Miscellaneous Knowledge Notes

685 items available

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https://hdl.handle.net/10986/9388

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Practical Solutions for Addressing the Nexus of Food Systems, Nutrition and Climate Change
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-19) World Bank; FAO
To effectively address the interrelated crises of food insecurity, malnutrition, climate change and ecosystem degradation, there is growing recognition that one need to transform the agrifood systems to deliver safe and nutritious food as part of healthy diets for all, while conserving and restoring the ecosystems and natural resources. Understanding what practical and replicable solutions currently exist to address these intertwined and mutually reinforcing crises is essential to support the transformation of agrifood systems to maximize food security, nutrition gains, and environmental sustainability.
Practical Solutions for Addressing the Nexus of Food Systems, Nutrition and Climate Change
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-19) World Bank; FAO
This report aims to summarize the third edition of the World Bank FAO Knowledge Session series, including the topics covered, the countries featured and the impact of the various sessions. The report is also an opportunity to summarize the case studies and actionable solutions gathered and presented during the five sessions from April to June 2024. Drawing upon valuable information experiences from different countries in the South Asia region, the case studies presented in this report, as well as the actionable solutions identified, present a collection of good practices that development practitioners can follow when designing and implementing projects, programs and policies.
Yemen’s Compounding Burdens: From Drought to Hunger
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-10) World Bank
In this brief the authors combine granular climate data on flooding, drought and extreme heat, and district level food insecurity data and conflict data, to produce district level estimates of the number and percentage of those experiencing multiple deprivations. The authors find that around half of Yemenis are exposed to at least one climate hazard of either extreme heat, drought, or flooding. Moreover, a quarter of the population suffers from the compounding effects of food insecurity and exposure to climate hazards. Most districts that see the highest levels of compounding food insecurity and exposure to climate hazards have also been impacted by the ongoing conflict. To hasten post-conflict recovery, investments are needed that are more area targeted, including shock responsive social protection, agriculture, and water management initiatives to mitigate the long-term harm caused by multiple and intersecting shocks and resulting deprivations.
Mapping Impact in Burkina Faso: Country-Level Impact of Adaptive Social Protection Programs in the Sahel
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-05) World Bank
In the Sahel, Adaptive Social Protection (ASP) is a set of social protection policies, systems, and programs that promote human capital, productivity, and resilience of the poorest and strengthen their capacity to prepare for, cope with, and adapt to shocks. Through the delivery of regular social safety nets, productive inclusion interventions, and shock-responsive programs, ASP has demonstrated strong positive impacts on various dimensions in the Sahel. For the poorest and most vulnerable, it has resulted in improvements in household welfare and food security, productivity, and resilience. More broadly, it has shown significant positive impacts on the economy, society, and future generations.
Mapping Impact in Senegal: Country-Level Impact of Adaptive Social Protection Programs in the Sahel
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-03) World Bank
In the Sahel, Adaptive Social Protection (ASP) is a set of social protection policies, instruments and programs that promote human capital, productivity, and resilience of the poorest and strengthen their capacity to prepare for, cope with, and adapt to shocks. Through the delivery of regular social safety nets, economic inclusion interventions, and shock-responsive programs, ASP has demonstrated strong positive impacts on various dimensions in the Sahel. For the poorest and most vulnerable, it has resulted in improvements in household welfare and food security, productivity, and resilience. More broadly, it has shown positive impacts on the economy, society, and future generations.
Educated Workers and Managers in the EU-27
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-03) Amin, Mohammad
This Brief highlights issues related to the education and skill level of workers and top managers in firms in 27 European Union countries (the EU-27), using the World Bank Enterprise Surveys (WBES). The exercise is an important step toward understanding the use of skilled and adequately educated workers and top managers by a firm and its likely effects. The Brief identifies several factors at the NUTS2 region level and firm level that are correlated with the difficulty firms face in obtaining adequately educated workers as well as the skill level and education level of the workers and top managers. Somewhat surprisingly, income per inhabitant in the NUTS2 regions is not a strong predictor of the use of skilled and educated workers and top managers or firms’ reported difficulty in finding adequately educated workers. Several firm performance measures, such as labor productivity, employment growth, exporting, research and development (R&D), and management quality, are found to be correlated with the use of skilled and educated workers and top managers. Some of these correlations differ sharply between low and high levels of the outcome variables. There is evidence that training provided to workers by the firms is associated with less dispersion of labor productivity between firms, and greater use of skilled workers is associated with less dispersion of wage rates across firms. Overall, the Brief finds that starting at low-income levels in EU regions, policy focus needs to shift more toward ensuring the availability of adequately educated workers than on reducing other obstacles as the economy develops. This shifting of policy focus can stabilize after the economy is sufficiently developed.
