Other ESW Reports

271 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
    A Water-Resilient Economy: A Hydro-economic and Climate Change Analysis for Rwanda - Final Report
    (Washington, DC, 2022-08-31) World Bank
    This document begins with a description of HECCA. This is followed by an overview of the private sector enabling environment in Rwanda and a review of the private sector’s, current and potential roles in the country’s water sector. Next, the report describes in detail the development and calibration of Rwanda’s national WEAP model. This is followed by a discussion of the economic analysis methods used and the scenarios explored. The results of the baseline, or business-as-usual, scenario are examined via 121 unique climate projections, revealing the vulnerability of Rwanda’s current infrastructure and policies. Two additional scenarios are explored, Vision 2050 and Water Resilient Vision 2050 (WRes2050), to identify investment and policy pathways that are likely to lead to a more water-secure Rwanda in 2030 to 2050. Conclusions and recommendations are presented in the final section.
  • Publication
    Cabo Verde Economic Update: Cabo Verde’s Potential Digital Dividends
    (Washington, DC : World Bank, 2022-05) World Bank
    The second Economic Update for Cabo Verde focuses on the importance of returning to fiscal sustainability in the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis and on the potential role of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in strengthening the foundations for a sustainable and inclusive economic recovery. The first chapter discusses the current macroeconomic situation, outlook, and risks the country faces over the medium term. The second chapter provides an overview of key challenges to transform Cabo Verde into a Digital Hub. The report offers a set of actionable policy priorities for a swift return to fiscal and debt sustainability and around the national digital transformation agenda, which include enhancing the ownership of the innovation agenda, strengthening digital foundations, investing in human capital, and mobilizing Diaspora resources to create a private ICT sector.
  • Publication
    Mali Public Expenditure Review
    (Washington, DC : World Bank, 2022-03) World Bank
    Mali is a low-income, fragile country that has suffered extraordinary setbacks in recent years. It is a landlocked economy which is highly dependent on agriculture, and thus vulnerable to external shocks and adverse weather condition. With a per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of US 875 dollars (current USD) in 2019, Mali is in the lower 15th percentile of the world’s income distribution. Around 42 percent of the population live in extreme poverty. It is also a fragile state that has witnessed persistent conflict with political coups, social tensions, insecurity, and violence. The coup in 2012 has led to continued violence and displacement, leaving 8.7 million people, more than 45 percent of the population, living in crisis affected areas. It was followed by the military coup in August 2020 which has brought in a transitional civil government. The increasingly fragile security situation has also led to spikes in security expenditure, crowding out spending on public services and investment. This Public Expenditure Review (PER) proposes options to address this challenge, including improving spending efficiency and identifying ways to equitably increase domestic revenue. The policy actions and reforms it proposes will create the fiscal space to promote inclusive and sustainable growth. Starting with an overview of macro-fiscal developments, it examines Mali’s expenditure patterns and fiscal sustainability and benchmarks its performance against peer countries. It reviews the domestic revenue needed to meet the Government’s significant financing requirements and how the public finances are managed. It then investigates public spending efficiency in three sectors: education, health, and agriculture. These were chosen for their economic and social importance as well as their considerable share of public expenditure (over 30 percent). The PER provides some context for each sector, then analyzes financing and efficiency using a set of methodologies based on granular spending data and surveys, and concludes with suggested policy actions.
  • Publication
    Urban Mobility in African Cities: Developing National Urban Mobility Policy and Delivering at the City Level - Summary Report
    (Washington, DC, 2022-01-31) World Bank
    African cities are growing at an extraordinary rate. Unfortunately, many cities are growing so fast that national, provincial, and city governments cannot manage how they develop or assure the provision of the services people need. This has many negative consequences for national and city economies and the people who live in these areas. Urban mobility is one of the key challenges for African cities. In many cities, the transport system has failed to keep up with urban growth. There is inadequate provision of dependable, affordable, and safe transport services to meet the travel needs of the people. Private vehicle ownership and use is increasing, congesting the roads. The informal sector provides much of the general transport service, using very large numbers of small vehicles. At the same time, the travel system impacts the city through congestion, increased costs, pollution, accidents, noise, intrusion, and long delays for both users and non-users. Cities cannot resolve these things alone. National Governments need to lead by guiding the development of cities, developing urban mobility policies, improving the implementation frameworks, and mobilizing finance. Critical to this strategy is ensuring city level capabilities are built to develop and implement locally appropriate strategies. The Africa Transport Policy Program (SSATP) aims to provide African decision-makers with the tools necessary to support the implementation of such policies and measures. Within this work, SSATP has developed guidance and prepared specific recommendations for urban mobility policy for 12 Sub-Saharan African countries. This note also provides a concise synthesis of the key issues and guidance, which can then be read in detail in the technical reports.
