Miscellaneous Knowledge Notes

Items in this collection

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4

COVID-19 Impact Monitoring: Malawi, Round 11

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-07) World Bank

The COVID-19 pandemic has socio-economic impacts on Malawians and there is need for timely data to monitor these impacts and support response efforts to the pandemic. In May 2020, the National Statistical Office (NSO), with support from the World Bank, launched the High Frequency Phone Survey on COVID-19; a monthly survey of a nationally representative sample of households previously interviewed as part of the Malawi Integrated Household Panel Survey to monitor the economic impact of the pandemic and other shocks. This brief presents the findings from the tenth and eleventh rounds of the Malawi High-Frequency Phone Sur-vey on COVID-19 (HFPS COVID-19) conducted between the 29th of April and the 9th of June 2021.
Disaggregated Survey Data on Taxation to Improve Policy Design: A Perspective from the Ethiopia Socioeconomic Survey (2018/19)

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-06) Ambel, Alemayehu A. ; Komatsu, Hitomi ; Koolwal, Gayatri ; Tsegay, Asmelash H. ; Yonis, Manex B.

A disaggregated analysis of the tax burdens and economic needs of the most economically vulnerable - such as poor women and men, informal workers, and owners of micro- and small enterprises - is crucial for designing equitable and well-targeted tax and public spending policies. This is particularly important in low-income countries, where formal and informal tax systems often exist in parallel, and administrative data is sparse. Availability of data on tax payments by households and non-farm enterprises, individual-level employment and asset ownership, and contributions to community institutions and infrastructure programs can reveal important distributional implications for tax policy design going forward. This survey brief summarizes findings from the tax module of the nationally representative 2018-19 Ethiopia socioeconomic survey (ESS). The tax module covers different types of formal and informal taxes that households, businesses, and individuals pay, as well as informal contributions towards services and infrastructural improvements in the community. Findings from the multi-topic survey also reveal different tax burdens by socioeconomic and demographic groups, as well as across rural and urban areas, that are important for national tax policy design and targeting.
Monitoring the Impact of COVID-19 on Firms in Zambia: Results from Two Rounds of World Bank Enterprise Survey Follow-ups on COVID-19

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-05) Finn, Arden ; Ayana, Gemechu A. ; Kanagavel, Rajee

The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and its negative economic effects create a need for timely data and evidence to help monitor and mitigate the social and economic impacts of the crisis. To monitor the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and related containment measures on formal firms in Zambia and to inform the policy response, the World Bank is implementing several rounds of phone-based surveys of firms. The surveys in Zambia are follow-ons from the baseline enterprise survey that was conducted in Zambia immediately prior to the pandemic. These phone surveys allow for a better understanding of the effects of and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic on firm operations, hiring and firing, and expectations of future operations and labor demand in order to better tailor and implement interventions and policy responses and monitor their effects. This note summarizes the results of round 2 (R2) of the survey, conducted between December 19, 2020 and February 18, 2021. The information presented in this report is based on the sample of 570 firms that responded to both round 1 (R1) and round 2 (R2) surveys.
Mapping Deprivations in Mauritania

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-09) Dahmani-Scuitti, Anais ; Doyle, Jesse ; Lefebvre, Matthieu ; Meyer, Moritz ; Rajashekar, Anirudh

Recent economic growth In Mauritania has helped reduce poverty, but spatial disparities in terms of both monetary welfare and access to services and opportunities remain. Designing policies and projects to improve living conditions requires localized and updated data not usually available from household surveys. Deprivation mapping—a new spatial deprivation analysis tool—uses administrative and geospatial settlement-level data (the lowest administrative unit in our case study Mauritania) to estimate settlement access deprivations across 4 dimensions: social services, basic infrastructure, opportunities, and exposure to weather/climate shocks. Database and visualizations (map) highlight and rank each settlement’s deprivation index, enhancing national data and showing spatial differences in the depth, complexity, and persistence of deprivations to inform policies and prioritize investments.