Miscellaneous Knowledge Notes

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  • Publication
    Increasing Supply Chain Links in Cabo Verde’s Tourism Sector: Challenges, Opportunities, and Recommendations for Improving Food Supply Quantity, Quality, and Reliability
    (Washington, DC, 2023-04-19) World Bank
    Brief assessment of the challenges, opportunities, and recommendations for Improving Food Supply Quantity, Quality, and Reliability in Cabo Verde.
  • Publication
    High-Frequency Phone Survey (HFPS) - Phase 2: Sampling Design, Weighting, and Estimation
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-12) World Bank; United Nations Development Programme
    After implementing Phase 1 of the High-Frequency Phone Survey (HFPS) project in Latin America and The Caribbean (LAC) in 2020, the World Bank conducted Phase 2 in 2021 to continue to assess the socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on households. This new phase, conducted in partnership with the UNDP LAC Chief Economist office, included two waves. Wave 1 covered 24 countries and Wave 2 covered 22 countries. Of these countries, 13 participated in Phase 1 and the rest joined in Phase 2. This document describes the sampling design, weighting and the right procedure to estimate indicators for the LAC HFPS Phase 2 surveys.
  • Publication
    Public Services & COVID-19 – Reflections from the Pacific: Adaptable System Settings
    (Washington, DC, 2022-12) World Bank
    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
    Public Services and COVID-19 - Reflections from the Pacific: Sustainable Wage Bills
    (Washington, DC, 2022-12) World Bank
    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
    Public Services and COVID-19 - Reflections from the Pacific: Preparation
    (Washington, DC, 2022-12) World Bank
    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
    Public Services and COVID-19 - Reflections from the Pacific: Adaptable Operating Models
    (World Bank, 2022-12) World Bank
    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
    Vietnam Macro Monitoring, December 2022
    (World Bank, 2022-12) World Bank
    This brief discusses the economic development of Vietnam for the month of December 2022.The two drivers of economic growth, exports and domestic demand, are moderating. Softer external demand has weighed on Vietnam’s exports. The post-covid consumption rebound also appears to be fading and tighter domestic financial conditions and rising inflation could affect domestic demand going forward. Reflecting weaker external demand, growth of industrial production moderated to 5.3 percent (y/y) in November, the lowest rate since February 2022. CPI inflation reached 4.4 percent (y/y) in November, compared to 4.3 percent recorded a month earlier, with food and housing being two major contributors. Credit growth fell from 16.5 percent (y/y) in October to 15.0 percent (y/y) in November as domestic financial conditions tightened after the State Bank of Vietnam raised key policy interest rates in September and October. The Vietnamese dong gained slightly in value in November 2022 although the dong’s appreciation is one of the smallest compared to major currencies and currencies of its neighbors. As of end November, the national budget registered a 12.1 billion surplus (about 3 percent of GDP). With global financing conditions expected to remain tight and weakening external demand, Vietnamese monetary authorities could consider allowing further flexibility in the exchange rate to absorb changes in the external environment. Fiscal and monetary policy coordination will be critical to ensure price stability in light of accelerating domestic core inflation. A more prudent and prioritized expenditure strategy could focus on ensuring investments in human capital and resilient and green infrastructure to help bolster economic potential and resilience.
  • Publication
    Disruption of Health Care Services and COVID-19 Vaccination in Latin America and the Caribbean by Mid-2021
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11) World Bank; United Nations Development Programme
    Vaccination has constituted the most effective response to save lives and reactivate economies and societies. By October 19th, 2022, almost 1,300 million Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine doses had been administered in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). However, lingering gaps in achieving target vaccination levels throughout the region are especially concerning as new SARS-CoV-2 variants continue to emerge. At the regional level, Chile and Cuba were ahead with almost 91 and 89 percent of the population having completed their initial vaccination protocol, respectively. At the other end of the spectrum, Jamaica and Haiti lagged the rest of the region, with only 26 percent and 2 percent of their populations vaccinated, respectively. The 2021 high-frequency phone surveys (HFPS) provide insight into these issues by taking the pulse of household health care needs and barriers to access a year and a half into the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the information from the first wave of the 2021 HFPS, this note aims to present an overview of the disruption of health care services, the need for preventive and non-preventive health care services, and the status of COVID-19 vaccinations.
  • Publication
    LAC COVID-19 High-Frequency Phone Surveys: Phase II 2021 - Technical Note
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11) World Bank; United Nations Development Programme
    Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) were among the regions most affected by the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in 2020 - despite being home to only 8.5 percent of the world’s population, over 47 million people were infected by the virus by the end of November 2021, representing almost 18 percent of global cases, and the socioeconomic and human capital effects will be felt for many years to come. While in 2021 the region experimented an important economic recovery, with mobility almost fully restored to pre-pandemic levels and a remarkable progress in vaccination campaigns, positive spillovers on households’ welfare have proved elusive in some countries and for some segments of the population. In an effort to continue monitoring how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the livelihoods of households in the region, the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) joined forces to implement a second phase of high-frequency phone surveys (HFPS) in over 20 LAC countries in 2021. A first wave (wave 1) was collected between May and July, with a second (wave 2) following between October and December 2021 to January 2022 for Peru. The HFPS phase II adds 11 countries to those originally included in phase one. In wave 2, a representative sample of minorities was obtained in seven countries.
  • Publication
    Connecting the Dots: Toward a Social Protection Interoperability Framework in Fiji
    (Washington, DC, 2022-11) World Bank
    Both the public and private sectors rely on intensive data use in the 21st century. While data is everywhere, accessing that data is difficult. Accessing that data then requires permission, the ability to access and receive the data, and finally, the ability to use that data to produce useful information for citizen servicing. Interoperability aims to resolve these challenges by ensuring coordination across different systems. Interoperability in e-Governance is defined as the ability of different systems from various stakeholders to work together, by communicating, interpreting and exchanging the information in a meaningful way. The Republic of Fiji is home to one of the most sophisticated economies in the Pacific Islands. The recent economic shocks triggered by Coronavirus (COVID-19) as well as several rounds of significant tropical weather events between 2020 and 2022 have highlighted critical systematic challenges in Fiji’s Social Protection (SP) system. The Government of Fiji (GoF) has initiated the social assistance policy reform agenda to address these challenges. In parallel, Technical Assistance (TA) was provided to the Ministry of Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation (MWCPA) and the Department of Social Welfare (DSW) by the World Bank, which includes an IT assessment with recommendations for enhancing the Social Protection IT infrastructure in the DSW and the SP sector in the country and a roadmap for the gradual introduction of an Integrated Social Protection Digital Platform (ISPDP) in Fiji. Interoperability is a key enabler of a more adaptive and gender-inclusive social protection system in Fiji.