Other ESW Reports

298 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 26

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.
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.
Tax Expenditure Manual
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-15) World Bank
This manual is a contribution to the rich body of literature on tax expenditures and aim to inform policymakers and policy debates on tax expenditures reform. In doing so, it builds on the existing knowledge and endeavors to provide a comprehensive guidance on key aspects of tax expenditure analysis. Considering that cross-country comparability of tax expenditure estimates is challenging due to differences in benchmarking, this manual specifically aims to provide guidance on how to benchmark some of the most common features of a tax system. This manual should be seen as a contribution to the vast ocean of knowledge on tax expenditures, rather than an exhaustive guide to all their complexities. This guidance endeavors to assist policy practitioners, especially in developing countries, in navigating and understandingtax expenditure issues.
Desktop Review: Analysis of The Pacific Islands Forum Members included in the EU List of Non-Cooperative Jurisdictions
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-06-14) World Bank
The objective of this desktop study is to enhance the overall implementation of the international standards in the region and gain a better understanding of their technical assistance needs. This independent assessment concerning the technical challenges affecting the PIF members in the EU list has been requested by the PIF and completed by the World Bank Group (WBG). The desktop review has been prepared with public sources cited throughout the report. An interview with the Secretariat of the European Commission’s Directorate General for Taxation and Customs was also conducted. Section 2 of this note contains the evaluation of Fiji, Palau, Samoa, and Vanuatu; countries listed in the February 2024 update, against the EU tax good governance criteria. This section clearly identifies the situation of each country in respect of the criteria considered not met by the EU Council. The assessment was conducted exclusively using publicly available sources. Section 3 contains the main actions that each country must undertake to strengthen its international tax system, in accordance with the challenges identified in section. Technical assistance from international organizations can facilitate the completion of these actions. The WBG has strong expertise in the implementation of the tax transparency standards and the BEPS minimum standards within the Macroeconomics, Trade, and Investment (MTI) Global Practice. In addition, WBG works closely with other international organizations that help in these topics. Lastly, section 4 outlines the potential consequences faced by PIF countries for being in the EU list. However, this impact does not include quantification of FDI losses, as it is out of scope of this desktop review.
Benefit Sharing in World Bank Operations - Prioritizing Development for Local Communities
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-06-07) World Bank
This report, which also includes detailed case studies, is the first comprehensive review of benefit sharing conducted within the Bank; previous studies have focused on specific sectors only. The goal is to provide a broader perspective, drawing on the experiences and insights of WBG specialists across sectors and countries, and to invite reflection and further discussion on options for the Bank’s future engagement.
Scaling Up Global Partnerships: The AFD Group and the World Bank Group
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-05-16) World Bank; AFD
This document recognizes and celebrates the partnership between the AFD Group and the World Bank Group (WBG), which is a model of international development cooperation. The partnership is now scaling up to tackle the most pressing challenges of our time: climate change, poverty, and inequality. By joining forces and aligning efforts, the two institutions are addressing socioeconomic progress, building stability and security in fragile settings, investing in health and education to strengthen countries’ human capital, and taking a strong and resolute stand on the climate crisis. The document summarizes the partnership between AFD Group and the World Bank Group, then highlights examples of successful collaboration at various levels of engagement from global and thematic to country and project levels. It concludes with suggestions to replicate and scale up the partnership’s success. The partnership was ahead of its time and now serves as an exemplary model. At a time when the international development community is emphasizing the importance of partnerships to maximize the use of limited official development assistance (ODA) funds and shared global knowledge, the partnership stands out with its successful record of accomplishment for more than a decade.
The Evolution, Practice and Impact of Participatory Budgeting in Kenya: The Kenya Accountable Devolution Program
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-05-15) World Bank
Citizen engagement is critical to achieving an effective devolution process. The success of devolution in delivering good quality services in Kenya is inextricably linked to the extent to which counties provide their citizens with adequate information on budgets and service delivery performance, empower them to participate and contribute to decision-making, and are held accountable. For a decade, counties in Kenya have been translating into action the legal principles on transparency, accountability, and public participation as enshrined in the Constitution of Kenya 2010. Although this has not been an easy task, counties have made notable progress, establishing systems, structures, processes, and practices for meaningful citizen engagement. One of the innovative practices adopted is participatory budgeting. With training and technical assistance from the World Bank through the Kenya Accountable Devolution Program (KADP), several counties have been implementing participatory budgeting since 2015 as an approach to achieving more inclusive and effective government.
