Miscellaneous Knowledge Notes
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Publication
Typology of Economic Women’s Groups Programs in South Asia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-04-13)Women’s groups models vary widely across contexts but context-specific documentation is limited. This wide variation coupled with inconsistent terms used to describe these groups creates challenges in using the evidence collected on group-based interventions to inform policy. The typology presented in this brief focuses on economic women’s group models implemented in South Asia. Using program documents and evidence from evaluations, it identifies implementation models, key characteristics, and the implications of investing in women’s groups to improve economic outcomes in South Asia. -
Publication
What do We Know About Interventions to Increase Women’s Economic Participation and Empowerment in South Asia?: Financial Products
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-04-07)The World Bank’s South Asia Region Gender Innovation Lab (SARGIL) is conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis of interventions with direct or indirect effects on measures of women’s economic empowerment. The review focuses on changes in labor market outcomes, income, and other empowerment indicators. The goal is to document what has and has not worked for women in the region (covering all countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka), understand the types of interventions implemented, and identify gaps in knowledge and action. Interventions are organized into five categories: Skills, Assets, Financial Products, Care, and Empowerment. This brief summarizes the main findings from the financial products category. -
Publication
Floods in Pakistan: Human Development at Risk
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-11-01)This note assesses the effects of the 2022 floods on human capital in Pakistan. It focuses on the results of a Pakistan-wide phone survey that gathered information on the experiences of approximately 4,000 families with children ages 3 to 17. The survey was originally designed to track children’s return to school after school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the team adapted the survey methodology to ensure that it could better document and understand the challenges families with children are facing during the 2022 floods and that the country is experiencing as it seeks to protect and rebuild human capital for the future. -
Publication
What do We Know About Interventions to Increase Women’s Economic Participation and Empowerment in South Asia?: Asset Transfers and Property Law
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-09)The World Bank’s South Asia Region Gender Innovation Lab (SAR GIL) is conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis of interventions with direct or indirect effects on measures of women’s economic empowerment. The review focuses on changes in labor force participation, employment, income, and empowerment outcomes. The goal is to document what has worked and what has not for women in the region (covering all countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka), the types of interventions implemented, and identifiable gaps in knowledge and action. The review organizes interventions in six broad categories: skills, assets, credit, labor market, entrepreneurship, and empowerment. This note summarizes the main findings from asset transfer interventions and changes in inheritance and property right policies. -
Publication
COVID-19 in South Asia: An Unequal Shock, An Uncertain Recovery - Findings on Labor Market Impacts from Round 1 of the SAR COVID Phone Monitoring Surveys
(Washington, DC, 2022-04)All countries across South Asia, faced with the rising risks of COVID-19 infection rates, implemented severe economic lockdowns in early 2020 with varying frequencies and time periods. While the exact nature and duration of these lockdowns varied across countries in the South Asia Region (SAR), almost all SAR countries imposed their first economic lockdown in late March 2020 in response to the growing health threat of COVID-19 infections. In India, for instance, the national lockdown was first introduced in late March 2020, which coincided with the imposition of similar lockdowns in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, followed by a national lockdown in Pakistan on April 1, 2020. By April 17, 2020, the population of all SAR countries was under severe lockdown with varying rules and conditions based on national or local directives. The introduction of these lockdowns led to a drastic, abrupt disruption in all forms of physical mobility and economic activities. Trends from the Google COVID-19 Community Mobility data reveal this sharp drop in day-to-day mobility related to four different types of economic activity across 6 out of 8 SAR countries for which this data was available. Figure 1 plots the daily change in the Google Mobility index, which is constructed by taking an equally weighted mean across the four dimensions of economic activity for the five weeks before March 2020. In the six SAR countries, the average mobility remained approximately, on average, 58 percent below their respective pre-COVID levels during the first week of the lockdown. For example, in Nepal, where the lockdown was first introduced on March 24, 2020, mobility (as measured by the Google Mobility index) was 66 percent below pre-COVID levels on the first day of the lockdown; and it remained, on average, 71.5 percent below per-COVID levels between March 24, 2020, and March 30, 2020. We observe a similar pattern of immediate and large disruptions in mobility in all SAR countries, except in Afghanistan (22.5 percent below pre-COVID levels), where restrictions were more localized. The Google Mobility index closely follows these changes in rules and conditions in SAR countries, which varied over time within each country as well as across countries. In countries like Nepal, India, and Sri Lanka, with an extended period of restrictions imposed through national or local directives at different points in