Other ESW Reports

303 items available

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/10986/2209

This includes miscellaneous ESW types and pre-2003 ESW type reports that are subsequently completed and released.

Items in this collection

Now showing 1 - 10 of 32

Green Competitiveness in Ethiopia: An Overview of How Environmental and Climate Factors Increasingly Shape Ethiopia's Economic Outlook in Selected Value Chains
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-11-12) World Bank
Environmental and climate factors play an increasing role in shaping Ethiopia’s economic competitiveness, and this report aims to provide an overview of these shifts. This novel report is a high-level assessment of how certain factors could affect Ethiopia’s economic competitiveness: (i) supply side impacts of climate change and environmental degradation, and (ii) demand-side changes caused by a growing number of sustainability requirements in key export markets, notably sustainability regulations and decisions by international buyers. Concentrating on four sectors that are both critical to Ethiopia’s economy and exposed to environmental and climate factors - coffee, textiles and garments, cut flowers, and aviation - illustrates these shifts. The objective is to identify cross-cutting trends of how sustainability factors affect Ethiopia’s economic competitiveness, but the sector-specific angle helps identify pressing challenges that policy makers in Ethiopia need to address. Note that the selected sectors are used to illustrate the trends described in this report and do not imply a recommended prioritization. Many other sectors essential to Ethiopia’s green transformation are not discussed. Moreover, although the report acknowledges that social and environmental aspects are deeply intertwined, it does not cover topics such as occupational health and safety, inclusion, living wages, and gender rights. The assessment applies a mixed methods approach by drawing on insights from interviews with experts conducted online and in person in Ethiopia (conducted mainly between November 2023 and April 2024), analysis of trade and economic data, and an extensive literature review. This report underlines the macro criticality of green competitiveness for Ethiopia, embedded in the wider economic and political context.
Balancing Act: Political Economy and the Pursuit of Ambitious Carbon Pricing in Developing Countries
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-09-09) World Bank
This report provides practical insights into the political economy challenges and opportunities for advancing carbon pricing, drawing on the experiences of select countries, including those in the World Bank’s Partnership for Market Implementation (PMI). Such countries often face different socioeconomic, political, and institutional environments than high-income economies. The review combines findings from academic literature in economics and political science, interviews with stakeholders, and an original survey of carbon pricing experts and policymakers in developing countries, to extract meaningful insights into how policymakers navigate political economy challenges to promote carbon pricing in developing countries. The report does not deal with the adoption of the broader set of climate policies that may also support mitigation. The premise of this report is that carbon pricing can be an effective and cost-effective instrument, one that has increasingly attracted government interest as a key part of the climate policy toolkit. The target audience for this report is national and subnational policymakers and other interested stakeholders seeking practical insights on realworld approaches that have worked or failed when advancing carbon pricing. The report does not prescribe best practices or cover every possible circumstance. Instead, by examining current practices at each stage of carbon pricing development, it aims to inform and assist in efforts to implement carbon pricing.
Defueling Conflict Environment and Natural Resource Management as a Pathway to Peace: Executive Summary
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-08-20) World Bank
Fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS), environmental degradation, and natural disasters are on the rise and threaten to reverse development gains. In the past decade, violent civil conflicts have tripled and the number of people living in proximity to conflict has nearly doubled, with forced displacement at a record high. The World Bank Group (WBG) Strategy for Fragility, Conflict and Violence (FCV) 2020–2025 marks a shift in the World Bank’s work in fragile and conflict situations, as it adopts a more holistic approach to prevention. The Strategy seeks to enhance the World Bank Group’s effectiveness in supporting countries’ efforts to address the drivers and impacts of FCV and strengthen their resilience, especially for their most vulnerable and marginalized populations. The FCV Strategy explicitly recognizes the importance of climate change as a driver of FCV and as a threat multiplier, as well as the need to address the environmental impacts and drivers of FCV. Delivering on this shift toward preventing conflict underscores the importance of understanding the role the environment and natural resources can have. This report seeks to build a strong narrative on the need for the World Bank Group to engage and invest in environment, natural resource management, and climate change resilience in FCV-affected situations. It further aims at facilitating the integration of a conflict-sensitive lens into World Bank operations and programs addressing natural resource degradation and climate change. The report is divided in six sections: Section 1 sets the Background, Context, and Approach; Section 2 describes the risks associated with the interplay between natural resources, climate change, fragility, and conflict across the conflict cycle; Section 3 connects those causal chains to the delivery of the FCV Strategy across its four pillars; Section 4 showcases a suite of options to improve conflict-sensitive project design and implementation; and Section 5 presents an annotated questionnaire that serves as a complementary tool to the report.
