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International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) 2024 Annual Report
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-11-05) International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes
The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) has evolved significantly over the past fifteen years. Demand for ICSID’s services has grown in concert with an increase in foreign investment and an expanding network of international investment agreements. By leveraging new technologies and modernizing procedural rules, ICSID has ensured world-class quality and efficiency in its case administration services. The sustained growth in membership has been a testament to the value States place in ICSID as the only global institution dedicated to international investment dispute settlement. The 2024 fiscal year (FY2024) saw strong demand for ICSID’s services, with the second-highest number of registered and administered cases in ICSID’s history. Also notable over the fiscal year was the sustained progress in enhancing the diversity of arbitrators, conciliators, and ad hoc committee members appointed to ICSID cases. This includes: a record 49 nationalities were represented amongst the appointments made in FY2024; 29 percent of all appointments involved women; 50 percent percent of first-time appointees involved nationals of low- or middle-income economies. Additional highlights in FY2024 include a record number of concluded proceedings, as ICSID continues to work with tribunals and parties to reduce the time of cases. Also, for the first time, a Regional Economic Integration Organization - the European Union was a party to an ICSID proceeding.
Paraguay Poverty and Equity Assessment: Strategies to Boost Inclusive Growth and Poverty Reduction
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-11-01) World Bank
Paraguay has achieved remarkable progress in reducing poverty over the past two decades. Through dedicated efforts and effective policies, the country halved its poverty rate from 51.4 percent in 2003 to 24.7 percent in 2022. Simultaneously, it cut extreme poverty by half, reaching 5.6 percent. According to World Bank estimates, Paraguay’s middle class has also experienced significant growth, expanding from 24.8 percent of the population in 2003 to 41.6 percent in 2022. Since 2014, however, the pace of poverty reduction has slowed, with most gains concentrated in the 2003–13 period. Economic growth, the primary driver of Paraguay’s poverty reduction, has decelerated in recent years. This slowdown was accompanied by a decrease in job creation and stagnation in real labor incomes. Moreover, a series of adverse shocks between 2019 and 2022, including the COVID-19 pandemic, high inflation, and a sequence of droughts that affected the agricultural sector, further eroded some of the progress made. Despite these challenges, Paraguay has begun to show signs of recovery. In 2023, the country witnessed a 2.8 percentage point reduction in moderate poverty and a decrease of 1.2 percentage points in extreme poverty. This report identifies four main structural barriers hindering poverty reduction in Paraguay and proposes priority policy options that can be implemented to address the country’s pressing socioeconomic challenges and disparities. This Paraguay Poverty Assessment, in conjunction with the Country Economic Memorandum (CEM) and the Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR), provides a comprehensive analysis of Paraguay’s development challenges. By offering insights and policy recommendations based on this analysis, these reports collectively aim to promote inclusive and sustainable growth in Paraguay.
Equatorial Guinea Economic Update, 2nd Edition: Designing Fiscal Instruments for Sustainable Forestry
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-29) World Bank
This is the second edition of the Economic Update for Equatorial Guinea. This World Bank report presents recent economic developments in Equatorial Guinea, the medium-term economic outlook and risks as well as structural challenges (Chapter 1), followed by a detailed exploration of a specific topic (Chapter 2). This edition focuses on fiscal instruments for sustainable forestry, examining the current socio-economic context of forest policy in Equatorial Guinea. In particular, it discusses the role and current use of forest-related fiscal instruments, and proposes options and trade-offs in the design of forest related fiscal policy reforms to adequately capture resource rents, promote forest based value-addition and employment, mitigate deforestation and forest degradation. The objectives of the Equatorial Guinea Economic Update are to: (i) strengthen the analytical underpinnings of the policy dialogue; and (ii) contribute to an informed debate on policy options to enhance macroeconomic management and development outcomes.
Panama Systematic Country Diagnostic
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-22) World Bank
This Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) Update assesses the evolution of Panama’s development challenges and policy priorities since the publication of the SCD in 2015. During the last eight years, Panama has experienced three major changes in its economic and social landscape: (i) economic growth, though still high, has structurally slowed down, affecting job creation and employment quality; (ii) human capital formation has not improved substantially, and the country is struggling to address the significant deterioration in education and health indicators that occurred due to the COVID-19 pandemic; and (iii) the government has demonstrated an increasingly acute awareness of the country’s vulnerability to climate change. In addition, Panama’s income per capita had the highest level of convergence within the region, reflecting its strong economic performance over the last three decades. However, the country’s remarkable gains in per capita income have not been accompanied by a commensurate improvement in economic inclusion and institutional quality. In this context, the SCD Update begins by providing an overview of Panama’s recent growth dynamics and poverty trends, before analyzing the country’s development challenges and discussing key policy priorities for achieving sustainable, inclusive, and resilient growth.