  • Publication
    African Cities Facing the Urban Mobility Crisis: The Challenge of National Mobility Policies in Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali and Togo Confronted with the Proliferation of Motorized Two-Wheelers - Transnational Report
    (Washington, DC, 2022-01-31) World Bank
    Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo and Benin are experiencing rapid urban growth, supported by strong demographic growth. Between 2018 and 2030, the cities in these four countries are expected to have an extra 17 million inhabitants. By 2030, the populations of Ouagadougou and Bamako are expected to double: these two capitals will reach 5.4 and 4.6 million inhabitants, respectively. Lomé and Cotonou are forecast, with lower growth rates, to reach roughly 3 million inhabitants. These metropolitan areas will need to restructure to meet the challenges inherent to their size. However, their growth-related challenges should not overshadow those of the other, so called secondary cities. Although urban migration and growth tend to center on the capitals, the secondary cities, which are much smaller, will by 2030 see increases in population exceeding the capacity of their infrastructure systems. An extra 10 million inhabitants will move to urban areas that often lack infrastructure and basic urban services. This report focuses on a cross analysis of the work conducted simultaneously in 2019 in the four West African countries. The methodology adopted is described below. In each of the countries, under the authority of the ministries in charge of urban mobility, the Consultant produced a diagnostic report and organized a national mobility forum involving all public and private institutional players (at central and local level), civil society and technical and financial partners. Conducted under the supervision of the pertinent ministries and local authorities, these national workshops provided the opportunity to discuss the experts’ recommendations in more depth and to define the elements of reform required to enable implementation of a sustainable urban mobility policy. This exercise made it possible to propose, for each country, a draft urban mobility policy letter, a national strategy document in line with the EASI concept (Enable-Avoid-Shift-Improve), and a priority action plan for implementation. A sub-regional workshop was organized in Bamako on 6 and 7 February 2020 with a view to promoting the sharing of experience and enabling a comparative analysis of the methods and results. It was attended by delegations from the four countries covered by this SSATP support program, creating an opportunity to define a shared vision of urban mobility, both for the capital cities and for the secondary cities, and to identify areas of transnational cooperation. This report is based on the work conducted in the four countries and offers a common interpretation of the situation in the four countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali and Togo), supported by an analysis of the specific local contexts and national situations.
  • Publication
    Enhancing Sustainable and Inclusive Growth in the Central African Economic and Monetary Community
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022) World Bank; International Monetary Fund
    The Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) authorities had been trying to set in motion a process to address the root cause of the region’s vulnerability - a largely undiversified economic basis overly dependent on oil. The CEMAC Commission had put in place a large-scale strategy of CEMAC economic and financial reform (PREF). This plan defines a set of reforms, organized around five pillars, to create the basis for more diversified, inclusive, private sector - led growth and enhanced governance of the public sector. Initial measures focused on engaging in closer financial relationships with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other development partners. As the first generation of IMF-supported programs are ending, and most CEMAC countries have benefited from the IMF’s sizable emergency financing to cope with the social and economic fallout of the COVID-19 crisis, the next step is to identify key reforms that will underpin second-generation programs to boost progress on the PREF and focus on addressing growth bottlenecks. This note responds to this need. It highlights a set of priority reforms at the national and regional levels that can guide the second generation of IMF programs and support the objective of putting CEMAC on a more sustained and inclusive path.