time, mobility had not returned to pre-COVID levels even as late as April 2021. In Nepal and Sri Lanka, where the second lockdown was introduced in August and November 2020, respectively, we observe a sharp drop again in mobility after a gradual recovery following the easing of the first lockdown. In other SAR countries like Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, mobility only returned to pre-COVID levels between September and October 2020. These results underscore the dramatic and prolonged impact that COVID-19 induced lockdowns have had on mobility and economic activity, which is perhaps unprecedented in the region, at least in recent history4. These lockdowns are likely to have important implications on various socio-economic dimensions of welfare, including labor market outcomes, both immediately and in the medium, to long-term. More importantly, the long-term impacts will also be determined by the nature and the pace of recovery observed in these countries in the months and years after the initial phase of lockdown. Moreover, the emergence of new mutants leaves open the possibility of future lockdowns as a policy response to mitigate the health effects of the virus, which could impact economic activity and reverse observed recoveries. -
Publication
The World Bank’s Support for Subnational Governance through Conditional Grants: Lessons Learned from Brazil, Indonesia, and Tanzania
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022)This note presents lessons learned from three ongoing World Bank PforR projects in - Brazil, Indonesia, and Tanzania - which were highlighted in the Primer Conditional Grants in ‘Principle, in Practice and in Operations’. It is aimed to complement the theory presented in the primer and it targets Task Team Leaders designing WB projects with a decentralization component or that wish to include conditional grant schemes to enhance results at the local level. The projects were all launched in the past few years and reflect the current understanding of the challenges and opportunities of conditional grants. -
Publication
Women’s Employment and Safety Perceptions: Evidence from Low-income Neighborhoods of Dhaka, Bangladesh
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-08)This brief uses the 2018 Dhaka Low-Income Area Gender, Inclusion, and Poverty (DIGNITY) survey to assess the gender gap in safety perceptions and analyze the correlation between women’s safety perception and their labor market outcomes. The analysis shows that women are significantly less likely than men to feel safe in the low-income neighborhoods of Dhaka. While the percentage of women who reported feeling safe increased with age, living standard, and the availability of streetlights, the percentage of women who reported feeling safe decreased with education and concern of eviction. The analysis further shows that this gender gap in safety perception disproportionately hurt women’s labor market outcomes. Women who feel safe are much more likely to be economically active, work outside their neighborhoods, and explore economic opportunities. -
Publication
Lessons in Investment Promotion: The Case of Invest India
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-07-26)Foreign direct investment (FDI) can contribute significantly towards India reaching its aspiration of 8 percent growth per annum. Prior to 2009, India did not have a national dedicated organization with a specific mandate to promote and facilitate FDI. Invest India was then established, but it was not until 2015 that it was empowered to ramp up its investment promotion efforts, with the resources and reach to be fully active in the FDI marketplace. Invest India’s journey can be described against 9 critical success factors (CSFs) that chart how the agency responded to its challenges, to now deliver sustained success evidenced by facilitating USD 31 billion of FDI and direct creation of nearly 303,900 jobs. In part, Invest India has contributed to India’s stellar FDI performance in 2020, when the country reached another record of USD 64 million, against a global drop of 35 percent (UNCTAD 2021). While some challenges remain, Invest India’s journey provides valuable learnings for other investment promotion agencies (IPAs), which in the context of the Covid-19 crisis, will need to be in a period of review and reform. -
Publication
India - Can Results-Based Incentives Encourage Teachers to Attend School?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-07)The Results in Education for All Children (REACH) Trust Fund supports and disseminates research on the impact of results-based financing on learning outcomes. The EVIDENCE series highlights REACH grants around the world to provide empirical evidence and operational lessons helpful in the design and implementation of successful performance-based programs. A REACH-supported study tested the impact of results-based incentives for meso-level officials (Resource Persons, or RPs) and teachers on teacher attendance at school. The incentives led to a 15 percentage point increase in the likelihood of a teacher being present, averaged across audit visits. The training increased the amount of time RPs spent mentoring teachers, but this increased mentoring did not lead to any changes in teaching practices. -
Publication
Remote Learning: Evidence from Nepal during COVID-19
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-07)This note discusses early results from a distance education program on foundational numeracy for primary school students in Nepal during Coronavirus (COVID-19) evaluated in a randomized trial. The trial included 3,700 households with children in public school (grades 3-5). It provided support for foundational numeracy through mobile phone-based tutoring. The trial tested delivery through public school teachers and also through NGO facilitators. It led to a 30 percent increase in foundational numeracy, with teachers being slightly more effective at producing learning gains than NGO facilitators. These results suggest that instructional support through mobile phones can be a high-access and low-cost approach to providing instruction at scale