Other ESW Reports
243 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
Towards Better Labor Migration Systems in Northern Central America: Overview of Findings from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-08-01)This note aims to close the knowledge gap about the effectiveness and capacity of labor migration sending systems in NCA countries. The report assesses whether NCA countries have the fundamental elements of an effective labor migration sending system, identifies the missing elements, and offers recommendations for strengthening the systems over time. Filling such a knowledge gap is critical to inform policies that maximize the benefits and minimize the costs of economic migration. Programs and policies that help expand legal pathways for regular migration will not only promote mutually beneficial migration, but could be a step, albeit small, towards dissuading individuals from pursuing risky migration patterns. Indeed, evidence from Mexico indicates that investing in legal labor pathways can reduce irregular migration (Clemens and Gough, 2018). In this context, this note summarizes the main findings from three institutional diagnostics of the labor migration sending systems in NCA countries, with a view to deepening the understanding of the supply side of labor flows. To this end, and building on previous World Bank experience globally, a diagnostic tool was developed to identify what steps the NCA governments have taken to recognize and respond to foreign demand for workers. The tool examines if appropriate structures, systems, processes, and resources exist to prepare and deliver adequate labor supply arrangements in the context of bilateral agreements (BLAs) or Temporary Work Agreements (TWAs) with other countries. The diagnostic tool is organized around four main pillars to regulate, facilitate, fortify, and further access of labor migrants to international labor markets. -
Publication
Socio-Emotional Drivers of Youth Unemployment: The Case of Higher Educated Youth in Sudan
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-06)This study seeks to contribute to the existing literature in Sudan by analyzing psychological, social, and behavioral drivers of youth employment in combination with key structural issues identified in the country. Our analysis is based in existing literature on the structural problems that Sudanese youth face to accessing the labor market and uses a novel dataset to examine the factors that determine youth’s career aspirations as well as the factors that serve as barriers to achieve their career aspirations. In addition, the study explores the role of mindsets and soft skills, both as direct determinants of labor market outcomes as well as indirect determinants through their impact on aspirations. Specifically, we measure mental health (anxiety), core self-beliefs, and job-relevant soft skills that moderate the way individuals manage and interact socially in the labor market. Core self-evaluation beliefs determine the way individuals perceive their own basic capabilities, and soft skills are a set of learned, realized behaviors that allow individuals to effectively manage inter- and intrapersonal situations. The aim of this study is to provide a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the youth unemployment challenge to help identify potential cost-effective interventions that support youth’s job search and employability in Sudan. -
Publication
Driving Revolutionary Ideas into Practice: Infrastructure for Climate Change, Poverty Reduction 2.0, Human Development on Mobile Government, Disrupted
(Washington, DC, 2022)In the business of making policies, decisions are based on experience and guided by political concerns. However, in the business of delivering policies, the machinery of government is often taxed by delays and inefficiencies, and constrained by insufficient resources, management tools, and just-in-time information. The result is that governments operate well below the efficiency frontier. For most of our history, research has been disconnected from policy and has moved slowly to build knowledge relevant to designing policies. The authors introduce some of the principles that govern this young institution in the chapters that follow, each designed to exemplify the value of doing better research for doing better development. In these chapters, they present four overarching ideas that they have worked into development practice. Overall, Development Impact Evaluation (DIME’s) approach is to inform the path of development through a capacities-based and iterative process of evidence-informed adaptive policy change. To do so, DIME has developed and implemented a model of co-production with agencies on the ground that transfers capacity and know-how to partners, enables them to make mid-course corrections and motivates the scale-up of more successful policy instruments to achieve policy outcomes and optimize development impact. Finally, DIME invests in public goods to improve the quality and reproducibility of development research around the world.