Social Analysis
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Publication
Brazil Human Capital Review: Investing in People
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-06-30)How much talent is lost in Brazil because of unideal education and health conditions The Brazil Human Capital Review is part of the Human Capital Project, a global initiative of the World Bank Group that aims to raise attention on the importance of investing in people. Its focus relies on the conditions hindering children to flourish their potential labor productivity in Brazil. As a first step, this report proposes the Human Capital Index (HCI) to estimate the expected productivity of a child born today by the age of 18 when education and health conditions remain unaltered. Or simply, the HCI estimates the productivity level of the next generation of works. The results are alarming. How can Brazil recover from a decade lost in terms of human capital formation Mitigating the effects of the pandemic should be a priority. In the short-term, recommendations include: (a) adapt and strengthen policies already in place that have proven effects on human capital; (b) use the national conditional cash transfer program to support those more heavily affected by the pandemic; and (c) set as utmost priority a learning recovery and acceleration plan for the coming years. -
Publication
Disability Inclusion in Disaster Risk Management - Assessment in the Caribbean Region
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-03-18)Persons with disabilities make up just one of many groups in society that are systematically marginalized and disadvantaged. Gender, ethnic and religious diversity, poverty, age, homelessness, levels of education and literacy, gender preference and diversity, and geographic isolation are just some of the characteristics that can define social exclusion. The World Bank and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), with support from the Canadian government, have established the Canada–Caribbean Resilience Facility (CRF) as a single-donor trust fund aimed at achieving more effective and coordinated gender-informed climate-resilient preparedness, recovery, and public financial management practices in nine targeted CRF-eligible countries. The CRF is supporting, disability inclusive disaster risk management (DRM) as an essential element in building this societal resilience. The primary purpose of this assessment is to understand gaps better in the inclusion of persons with disabilities in national disaster risk management (DRM) and climate resilience (CR) processes and strategies in Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Suriname. The report is based on the recognition that collectively people with disabilities are systematically marginalized and excluded from full and equal participation in society and societal processes. Primarily, the reasons are barriers to access that are both structural and nonstructural. These barriers can be removed or mitigated through effective social policy, implementation of existing norms and standards, and public will. The assessment will provide recommendations that make preparedness and recovery efforts more disability inclusive. -
Publication
Barriers to LGBTI People Accessing Justice in Serbia
(Washington, DC, 2022)Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex (LGBTI) people face significant social and legal vulnerabilities and disparities in accessing justice. LGBTI people are more vulnerable to bias, discrimination, harassment, and violence due to their real or perceived Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, Gender Expression and Sex Characteristics (SOGIESC). Despite some legal protections, few LGBTI people report cases of violence and other bias-motivated incidents to the police, and even fewer complaints proceed to court. The barriers that LGBTI people experience in accessing justice are rooted in societal homophobia, transphobia, their own fear to report incidents, a disconnect between formal laws and their implementation, and a lack of skills and knowledge among personnel in key justice institutions to effectively respond to the needs of LGBTI people. In most countries, including in the Western Balkans, government responses to discrimination and violence against LGBTI people are inadequate, as highlighted by previous research undertaken by the World Bank. The lack of safe reporting structures and inaction when cases are reported dissuades LGBTI people from engaging with the justice system, which limits their ability to have their rights fully protected. This report is organized in four parts. Part A provides the rationale for the research and outlines the research methodology. Part B includes an examination of the Serbian legal framework, the experience of Serbian LGBTI people accessing justice mechanisms, circumstances where LGBTI people in Serbia face discrimination or exclusion from justice based on their Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI), and a broader examination of the structural barriers to Serbian LBGTI people accessing justice. Part C outlines a collection of policy actions to address the barriers to access, the agencies best suited to steward the reforms, and anticipated timelines. Finally, the stakeholders who were interviewed and the questionnaires and survey instruments used to collect information, experience, and practices from the different stakeholders are included in the Annex section. -
