI Concepts and Theory of Change: This includes a working definition of DPI and its core characteristics, including the role of the private sector, how DPI differs from past approaches to digitalization, and the relationship between core DPI systems, sector-specific systems, other digital technologies, and broader ecosystem enablers and safeguards. The paper also articulates the potential benefits of DPI across a range of public and private sector services, as well as risks and challenges for implementation and adoption. • Considerations for Implementation: Drawing on the experiences of a diverse set of countries across different regions, income levels, and DPI approaches, the paper identifies common trends for building, scaling, and using DPIs that are safe and inclusive. This includes identifying what we know (and do not yet know) around different DPI design choices and models, implementation strategies, procurement, issues around use case integration and sequencing of DPI, and more. • Principles and Practical Lessons: Finally, it summarizes key lessons from countries’ experiences with DPI to date, highlighting critical success factors and risk mitigation strategies for policymakers, practitioners, and development partners. A separate volume provides examples of DPI from countries around the globe. By leveraging the opportunities presented by DPI, countries can accelerate their digital transformation journeys and achieve more inclusive and sustainable development. The World Bank Group is committed to supporting this crucial endeavor. The WBG’s new Global DPI Program will address key knowledge gaps and support countries in building safe, inclusive, and transformative DPI.
Leveraging Maturing Technologies for Health Financing Needs in East and Southern Africa
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-02-11) World Bank
This report explores the potential of maturing technologies to address specific health financing challenges in East and Southern Africa. To the extent possible, it draws on examples from countries in the region and shows how some technologies have been used in other sectors that could inform similar application to health financing challenges. The report discusses benefits, drawbacks, risks, and costs of the various options and emphasizes that these need to be balanced when exploring the introduction of any such tools.
Digital Sustainability Framework: Experiences from KSA’s Digital Government Transformation
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-17) World Bank
In the near term, achieving sustainability is one of humanity’s most vital objectives. For sustainability to become a mindset and not merely a goal, it needs to encompass all fields, including digital. This white paper elaborates on the Saudi Government's steps toward digital sustainability. The paper will first present the concept and mechanisms of digital sustainability and then, in-depth, the digital sustainability framework and the Saudi Government’s implementation process to move toward digital sustainability. Cognizant that the path toward digital sustainability is complex, the Saudi Government wishes to engage with the global community through knowledge exchange and research jointly with the World Bank, one of its valued knowledge partners. The report acknowledges that integrating a digital transformation agenda and a digital sustainability agenda at the level of an entire country is a significant undertaking. KSA is moving in this direction and has started collecting experiences while dealing with legacy business ways rooted in culture, structure, and traditions. Therefore, these experiences represent the beginning of the process, not the result. By sharing these experiences and collecting new ones from other countries, the hope is to enable a stable integration of sustainable goals in the digital development agenda across the globe to the benefit of people and society.
The Cloud Imperative: Strategies and Practices from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-17) World Bank
This white paper also discusses the challenges ahead, such as closing the digital skills gap, navigating data localization requirements, and addressing the energy efficiency of data centers. An essential note for developing countries is that overcoming these challenges can be done with the right competencies and skills within a government's normal operations and budget. In conclusion, this white paper emphasizes that, if implemented thoughtfully, cloud solutions can be a catalytic force to build 21st-century governments that are more agile, data-driven, and responsive to citizens. To realize the potential of the cloud, developing country governments will need to adjust the KSA experiences to fit the context of their local cloud ecosystem and local governance. This paper is a part of a larger body of research created and distributed by the World Bank Group regarding the cloud agenda as a key element of public digital infrastructure (PDI). Ongoing research encompasses the enabling ecosystem required to facilitate cloud solutions, the economic implications of cloud migration, the sustainability of cloud solutions and data centers, and the legal and regulatory considerations that play a crucial role in determining the most suitable cloud service options.
Armenia Firms’ Adoption of Digital Technologies
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-11) World Bank
This report analyzes the digital technology adoption of Armenian firms based on the findings of the Armenia ICT Survey administered to over 1,900 firms in 2023 by the Statistical Committee of the Republic of Armenia (ARMSTAT), with the technical assistance of the World Bank and support of the European Commission. The survey is comparable with the ICT Usage in Enterprises Survey implemented in EU. It also assesses the technologies used in key business functions following the World Bank Group’s Firm level Technology Adoption Survey. This rich set of data allows for a detailed assessment of the digital maturity of Armenian firms by showing the specific digital technologies adopted by firms and the extent to which firms use advanced digital solutions across core business functions. The findings from the survey were complemented by qualitative case studies to gain further insights on firms’ experiences with technology adoption and the key barriers they face on their path to digitalize.
