Other ESW Reports
253 items available
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This includes miscellaneous ESW types and pre-2003 ESW type reports that are subsequently completed and released.
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Publication
Household Surveys during Multiple Crises: Modifying Questionnaires to Assess the Impact of Shocks
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-09-25)Beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has experienced multiple global crises in the last few years. As countries adapt to a new normal, multi-topic household surveys should also be adapted to account for the impacts of shocks on household welfare. By reviewing the standard household survey questionnaires included in the guidebook, capturing what matters: essential guidelines for designing household surveys, the authors provide technical guidance on issues to consider when reviewing, designing, or updating questionnaires for household surveys during or after a major shock - relying on lessons learned from the World Bank’s Living Standards Measurement Study program. -
Publication
Voices from Yemen
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-09-14)This report highlights respondents’ lived experiences during Yemen’s conflict as experts of their own experiences. This report aims to present the voices of Yemenis who have now spent eight years living through a civil war, economic crisis, and close to famine. This report is among the few authentically capturing Yemeni voices on a range of day-to-day issues from different governorates across the country. But arguably the small sample size limits ability to generalize findings. However, generalizing findings was not the intention of the report. For each theme, 'Voices from Yemen' presents a multi-stakeholder perspective to mitigate bias towards a single stakeholder group or geographical area. Moreover, the report’s findings are in line with those in quantitative reports, such as ‘Surviving in the Times of War’ or the ‘World Bank Phone Survey’ report on food security. ‘Voices from Yemen’ presents a comprehensive picture of suffering derived from human stories behind the statistics. The conflict has made Yemeni lives unaffordable, uncertain, vulnerable, and often unbearable. The power of people’s speech and the intensity of their stories narrate their grave vulnerabilities and the sense of helplessness and suffering the conflict has caused. -
Publication
North and Northeastern Development Initiative (NEDI): Boosting Shared Prosperity for the North and Northeastern Counties of Kenya
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-08-10)Kenya’s north and northeastern region is a host to 11 percent of the total population scattered across 63 percent of the country’s landmass. The arid and semi-arid region experiences recurrent droughts that create vulnerabilities for the nomadic pastoralist communities, pervasive insecurity, suffers fragility, and has been a host to the largest population of refugees in sub-Saharan Africa over the last three decades. These policy choices contributed to the significant lag in most of the development indicators for this region compared to the rest of the country. The region has huge infrastructure deficits, low literacy rates, and contributes only a modest 4.7 percent to the national gross domestic product. To address the socio-economic disparities and inequality challenges, the Government of Kenya with support from World Bank (WB) launched the North and Northeastern Development Initiative (NEDI) in 2018. The NEDI, the region’s first significant, integrated, and transformative investment, cuts across foundational sectors including energy, water, transport, social protection, displacement, and agriculture. -
Publication
COVID-19 in Papua New Guinea - Economic and Social Impacts: Insights from the Fourth Round of High Frequency Phone Surveys - Data Collected in December 2021
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-07-18)This report focuses on the socio-economic impacts of Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Papua New Guinea. The report shows insights from the fourth round of high frequency phone surveys conducted as of December 2021. Economic recovery was weak with household incomes falling. Low vaccination rates may further hinder recovery and welfare outcomes. -
Publication
COVID-19 in Solomon Islands - Economic and Social Impacts: Insights from the January-February 2022 Round of High Frequency Phone Surveys
(Washington, DC, 2022-07)This report focuses on the socio-economic impacts of Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Solomon Islands. The fourth round of the high frequency phone survey (HFPS) interviewed 2,671 households in January-February 2022 on the socio-economic impacts of Coronavirus (COVID-19), including employment and income, community trust and security and COVID-19 vaccination. The January-February 2022 round occurred at the onset of the first wave of COVID-19. -
Publication
Why the World Trade Organization is Critical for Vaccine Supply Chain Resilience During a Pandemic
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-05)Cross-border supply chains and international trade played a critical role in vaccinating much of the world to address the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Considering that experience, this note describes the changes needed to make the World Trade Organization (WTO) a more useful institution during such a public health emergency. It begins by describing the market failures confronting vaccines especially on the supply side, to introduce the domestic subsidies and contracting arrangements needed to accelerate vaccine research and development, and to increase the scale and speed of vaccine production during a pandemic. As an application, it relies on illustrative examples of US subsidies that emerged during COVID-19. However, the challenge confronting policymakers is exacerbated in an environment characterized by cross-border supply chains, making input shortage problems impacting production even worse. Thus, the note highlights the need for new forms of international policy coordination, including initiatives on supply chain transparency, as well as agreements to increase subsidies across countries to jointly scale up vaccine output and input production capacity along the entire supply chain. It concludes that while the WTO was mostly absent this time around, it remains the best-positioned international organization to facilitate these novel forms of international economic policy cooperation. -
Publication
Using Behavioral Science in Communication Outreach to Increase Female Participation in Natural Resource Management in Mexico
