Miscellaneous Knowledge Notes
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Publication
Supporting Artisanal and Small-scale Mining Communities During the COVID-19 Pandemic
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-08-01)In 2020, the World Bank projected that the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic could push more than hundred million people into extreme poverty. The estimated forty-five million people around the world working in artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) were particularly vulnerable because of the informal, often precarious nature of their working conditions and lack of access to social safety nets. At the height of the initial lockdown, as mineral prices dropped and mining sites closed, artisanal and small-scale miners, their families, and their communities suffered large declines in income and rising food insecurity. Without intervention, they were at risk of sliding into poverty. At the same time, there was concern that gains made over several decades to formalize the sector would be eroded, particularly where community tensions were rising. To address these risks, the World Bank took early action. In May 2020, the extractives global programmatic support (EGPS) trust fund initiated a rapid global survey to identify miners’ needs and then used the results to mobilize an emergency response window that raised 6.6 million in support to ASM communities in 22 countries. This report describes the EGPS emergency response window for ASM Communities Impacted by COVID-19, what it achieved, and what the World Bank has identified as priority areas for action in ASM communities going forward. -
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The West Africa Unique Identification for Regional Integration and Inclusion (WURI) Program: Unique Identifiers to Enable Access to Human Development Services
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-07-31)Access to basic human development programs in West Africa is particularly low. Individually, the sub-region’s countries perform poorly on the Human Capital Index (HCI). It is the second-lowest African region in rank for social safety net coverage. By contrast, the subregion has the second highest transaction value of mobile money on the continent. This case study examines the West Africa Unique Identification for Regional Integration and Inclusion (WURI) Program, which aims to confront this challenge head-on. In 2022, the program was working in six countries across two phases in partnership with the governments, and with the ECOWAS Commission. -
Publication
Protecting Human Capital from the Impact of Early Life Shocks : Key Interventions for Lower-Middle-Income Countries
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-07-06)This policy note presents strong evidence of the impacts of early childhood exposure to shocks on later life human capital outcomes in lower-middle-income countries, particularly in the Sahel region. It recommends key, evidence-based social protection interventions to mitigate these impacts and protect human capital as follows : cash transfers to improve child nutritional outcomes, particularly when combined with behavior change communication on water, sanitation and hygiene and hygiene practices; conditional cash transfers to increase educational outcomes, especially when monitored and reinforced; contributory schemes to mitigate the impact of shocks on asset loss and household expenditure, particularly health, livestock, and climate insurance schemes; food distribution interventions to mitigate the impact of shocks on nutritional and educational outcomes, particularly for children under–five, which is a critical period for growth and development; behavioral interventions to positively influence health and educational behavior and spending, especially nutrition education, academic nudges, and maternal psychotherapy interventions; and the success of these interventions requires context- and population-appropriate program design and implementation to maximize their effects on protecting human capital. -
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Ukraine - Human Development Update, February 2023
(Washington, DC, 2023-04-10)The full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, has resulted in tens of thousands of civilian casualties, internal displacement of millions of people, widespread destruction of infrastructure, and disruption of services that are essential to human capital formation and protection. This Ukraine Human Development Update summarizes the cumulative effects of the war, highlights recent government responses, and provides an overview of World Bank support. -
Publication
Responses of the Electricity Sector in 120 Economies to the COVID-19 Pandemic
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-06-28)This brief provides descriptive evidence of the operational and policy responses of the electricity sector in 120 economies to the early stages of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. In addition, to assess the intensity of operational and regulatory actions taken in response to the pandemic, the Brief proposes a COVID-19 electricity sector response measure. This measure comprises seven equally weighted variables that capture either utilities’ or utility regulators’ responses to the pandemic as well as domestic lockdown measures. Data show that most utilities continued issuing new electricity connections for businesses amid the pandemic. In most cases, utilities that continued issuing new electricity connections despite national lockdowns were able to do so due to well-established electronic and automated processes. In general, maintenance works and planned outages continued during the onset of the pandemic, although with some delays and exceptions. Increasingly, delayed electricity payments and defaults became more prevalent, especially among developing economies. Hence, numerous utilities modifed tariff and payment schedules to provide economic relief to clients. -
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Predicting Urban Employment Distributions: A Toolkit for More Targeted Urban Investment and Planning Decisions
(Washington, DC, 2022-06)Cities are intricately interconnected socioeconomic systems, with transport networks connecting people to their jobs, health, and education facilities, and ensuring the smooth functioning of supply chains. When floods happen, they isolate people and firms from these vital networks, causing cascading disruptions and losses. Such floods are not limited to rare and extreme events. Especially in developing country cities, the lack of resilient infrastructure systems means that even regular rainfall events, for example, during rainy seasons, can cause havoc. Attention is often biased towards direct asset losses from floods, rather than the wider economic costs of disrupted networks. This is due primarily to the complex dynamics of economic and infrastructure networks. But public transport and road usage data are also often limited, especially when the predominant modes of transport are informal and walking. So how can we identify and prioritize cost-effective measures for urban resilience This note describes an analytical approach that can help prioritize investments in urban transport resilience and public transport, while also strengthening the economic case for such investments. -
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Brazil – COVID-19 in Latin America and Caribbean: 2021 High Frequency Phone Surveys - Results Phase Two, Wave One
(Washington, DC, 2022-04)Brazil has been one of the countries most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in the region. In June 2021, it was the country with the second-highest rate of deaths per million and the fourth by the number of cases per million in Latin America and the Caribbean. The effects of the health crisis were broad and still evident a year and a half into the pandemic. In line with pre-existing vulnerability profiles, the pandemic affected the Brazilian population differently in the labor market. At the time of the survey, the proportion of people who lost their pre-pandemic job and were not working was 29.1 percent. This proportion was highest among the elderly (57.8 percent), those with primary education or less (42.7 percent), women (41.4 percent) and rural workers (38.7 percent). About 58 percent of those who lost their jobs became inactive, and most of the new inactive were women (68.9 percent). Simultaneously, 29.2 percent of the previously inactive entered the labor force during the pandemic, though one-quarter of them were unemployed in mid-2021. Women represented a majority among the new active (64.3 percent). Finally, the pandemic resulted in higher informality rates among those who remained employed. -
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
Key Ingredients to Women’s Legal Rights in Kenya
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-03-24)Legislative reforms to increase gender equality before the law are often long and complex processes. This brief focuses on a series of reforms in Kenya, specifically, the adoption of the Sexual Offenses Act of 2006, the Employment Act of 2007, and the Protection Against Domestic Violence Act of 2015. Strong evidence, broad coalitions, and incorporating the highest standards based on international best practice in early legal drafts are singled out as the key elements that led to the successful adoption of these landmark laws promoting women’s rights in Kenya. The lessons in this brief can provide important insights for policy makers, advocacy groups and international organizations involved in the pursuit of legal gender equality in Kenya and other countries. -
Publication
Social Protection and Jobs Responses to COVID-19: A Real-Time Review of Country Measures
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-02-07)As of January 2022, a total of 3,856 social protection and labor measures were planned or implemented by 223 economies. This constitutes a net increase of 523 measures, or 15.6 percent since the last update in May 2021. While noteworthy, such increase is the lowest among net additions observed over previous semesters. In fact, the global pace of measures’ introduction over January 2020-January 2022 has been slowing down. This report focuses on the real-time review of country measures in terms of social protection and job responses to Coronavirus (COVID-19).