Bioeconomy Paraguay: Innovation and Economic Diversification
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-08-12) World Bank
This report aims to inform the Government of Paraguay about the economic potential of an innovative bioeconomy to diversify exports and create better jobs. There are a number of innovative, biobased sectors with significant growth potential globally and in Paraguay, that could contribute to Paraguay’s economic diversification. However, to build on this potential, Paraguay would need to expand its innovation capabilities to enter sectors such as bioplastics, biopharmaceuticals, forestry and wood, ecotourism and other ecosystem services, such as carbon markets for export. A wide range of products can be produced from wood, and wood pulp can serve as an alternative input material for textiles. Besides wood itself, the forests or plantations in which it grows can also provide non-wood forestry products such as cosmetics, biopharmaceuticals, or food additives. Paraguay can also expand its bioplastics production to take advantage of a global market that is expected to grow between 35–45% through 2027. In part, this is because large buyers, such as car manufacturers, have committed to purchase bioplastics. Further market opportunities are also evident in ecotourism and carbon financing, both fast-growing service industries with potential to contribute to conservation of natural capital assets.
Playbook for Enabling Civilian Drone Operations
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-08-09) Anderson, Edward; Ochoa, Catalina; Engelmann, Gregor; Guerin, David; Soesilo, Denise; Juskauskas, Tautvydas; Slater, Jonathan; Osman Ali, Aymen
Emerging economies worldwide are on the rise in terms of both rapidly growing economies and younger populations. The labor force across many countries is also doubling, with millions of young people seeking opportunities. Much of this growth focuses on Metropolitan areas in Africa, with most Africans expected to live in urban areas by 2035. Ensuring this growth is shared broadly will be a crucial challenge, as rural areas, home to most of the world’s poor, cannot be left behind. In Africa, only 34 percent of citizens live within 2km of an all-weather road compared to over 90 percent in East Asia. The visible results are higher costs for goods and services, long wait times for deliveries, reduced productivity of rural facilities, and fewer opportunities for rural citizens. Bridging the gap between urban and rural in a way that brings greater reach and resilience to hard-to-reach communities requires us to rethink how to deliver mobility and set up supply chains better. Drones provide an opportunity to overcome persistent infrastructure deficiencies and address the needs and demand for more specialized transport and logistics, digitalization, and other services. They can support delivery operations to smaller airfields and hard-to-reach communities and operations in more hazardous conditions. Enabling safe, efficient and scalable drone operations will require new infrastructure and policy and regulatory reforms, greater engagement with specialized private operators, cross-sectoral and cross-governmental collaboration, and the leveraging of different investment streams to deliver and ensure efficient use of opportunities afforded by drones. This guidebook brings together experiences and lessons learned from a range of initiatives and operations within the context of the African experience of drone operations. In doing so, it provides detailed guidance and recommendations regarding the needed infrastructure, regulations, and management approaches that underpin the establishment of enabling ecosystems conducive to drone operations anywhere internationally. The World Bank looks forward to working closely with governments, the private sector, and other Development Partners to unlock the lower skies and bring the region’s development visions to life.
Early Warning Systems in Fragility, Conflict, and Violence-affected Settings: Shielding Communities from Natural Hazards Amid Compounded Crises - World Bank White Paper for EWS Implementation in FCV Settings, 2024
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-26) World Bank; GFDRR
This study, led by the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) teams working on the Disaster-FCV Nexus thematic area and the Hydromet Services and Early Warning Systems thematic area, aims to contribute to GFDRR’s overarching objective: to help low- and middle income countries understand and reduce their vulnerability to natural hazards and climate change. More specifically, the purpose of this report is to provide valuable insights into the nuances of early warning systems (EWS) implementation within fragile, conflict, and violence (FCV)-affected contexts against growing natural hazards, offering practical recommendations and identifying entry points for enhancing stakeholder coordination, optimizing resource allocation, and fostering community resilience. It is aimed at development practitioners, especially World Bank staff, who work with communities and governments to enhance the scaling-up of EWS coverage to populations living in contexts affected by FCV.
Weather, Law, and Public-Private Engagement
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-23) Hodgson, Stephen