(Washington, DC, 2022-02-06)While a range of public programs in Mexico exist to incentivize communities to conserve and manage forest natural resources, a gender gap persists in the use of these initiatives. The experiment discussed in this report was commissioned by the climate investment funds’ (CIF) evaluation and learning (E and L) initiative to understand how to improve outreach to and encourage women to engage in productive natural resource management (NRM) programs. Following an earlier behavioral diagnostic study, the World Bank and local partners conducted a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to assess the effectiveness of behaviorally informed additional outreach and engagement measures for NRM programs in Mexico. This report summarizes the findings of a field experiment commissioned by the CIF E and L initiative, with additional financing from the forest carbon partnership facility (FCPF). The experiment was designed to help identify promising strategies to improve outreach to women in order to encourage them to engage in productive natural resource management programs. This report presents the methodology used for the intervention and experimental design. It provides an analysis of the results at the locality and individual level. Finally, it provides conclusions and policy recommendations. -
Publication
Micronutrient Deficiencies in the Palestinian Territories: Identifying the Bottlenecks of Anemia Prevention and Control and Assessing the Feasibility of an Oil Fortification Program
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-12)In the Palestinian territories (PT), decades of conflict, economic stagnation, and restricted movement of people and goods, coupled with high unemployment and poverty rates, continue to affect social, health, and nutrition indicators. For decades, several assessments have indicated a poor nutritional status of the population in the West Bank (WB) and Gaza Strip (GS). Specifically, a high prevalence of micronutrient deficiencies still exists among pregnant and postnatal women and children of ages 6–23 months despite multiple initiatives to address them. Micronutrient deficiencies are one form of undernutrition that occur because of insufficient intake or sufficient intake coupled with inadequate absorption due to infection, disease, or inflammation. Two detailed assessments were conducted (1) to identify the bottlenecks of anemia prevention and control programs in the PT and (2) to examine the feasibility of an edible oil fortification program. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak and conflicts, the assessments largely relied on the use of readily available data for secondary analyses and remote data collection through online/phone surveys, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions. To the extent possible, the assessments collected data from key informants (for example, health care service providers) and beneficiaries through field visits and stakeholder interviews. The detailed methodology for each of the assessments areavailable in annexes 1 and 2. -
Publication
The Circular Plastics Economy in Mozambique: Challenges and Opportunities
(Washington, DC, 2021)The World Bank Group developed the Mozambique problue program (MozAzul) to provide comprehensive technical assistance to the Government of Mozambique on the blue economy agenda. The objective of the MozAzul program is to strengthen the knowledge base on the sustainable blue economy development in Mozambique, and under pillar 2, specifically on marine litter. This study is intended to inform the government’s upcoming national action plan to combat marine litter as well as intensify engagement with stakeholders, including innovators and around new business models. It is mainly concerned with assessing the circular economy opportunities in Mozambique as they relate to marine plastics litter. The assignment forming the basis of this study has set its parameters on the upstream (pre-waste) opportunities for plastics circularity, leveraging the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s ReSOLVE framework to map out the various levers that organizations may employ in their transition towards improved material efficiency. The methodology leverages extensive desk research, the collection of primary data through interviews with relevant stakeholders located in Mozambique, and interviews with key stakeholders who can provide insight on the circular opportunities and existing business models practiced in Mozambique. The methodology also leverages real-time findings concurrently being developed by local and international experts, and organizations conducting parallel studies (i.e. IUCN). As of the writing of this report, Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continues to hamper Mozambique’s economy and health sectors. As a result of the ongoing pandemic, this report is decidedly both more thorough in explaining the new concepts and approaches leading to the explanation of circular economy opportunities in Mozambique, and simultaneously less reliant on local stakeholder interviews than initially intended. -
Publication
Supporting the Implementation of Residential Heating Measures in Bulgaria’s National Air Quality Improvement Program and National Air Pollution Control Program
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06)These programs have been prepared by the Government of Bulgaria (GoB) with technical support by the World Bank. In the course of the work it became clear that national and local institutions would face multi- faceted challenges in implementing the NAQIP and NAPCP, relating mainly to overcoming financial, administrative, and technical difficulties. The swift evolution of EU policy frameworks for countering climate change, improving energy security, reducing energy poverty, as well as the need to improve health and wellbeing in Bulgaria, add to those challenges though they may be regarded instead as presenting significant economic opportunities. The NAQIP proposes measures for phasing out the use of thermally inefficient, polluting old stoves and boilers that burn solid fuels, replacing them with cleaner, more efficient heating arrangements. It is expected that the measures will reduce PM10 emissions from the residential heating sector by about 78 percent. Other measures target the road transport sector though its contribution to local emissions is minor in comparison. The NAPCP focuses on meeting air pollutant emission targets for 2030 as required in the Revised NECD. NAQIP measures to reduce PM10 emissions from the residential heating sector are incorporated in full in the NAPCP. Other sectors where policies and measures to reduce emissions were considered have included large combustion plants in the power generation and industrial sectors, road transport, agriculture, and industrial processes. The preparation of these two programs was complemented by capacity strengthening, including the development of tools to help municipalities undertake essential planning and project preparation. All guidance documentation to accompany the tools were collated to form a Resource Toolkit. Communication and coordination issues were also tackled in the engagement.