The Knowledge Compact for Action: Transforming Ideas Into Development Impact - For a World Free of Poverty on a Livable Planet
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-05-07) World Bank
Today’s global challenges are bigger, more complex, and more intertwined than ever before, from the relentless grip of poverty and stubborn persistence of inequality to the devastations caused by climate disasters, fragility, pandemics, and conflicts. Financing and investments alone cannot solve these problems in a global context of higher debt and scarce resources. Now more than ever, clients are demanding innovative ideas and successful experiences from other countries to tackle the ongoing and emerging global crises, regain the development progress of past decades and move faster towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. At the same time, recent breakthroughs in technology, including the rapid advances in artificial intelligence, offer enormous potential to revolutionize development work. Policymakers and practitioners across the globe are poised to benefit from new tools to innovate, act based on evidence and accelerate the transformation of new ideas into development outcomes that improve lives of the poor. This paper articulates the strategic direction of the Knowledge Compact for Action, which seeks to empower all WBG clients, public and private, by systematically making the latest development knowledge available to respond more effectively to increasingly complex development challenges. The Compact seizes the opportunity of the digital revolution, bringing together the wealth of data analytics, research and best practices accumulated by the WBG over decades and combining this knowledge with the WBG’s proven mix of public-private finance to power learning and innovative solutions. This includes capturing the tacit knowledge embedded in operations for policymakers and development practitioners to easily access lessons of development successes and failures in other countries. Ultimately, the Compact aims to take knowledge to a new level, placing it front and center of the WBG’s work to end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity on a livable planet.
Governance of State-Owned Enterprises in the MENA Region: Synthesis and Cross-cutting Findings of SOE Governance Reviews of Six Countries
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-04-22) World Bank
This report is part of a World Bank review of state-owned enterprise (SOE) governance practices in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The focus on governance is motivated by research pointing to good governance as an important precondition for successful and sustainable SOE reform. This report summarizes findings of six SOE governance reviews of Djibouti, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Oman, and Tunisia, while also drawing on other regional studies. The six country reports, as well as this cross-cutting report, concentrate on the core dimensions of corporate governance of SOEs as identified in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Guidelines for Corporate Governance of SOEs, and the World Bank’s Integrated SOE Framework (iSOEF). These include: (i) the legal and regulatory framework for corporate governance; (ii) state ownership arrangements; (iii) performance management frameworks; (iv) Board structures and functioning; (v) financial reporting, accountability, control, and transparency; (vi) procurement policies and practices; and (vii) climate change reporting practices. The report also provides an overview of the SOE landscape in terms of the size, composition, employment, subsidies, and financial risks of the SOE sectors.
Local Governments Climate Finance Instruments - Global Experiences and Prospects in Developing Countries
(World Bank and UNCDF, 2024-04-15) World Bank; United Nations Capital Development Fund
Local governments—especially cities and municipalities—in developing countries will be at the forefront of confronting and mitigating the impacts of climate change, and they need substantial financing to address this challenge. However, they often lack the fiscal resources for such investments. To address this financing gap, they will need to utilize a variety of financing sources and instruments. This joint publication of the World Bank and the UN Capital Development Fund aims to help cities and local governments better understand the various climate finance instruments and sources available to them, including intergovernmental fiscal transfers, own-source revenues, municipal borrowing (loans and bonds), public-private partnerships and credit-enhancement instruments such as guarantees. It provides information on each of these instruments - organized in a conceptual framework – and highlights international experience and 18 case studies on their use from around the world. The report also recommends various actions that cities, local and national governments and development partners can take to increase access to these instruments to help meet climate investment needs in cities.