Weather laws typically address the establishment and operation of a national meteorological service (NMS), which is usually granted the exclusive right to issue weather warnings as well as to address issues such as weather modification, liability for incorrect weather forecasts, weather observation, and the importation and placing on the market of meteorological equipment. Moreover, some weather laws go further and establish a legal framework for a range of public and private actors, collectively known as the Global Weather Enterprise (GWE). Besides the NMS, the enterprise includes academia, research funding bodies, equipment manufacturers, and a growing number of commercial weather service providers. A big problem for many low- and middle-income countries is the underfunding of the NMS - which, in turn, affects its ability to collect the basic observation data needed for weather service provision. Using a weather law to set up the NMS as an independent legal entity may enable it to generate additional income from the provision of commercial weather services, although the core public tasks of an NMS will always require public funding. This report breaks new ground by surveying the existing national weather laws and by asking whether the main obstacle to better public-private engagement the absence or the presence of a national weather law is. A key finding is that weather laws alone will usually not be sufficient to promote effective public-private engagement. Just as important are the intellectual property rights (IPRs) in data generated and held by the NMS (usually copyright and database rights) and the extent to which the data policy of the NMS permits the use and re-use of publicly funded weather data by commercial weather service providers.
Transmission Pricing Methodologies for use in the Pan-Arab Electricity Market
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-22) Kamh, Mohamed Zakaria; Alhaddad, Waleed Tayseer; Bowman, Doug
The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed in 2017 sets the vision and governance framework for establishing a Pan-Arab Electricity Market (PAEM). The signing of the MOU officially launched a five-stage development plan. The World Bank has engaged with the League of Arab States (LAS) to support establishing the envisaged PAEM and enhance the enabling environment for advancement of trade in the region. In this regard, detailed market rules and a formal transmission pricing regime have not yet been developed for the approval of the Arab Ministerial Council for Electricity (AMCE). Few, if any, PAEM countries have unbundled their domestic electricity markets and introduced competition via a fair and open transmission access and pricing regime with multiple buyers and sellers. For this and other reasons, cross-border electricity trade among the countries in the Pan Arab region has been limited, and only 5–7 percent of cross-border interconnection capacity is utilized. Electricity trade in the Pan-Arab region is generally negotiated between governments on a country-to-country basis. Transmission pricing is for the most part ignored (trade takes place only when adequate transmission capacity is available), except in cases when third-party transit/ wheeling is involved, e.g., Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. In such cases, the involved countries enter into a wheeling arrangement for each individual trade, an inefficient and time-consuming process and a deterrent to cross-border electricity trade. Historically, countries have been paid for providing wheeling service, but the pricing formula for wheeling has not been transparent or published. A transparent and uniform approach to pricing third party wheeling transactions is needed to eliminate one of the many barriers to electricity trade in the region. The purpose of this report is twofold: 1. Provide background material on what constitutes mainstream regulatory practice with respect to transmission tariff design to inform and guide the Pan-Arab Advisory and Regulatory Committee (ARC), the Arab Transmission System Operators (TSOs) Committee, and PAEM stakeholders on transmission tariff design as the PAEM evolves. 2. Propose a simple transmission tariff design for pricing wheeling transactions between PAEM members in the near term. The recommended wheeling tariff design is an option among others than can be used by the Pan Arab ARC , when established, in its review and approval of transmission tariffs applied to trade in the PAEM.
Strengthening International Trade and Logistics through Private Sector Participation in Mongolia and Pre-feasibility Study for a Dry Port in Zamiin Uud
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-19) World Bank
This report, funded by the World Bank, is aimed at strengthening Mongolia’s international trade and logistics. It summarizes the material presented in the previous reports – which covered transport demand, railway operations, border management, and private sector participation. The report focuses on the China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor (CMREC), as the main corridor for non-mining international trade. It addresses logistics services, government policies, and institutional capacity to establish a robust foundation for corridor development, including trade expansion, supply chain development, economic diversification, and environmental well-being.
Livelihoods Lost - Findings from two rounds of the Somalia Displacement Phone Survey (2022)
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-19) World Bank
Displacement features prominently in Somalia and is characterized by complex and interconnected conflict, economic, and climatic factors. Millions of people have been displaced internally within the country over the past years. Somalia also hosts 38,463 refugees or asylum-seekers from a variety of countries of origin, while some 8,993 former refugees have returned between 2020 and 2004 with assistance from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (UNHCR, 2024). Among internally displaced people (IDPs), more than half were displaced from 2016 onwards following five consecutive failed rainy seasons in much of the country (UNHCR, 2023). They often live alongside refugee returnees, particularly those from Kenya, as well as refugees and asylum seekers, the majority from Yemen and Ethiopia. These populations endure precarious livelihood and food security conditions, overcrowded environments with limited access to essential services and face an increased risk of gender-based violence, loss of productive assets and strained relations with host communities.