The Healthy Longevity Initiative: Key Insights for Policy and Action
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-09-12) Altuwaijri, Sameera; Jha, Prabhat; Alleyne, George; Isenman, Paul; Saadat, Seemeen; Garcia, Gisela; Veillard, Jeremy
The global demographic landscape is at a crossroads, with rapid declines in fertility and aging populations holding profound implications for employment, social services, and wellbeing. Population aging has accelerated the rise of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) as the leading cause of global deaths and are expected to contribute to ninety percent of all deaths by 2040. This has implications for health systems (NCD-related hospitalization) and long-term care as well as for labor markets and social protection systems. There is a need for whole of society approaches and solutions that address equity gaps especially due to poverty and gender inequality, which further exacerbate the challenges. The Healthy Longevity Initiative (HLI) spotlights key high impact interventions in health and social sectors that countries can adapt to address the challenge of changing demographics and growing NCDs. While this requires greater financial outlays, the benefits far outweigh the costs with the potential of saving 150 million lives cumulatively by 2050 in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) alone. Mobilizing support to move from knowledge to action is needed to realize the astounding human and economic benefits of addressing one of the major challenges of the 21st century.
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.
Bioeconomy Paraguay: Innovation and Economic Diversification
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-08-12) World Bank
This report aims to inform the Government of Paraguay about the economic potential of an innovative bioeconomy to diversify exports and create better jobs. There are a number of innovative, biobased sectors with significant growth potential globally and in Paraguay, that could contribute to Paraguay’s economic diversification. However, to build on this potential, Paraguay would need to expand its innovation capabilities to enter sectors such as bioplastics, biopharmaceuticals, forestry and wood, ecotourism and other ecosystem services, such as carbon markets for export. A wide range of products can be produced from wood, and wood pulp can serve as an alternative input material for textiles. Besides wood itself, the forests or plantations in which it grows can also provide non-wood forestry products such as cosmetics, biopharmaceuticals, or food additives. Paraguay can also expand its bioplastics production to take advantage of a global market that is expected to grow between 35–45% through 2027. In part, this is because large buyers, such as car manufacturers, have committed to purchase bioplastics. Further market opportunities are also evident in ecotourism and carbon financing, both fast-growing service industries with potential to contribute to conservation of natural capital assets.
Introducing Strategic Purchasing in Costa Rica
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-25) Di Giorgio, Laura; Rosado Valenzuela, Ana Lucia; Sheffel, Ashley; Mussini, Micaela
The Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS) has taken its first steps towards the introduction of strategic purchasing of healthcare services with a pilot that was introduced for the first time as part of the institution’s 2024 budget, which is currently being implemented. With this highly relevant reform, the CCSS begins its transition from a resource allocation model based solely on the historical budget to (i) a capitation model at the first level of care and (ii) the introduction of prospective elements at the hospital level. The purpose of the review in the resource allocation methodology is to align resources with the health needs of the population and the supply of services, while encouraging the achievement of specific strategic objectives, such as increasing productivity, accessibility, and quality of services.
From Landlocked to Land of Opportunity: Paraguay Country Economic Memorandum
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-09) World Bank
Paraguay has been a beacon of macroeconomic stability, but like the rest of the region, its average growth has moderated since 2013, which has affected the pace of poverty reduction. To accelerate growth and poverty reduction, it is important to continue to increase resilience against external shocks, productivity, and the sustainability of growth. Improving the quality and efficiency of public institutions, market efficiency, innovation, education, and infrastructure will promote economic productivity. Diversifying exports away from unprocessed commodities will strengthen economic resilience but will be a lengthy process. Meanwhile, the continued commitment to stable macroeconomic and fiscal policies, a deepened financial sector, and risk mitigation policies will increase economic resilience. Paraguay does not have to choose between profitability and sustainability: both are possible and complementary. Greener growth will yield a stronger, more prosperous economy.
CEMAC Economic Barometer, May 2024, Vol. 6
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-02) World Bank
The CEMAC Economic Barometer is a semi-annual World Bank publication that presents a snapshot of (i) recent developments in and the economic outlook of the CEMAC region, and (ii) key development and reform priorities in the CEMAC region, followed by (iii) a brief assessment at the country level.