Political Engagement, Collective Action, and Influence of Private Firms in the European Union
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-03) Francis, David C.
This Brief studies patterns of political engagement among private firms in the European Union (EU). Using representative data, allowing for analysis at the level of NUTS2 regional groupings (EU regions varying from about 800,000 to 3 million inhabitants), various patterns of engagement emerge. In particular, business association membership is widespread, and its variation seems to be largely explained by cross-country patterns. Such differences may be due to differing legal regimes that do or do not mandate membership in business organizations; generally, firms tend to value the services provided by such organizations less when membership is mandatory. Firms may also turn to other forms of political engagement, such as the maintenance of political connections. Overall, patterns of political engagement seeking influence vary widely, including within countries, often along identifiable institutional lines. An estimated Political Influence score is used to measure this activity. Though this score varies, analysis suggests that firms with higher scores show higher measures of firm performance, especially relative to their peer/competitor firms. There is evidence of political competition, where higher influence begets similar activity among peer firms.
Sierra Leone’s Reform Journey to Advancing Female Entrepreneurship and Financial Inclusion
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-03) Behr, Daniela M. ; Cheney, Alexis K.
Access to finance and equal economic opportunities are crucial for female entrepreneurs, fostering business growth and economic participation. Drawing on interviews with key stakeholders involved in the legal reform processes, this Brief examines how Sierra Leone made strides in its reform journey to expand women’s economic rights, including through the Directives on Provision of Financial Services on a Non-Discriminatory Basis of 2021, the Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE) Act of 2022, the National Strategy for Financial Inclusion (NSFI) 2022–2026, and the Employment Act of 2023. The Brief identifies the key drivers of reform: gender champions in government and political will, economic data and technical assistance from the international community, multistakeholder coalitions, as well as grassroots activity amplifying women’s voices and bridging the gap between civil society and lawmakers. Through top-down and bottom-up initiatives working to create lasting change, Sierra Leone has enhanced women’s economic prospects and set a powerful example for other economies in the region seeking to enact similar laws and policies.
How Management Practices Differ in the EU-27
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-03) Viganola, Domenico ; Diallo, Mamadou Yaya
This Brief uses data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys (WBES) in 27 European Union countries (the EU-27) to gain insights into the adoption of management practices in the region's private sector. A recent, abundant literature studies the connections between firm-level productivity and the strategies owners and managers implement to achieve their organizational and financial goals. These strategies can be summarized by a consolidated index comprising three main categories: monitoring, target setting, and creating incentives. This Brief first analyzes the distribution of the management practices index across EU countries, identifying substantial dispersion within and across countries. Then, the Brief investigates firm-level characteristics associated with the index. Larger firm size, top management external to the family owning the firm, and higher education of the top manager emerge as the most important factors. Finally, the Brief provides evidence of the positive and robust correlation between productivity and the management practices index.
Understanding Women’s Lower Participation than Men as Workers, Top Managers, and Owners in Private Firms in the EU-27 Countries
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-02-27) Amin, Mohammad
This Brief examines issues related to women’s participation as workers, top managers, and owners of private firms in 27 European Union countries (EU-27), using the rich database of the World Bank Enterprise Surveys. The analysis focuses on EU regions varying between about 800,000 and 3 million inhabitants (NUTS2-level groupings). Overall, women’s participation as workers, top managers, and firm owners is statistically significantly less than that of men. Surprisingly, richer NUTS2 regions experience a larger gender gap favoring men in employment, top manager positions, and firm ownership. Another worrying feature is that relative to men, women workers tend to be concentrated in firms that are less productive and pay low wages. Thus, closing gender gaps in income requires not just more jobs but also better quality of jobs for women. Having a woman as the top manager of the firm is associated with a higher share of women workers in the firm, but this effect is much stronger when the firm initially has a relatively high share of women workers. A gender gap also exists in labor productivity, which is lower for women-run firms than men-run firms, and for firms with higher women’s ownership. These gaps in labor productivity are much larger at lower quantiles of labor productivity, implying the presence of sticky floors but not necessarily glass ceilings in the EU-27 countries. The Brief identifies some of the factors that are correlated with the average gender labor productivity gap and estimates their contribution to the gap. There is no systematic difference in the level of constraints, including access to finance, faced by men-run versus women-run firms and/or by firms at different levels of women’s ownership.