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. -
Publication
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. -
Publication
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
Exploring Two Years of Labor Market Policy Responses to COVID‑19: A Global Effort to Protect Workers and Jobs
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-01)To mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, countries have responded with an unprecedented number of social protection and jobs interventions. This brief is based on the COVID-19 social protection and jobs policy inventory and provides information on over 3,400 labor market policies in the inventory launched or announced between January 2020 and January 2022. -
Publication
Public Services and COVID-19 - Reflections from the Pacific: Sustainable Wage Bills
(Washington, DC, 2022-12)The purpose of this note is to identify good practice in public sector management drawn from Pacific Island public service experiences of navigating the COVID-19 pandemic. These experiences were brought together through a World Bank engagement with Pacific Island countries in 2021 and 2022. The engagement identified five core aspects of Pacific Island public service management in response to COVID-19: trust, preparation, adaptable system settings, adaptable operating models, and sustainable wage bills. This first note in the series of five focuses on the importance of trust. The primary audience is public service leaders in Pacific Islands. The note will also be of interest to anyone working on designing and leading public sector management systems through rapid change, uncertainty and crises. -
Publication
The Road Not Taken?: Responding to the Energy Price Shock in East Asia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11-17)Several countries in East Asia have increased fossil fuel subsidies to keep consumer prices lower than currently high international prices. These subsidies are discouraging the shift in consumption away from fossil fuels, while high prices are encouraging investment in new fossil fuel infrastructure. Providing income transfers instead of price subsidies would encourage consumption of cleaner alternatives, while softening the welfare loss. And subsidizing investment in renewables would avert the risk of being locked in to fossil fuels. The total cost need not be higher than that of fossil fuel subsidies. -
Publication
Facilitating the School to Work Transition of Young Women
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)In Latin America and the Caribbean, the school-to-work transition is more challenging for girls than boys due to societal norms. Young women who drop out of school are more likely to be employed in less stable, lower-paid jobs in the informal sector. Work-study programs can help to address the gender gaps in the school-to-work transition. In Uruguay, a national work-study program offered by a lottery system significantly improved the school-to-work transition for young girls and boys. Key features of the program included providing high-quality jobs with a focus on human capital accumulation that is compatible with schooling. -
Publication
Disaster Risk Financing: What it is and What it isn’t for Adaptive Social Protection In the Sahel - Debunking Myths About DRF in the Sahel
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)Adaptive safety nets are cash transfer programs that can rapidly increase beneficiary coverage, or the cash amounts they provide in response to disasters. Disaster risk financing (DRF) provides a set of tools and instruments that can efficiently help finance the costs of such responses. In the West Sahel, where chronic food insecurity and vulnerability are high and safety net coverage, data availability, and government fiscal space often remain limited, some of the common approaches to DRF meet their limitations. This note draws out some of these limitations and suggests ways for policymakers to address them. Among these, it suggests that governments in the Sahel focus on building reliable social protection delivery systems before turning to DRF; design DRF strategies that account for continued external assistance; focus first on more frequent, lower severity shocks rather than the extreme ones; and start their DRF engagements with sectoral DRF strategies rather than comprehensive national ones that try to address all disaster risks, costs, and sectors. -
Publication
Targeting in Ultra-Poor Settings: Evidence from Six Countries in Rural Sahel
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-10-21)The main insights of this note are as follows: first, to significantly reduce poverty higher budgets for safety net interventions are needed, and expanding coverage is far more important than fine-tuning targeting methods. After geographical targeting, most PMT and CBT methods perform close to a random allocation of benefits when trying to identify food insecure households. While PMT consistently outperforms CBT in identifying households with the lowest consumption, differences are small when distances to the poverty line are considered. While non-beneficiaries experience significant indirect economic benefits from the program, there is mixed and limited evidence on social cohesion and fairness perceptions of targeting methods. Finally, costs are relatively minor as a share of total resources transferred. The policy note concludes with policy and research implications for contexts with high poverty rates, low inequality levels, and insufficient budgets.