Early Experiences of Beneficiary Choice in Government-to-Person Payment Architecture in Indonesia
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-10) World Bank
The report has four main chapters, followed by the conclusion and policy recommendations. Chapter 2, context provides overviews of the three programs, including enrollment, the payment process, and demographic characteristics of the beneficiaries. Chapter 3 explains the payment architecture used to distribute social assistance in Indonesia. It also explains how it can be further transformed to improve the experience of beneficiaries in receiving social assistance and to empower beneficiaries to access and use financial services. Chapter 4 presents evidence to show beneficiaries’ experience with different payment methods, cashing out, and digital financial services. The study also investigates the early experiences of implementation of beneficiary choice and whether designing social assistance delivery that includes beneficiary choice can introduce positive outcomes that are not found in programs without such choice. The final chapter presents the conclusion and policy recommendations. In annex 1, the study details the regression models used for beneficiary choice analysis.
Cambodia’s Regional Connectivity: Unlocking the Full Potential of Transport Corridors
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-06) World Bank
Cambodia’s export-driven growth has resulted in increased freight demand. Containerized import and export cargo movement has increased more than five-fold over the past 12 years. By 2030, it is expected that trade volumes moving along highways and through ports, airports, and warehouses will double. However, high transport and logistics costs are major bottlenecks to Cambodia’s economic competitiveness and diversification. The Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) developed the Comprehensive Intermodal Transport and Logistics System (CITLS) Master Plan for 2023–2033 to support improving the performance and efficiency of the transport sector and supporting the achievement of the national development objectives as defined in the RGC’s Pentagonal Strategy Phase 1. However, many of the projects put forward in the CITLS are in the conceptual phase requiring further technical studies and prioritization prior to securing financing from the public and private sectors. This report prepared by the World Bank team aims to complement the RGC’s efforts by focusing on immediate investments and policy actions to unlock opportunities along the existing transport corridors in Cambodia. The analysis and proposals described in this report focus on the short to medium-term priorities. By providing alternative insights on the role and performance of the existing roads, waterways and maritime transport, railways, and cross-border trade facilitation the report is designed to complement the CITLS. Throughout the course of this study, stakeholder consultations were conducted with involved public sector institutions and major private sector players in freight transportation and logistics.
A Roadmap for Safe, Efficient, and Interoperable Carbon Markets Infrastructure
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-11-08) World Bank; Carbon Markets Infrastructure Working Group
A well-structured and high-integrity carbon market has the potential to mobilize essential financing for climate action, especially in developing countries. Achieving scale will require secure, efficient, and interoperable infrastructure that fosters the growth and reliability of these markets. This "Roadmap for a Safe, Efficient, and Interoperable Carbon Market Infrastructure 2024" outlines critical bottlenecks and priority action areas identified by the Carbon Market Infrastructure Working Group (CMI WG). This includes clarifying ecosystem governance, documenting current standards and market practices related to information security and transaction integrity, and enhancing data and systems interoperability.
Benchmarking Infrastructure Development: PPP Regulatory Landscape - Assessing Quality and Exploring Reform
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-09) World Bank
Despite its intrinsic relevance and policy makers’ efforts to address the infrastructure gap, progress has been limited. A confluence of challenges from macroeconomic shocks and political instability to weak institutional capacity has hindered the capacity of countries to develop infrastructure that meets demand. Increasing efficiencies in delivering infrastructure services is at the core of addressing the gap. Numerous countries have turned to private sector participation in infrastructure development to achieve these efficiencies and catalyze private capital investments. Although there are different modalities to procure infrastructure, public-private partnerships (PPPs) have been extensively used by many countries to deliver successful programs. This report examines one of the key elements of an overall sound PPP ecosystem, the crucial role that the quality of PPP regulatory frameworks plays in fostering a conducive ecosystem for successful PPP programs while acknowledging that it is just one of several critical factors. This report incorporates new empirical analysis from primary data collected through Benchmarking Infrastructure Development 2023 (BID 2023). It also uses country case studies to illustrate and draw lessons from how countries have created robust PPP ecosystems and strengthened PPP regulatory frameworks over time. This report is aligned with the Knowledge Compact Agenda’s focus on evidence-based decision-making by providing evidence-based knowledge that can inform development strategies and PPP operations. Additionally, it focuses on fostering the PPP ecosystem that is conducive to private sector investment, thereby contributing to the Private Capital Enabling (PCE) objectives that will ultimately support Private Capital Mobilization (PCM), two critical corporate objectives of the World Bank Group to help to close the infrastructure gap.