  • Publication
    South Africa - Financial Sector Assessment
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-01-01) World Bank
    The South African financial system has weathered the shock of COVID-19 but faces growing risks emanating from a weak macroeconomic outlook. The pandemic crisis hit South Africa hard, with nonresident capital outflows accelerating and the domestic and global slowdown precipitating a6.4 percent GDP contraction in 2020. A brief period of liquidity stress was managed with new central bank facilities and a lowering of liquidity requirements; and banks proved resilient thanks to sound capital and liquidity buffers. Asset management and pension assets saw falling valuations, but redemption pressures quickly dissipated as markets stabilized. The intensification of the sovereign financial system nexus emerging from the crisis poses risks going forward, and a resurgence of the pandemic could deteriorate asset quality. Banks are resilient in the FSAP’s baseline; however, amedium-term adverse stress scenario would cause a significant decline in capital although most banks would remain sufficiently capitalized. Under stress, banks could face some liquidity gaps, particularly at very short maturities, highlighting the importance of continued close monitoring. The impact of COVID-19 on insurers has thus far been contained, but prudential rules should be strengthened to ensure the measure of capital is sufficiently robust.
  • Publication
    The Circular Plastics Economy in Mozambique: Challenges and Opportunities
    (Washington, DC, 2021) World Bank
    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
    Missing Food : The Case of Postharvest Grain Losses in Sub-Saharan Africa
    (Washington, DC, 2011-04) World Bank
    Low-income, food-deficit countries have become especially concerned about the global and national food situation over the past three years. While the proximate cause of this heightened concern was the surge in food prices that began in 2006 and peaked in mid-2008, concerns remain for other reasons, among them the higher market-clearing price levels that now seem to prevail, continuing price volatility, and the risk of intermittent food shortages occurring repeatedly far into the future. For lower-income Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries, ongoing contributing factors include persistently low productivity, difficulty adapting to climate change, financial difficulties (inability to handle the burden of high food or fuel prices or a credit squeeze), and increased dependence on food aid. Yet there is an additional, often-forgotten factor that exacerbates food insecurity: postharvest losses (PHL). They can and do occur all along the chain from farm to fork, which reduces real income for all consumers. This especially affects the poor; as such a high percentage of their disposable income is devoted to staple foods. This report is based on the desk study undertaken by experts of the U.K. Natural Resources Institute (NRI). Data were collected by direct contact (e-mail or telephone), with authorities holding information on past and current projects; by searching the Internet for details about projects; and by reviewing published and 'gray' literature. Data were also collected from the personal experiences of the NRI review team who had worked on numerous and diverse projects to reduce grain PHL in SSA over the last 30 years and from experts in the field. These experts were identified and asked to complete a questionnaire that would draw out their experiences to indicate the weakest links in the postharvest chain, the interventions that deserve to be prioritized for future action, and those that should be avoided. Of about 40 invited respondents, a total of 20 returned completed (or partially completed) questionnaires.
  • Publication
    Nigeria - State Level Public Expenditure Management and Financial Accountability Review : A synthesis Report
    (Washington, DC, 2011-01) World Bank
    This report synthesizes the findings of public expenditure management and financial accountability reviews (PEMFARs) that were conducted in seven states between 2008 and 2009. The states covered were Anambra, Bayelsa, Ekiti, Kogi, Niger, Ondo, and Plateau. The report seeks to analyze and summarize the key findings of the reviews from these states in order to ensure that the key messages from the otherwise voluminous reports are presented in a single, smaller report. The states have different socio-economic characteristics but all operate in a federal system that offers some reasonable operational autonomy in the context of a federal constitution. Under the federal system of government, states have been allocated significant responsibilities for service delivery. The constitution defines the expenditure and revenue collection responsibilities that are under their purview. To carry out their responsibilities, the Public Financial Management (PFM) institutional framework is modeled after that of the federal government. All three branches of government are in place with the executive governor as head of state administration. Given the relative autonomy that states enjoy, each state prepares and implements its own budget. Like the federal government, the framework for state PFM system is therefore defined by the budget process.