Publication
The Socio-Political Crisis in the Northwest and Southwest Regions of Cameroon: Assessing the Economic and Social Impacts
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-06-21)This study assesses the impact of the crisis on economic and social outcomes in Cameroon’s Northwest and Southwest regions as of 2019. Conflicts destroy tangible and intangible assets and strain surrounding areas, and subnational conflicts leave deep scars on a country’s social fabric, culture, and collective memories. The NWSW crisis is a particularly poignant example of this, as it has directly targeted official symbols of the state, including schools and courts of law, and the resulting large-scale displacement has had secondary impacts on neighboring regions and at the national level. As of the end of 2019, the conflict was still active, and some longer-term outcomes and political, social, security, and institutional impacts were not yet observable beyond anecdotal evidence. The ongoing crisis, combined with the COVID-19 pandemic, has kept the two regions largely inaccessible. This has complicated data collection, as well as efforts to generate a more detailed understanding of conflict dynamics and actors. Given these constraints, this study has pursued a pragmatic strategy of analyzing pertinent issues in a systematic manner and relying on available information from a range of sources, including national and local governments, humanitarian assessments, existing surveys, press and newspaper articles, key stakeholder interviews, and remote sensing to gauge the impact of the ongoing crisis. Because no primary data collection has been carried out, the study does not measure the impact as of a specific date in 2019. Rather, it has tried to identify the most up-to-date and relevant sources to illustrate the impact, including the analysis of satellite images. -
Publication
Managing Social Risks and Impacts from Hydropower Development: Sharing Experience from a Medium-Sized Dam Project in Vietnam
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-09-01)The Trung Son dam is a medium-sized hydropower dam (260 megawatts) that was developed with the aim of achieving social and environmental sustainability. Experience gained from the Trung Son Hydropower Project can provide relevant information for dam projects of a similar size. This report is the result of a knowledge-sharing exercise conducted at the end of 2019 by the World Bank with Trung Son Hydropower Company Limited (TSHPCo) participation. The project benefitted from a decision-making process based on an adaptive management principle, defined by a framework of measures and implementation process. Detailed activities can evolve if they remained consistent with this framework. Experience gained from the Trung Son Hydropower Project demonstrates how relocation evolved, requiring continuous negotiations and engagement of all stakeholders to deal with unexpected problems. The critical management of downstream impacts during reservoir impoundment requires mitigation of specific risks. Assessed during the project preparation stage, downstream impacts associated with reservoir impoundment will be minimized through maintenance of a minimum environmental flow. The Trung Son reservoir area is rapidly evolving, with a newly created infrastructure network bringing both opportunities and challenges. To further provide support to local households and their communities, the scope of the corporate social responsibility of TSHPCo will need to be confirmed, and interaction with the local government is likely to continue over a long period of time. -
Publication
Impact of Refugees on Hosting Communities in Ethiopia: A Social Analysis
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-07-31)As of March 30, 2020, Ethiopia was hosting 758,199 registered refugees and asylum seekers, making it the second largest refugee-hosting country in Africa. Ethiopia is in the process of making far-reaching changes to its refugee policies. In 2016, it made nine pledges at the Leaders’ Summit on Refugees held in New York aimed at helping refugees gain greater mobility; improving access to services, especially education; expanding access to livelihoods, jobs, and irrigable land; and facilitating the local integration of long-term refugees. In February 2019, the Ethiopian parliament adopted a new refugee proclamation to facilitate the implementation of its pledges. Secondary legislation that will give effect to the proclamation is under preparation. This report, commissioned during this changing policy context, examines the social impacts of protracted displacement on the lives of refugees and host communities. -
Publication
Building for Peace: Reconstruction for Security, Equity, and Sustainable Peace in MENA
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-07-15)Tragic levels of death, destruction, displacement, and disorder from ongoing conflicts in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen require a new approach focused on building – not rebuilding – to support transitions to sustainable peace. This is the key message of this new World Bank report funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Building for Peace combines the latest development thinking with original research and proposes an integrated approach to look at reconstruction, development, and the transition to sustainable peace for conflict countries in the Middle East and North Africa and globally. It argues that, because the nature of conflict has evolved, the ways of planning and prioritizing interventions should also evolve, as must the ways that governments, development actors, and donors engage in those environments. Building for Peace advocates a more bottom-up approach that complements the approaches centered on physical reconstruction and central government institutions and that links past, present, and future. It suggests starting by understanding the past and the factors that led to conflict and by making sense of the present by identifying the power and incentives of existing actors, the existing allocation of resources, and the political and economic interests revolving around war. This more nuanced and holistic analysis helps to map the future by developing a long-term vision for sustainable peace. That vision is anchored on the priorities of the communities affected and the associated risks, constraints, and tradeoffs. It also addresses past grievances by building on existing assets and not just on physical damage—and by focusing on creating economic opportunities for all people affected by the conflict. -
Publication
Disability Inclusion in Nigeria: A Rapid Assessment
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06-26)According to the World Health Organization, in 2018, about 29 million of the 195 million people who comprise Nigeria’s national population were living with a disability. Data from the 2018 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey reveal that an estimated 7 percent of household members above the age of five (as well as 9 percent of those 60 or older) have some level of difficulty in at least one functional domain, seeing, hearing, communication, cognition, walking, or self-care; and 1 percent either have a lot of difficulty or cannot function at all in at least one domain. These estimated rates, while significant, are probably even higher because currently available data likely underestimate the prevalence. This rapid social assessment was undertaken to document the current socioeconomic status of persons with disabilities in Nigeria. Findings indicate that persons with disabilities lack access to basic services and that attitudinal barriers represent a major impediment to their socioeconomic inclusion. Inclusive policies are either nonexistent, weak, or inadequately implemented. There is an urgent need to improve the current socioeconomic situation of persons with disabilities in Nigeria. -
Publication
Social Inclusion in Uruguay
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-05-01)Uruguay is a regional leader in the path toward social inclusion. Sustained economic growth and redistributive policies have made it the most egalitarian country in Latin America. However, some groups are still excluded. Afro-descendants, persons with disabilities, women particularly in female-headed households and LGBTI people are more likely to be excluded. They face unequal opportunities, lower accumulation of human capital and skills, and a lack of voice and agency to have their points of views and aspirations of development included in decision making. This translates into disadvantages in education, health, housing, political representation, and employment, among others, and a higher tendency to live in poorer regions and slums. Excluded groups are also confronted with glass ceilings in the job market, which result in lower incomes and fewer opportunities. Uruguay has a robust matrix of social policies and one of the highest levels of public social spending in the region, but atomization of social programs and lack of coordination between them compromises their effectiveness. Closing the remaining gaps is possible and may not require large additional spending. Very often, changes in preexisting programs is all it takes to make them more socially inclusive. Policies that put social inclusion at their core do not necessarily do more, but they do things differently. -
Publication
Strengthening Youth Resilience to Radicalization: Evidence from Tajikistan
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-04)The report provides the first primary research conducted in Tajikistan by the World Bank Group (WBG) to analyze the youth, gender and local dimensions of radicalization and recruitment by VE groups, helping fill a gap in such analysis and evidence. It is based on qualitative research conducted across Tajikistan in 2018 and builds on the government of Tajikistan's official statistics as well as existing literature on socio-economic conditions and violent extremism in the country. The research provided critical inputs to three projects under the Resilience Strengthening Program (RSP3) which is supported by the IDA-18 Risk Mitigation Regime through a contribution close to US100 million dollars. In particular, this study informed the design of the 37 million dollars Socio-Economic Resilience Strengthening Project, an intervention that focuses on vulnerable communities and youth groups along border areas with Afghanistan. This report also seeks to contribute to the global understanding of radicalization and violent extremism, particularly in the context of the first pillar of the WBG Strategy for Fragility, Conflict and Violence 2020-2025 focusing on preventing violent conflict and interpersonal violence.