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Publication CEMAC Economic Barometer, November 2024, Vol 7(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-03) World BankThe CEMAC Economic Barometer is a semi-annual World Bank publication that presents a snapshot of recent developments and the economic outlook of the CEMAC region, followed by a brief assessment at the country level. It includes a focused technical section on a theme of regional relevance. This edition’s special topic provides policy options for the CEMAC countries to address challenges in the forestry sector, such as effectively designing fiscal instruments, improving forest governance, and increasing financial and technical support from the international community. It highlights how fiscal instruments can incentivize sustainable forestry and generate government revenue.Publication Colombia - Poverty and Equity Assessment: Trajectories - Prosperity and Poverty Reduction in the Colombian Territory(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-17) World Bank GroupThis report, Trajectories: Prosperity and Poverty Reduction in the Colombian Territory, explores the factors behind the lower capacity of many to lead productive lives in Colombia, particularly their lower accumulation of assets. It examines how this capacity persistently differs across municipalities and departments and across gender, ethnicity, and migratory status. The report’s focus on assets highlights poor people’s capacity to generate income and escape poverty. It, therefore, adopts an assets-based approach, which recognizes that the capacity of an individual or household to generate market income depends on the assets they possess, their human, physical, financial, social, and natural capital, and how they subsequently use those assets in markets to generate income. Addressing territorial inequalities has been recognized as a policy priority in Colombia, and this report brings new evidence to the public debate. With nearly two out of five future workers living in poorer areas, a failure to invest in the productive capacity of these younger generations is a missed opportunity for higher economic growth potential. Specifically, the report makes four main contributions. First, it brings new evidence on regional inequalities to the public debate through new data and measures that go beyond what has been traditionally produced and that zoom in to a more granular geographical level: the municipality. This provides new insights into the challenges at hand and their heterogeneity across the country. The report prepares and presents, for instance, municipal data on incomes and poverty and their evolution, allowing an assessment of patterns and drivers of progress. Second, its analytical anchoring in the assets-based approach puts the focus on people and their ability to lead productive lives. Third, through this focus on assets, it provides a multisectoral view of the challenges to addressing territorial inequalities in access to opportunities and accordingly offers a multidimensional view of the policy discussion it proposes. Finally, the report suggests policy principles and examples to inform the broader debate on reducing poverty and inequality across Colombia.Publication Poverty Traps in Argentina - Poverty and Equity Assessment(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-11-11) World BankArgentina faces persistently high poverty rates, which have shown an upward trend in recent years, despite increased resources aimed at mitigating poverty.Publication Paraguay Poverty and Equity Assessment: Strategies to Boost Inclusive Growth and Poverty Reduction(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-11-01) World BankParaguay 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.Publication Equatorial Guinea Economic Update, 2nd Edition: Designing Fiscal Instruments for Sustainable Forestry(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-29) World BankThis 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.Publication Defueling Conflict Environment and Natural Resource Management as a Pathway to Peace: Executive Summary(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-08-20) World BankFragile 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.Publication The Future of Work in Central America and the Dominican Republic(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-08-13) Moroz, Harry; Viollaz, MarianaTechnological progress has the potential to cause significant disruption in labor markets. This report examines the impact of computers, robots, AI, and improved ICT at work on labor markets in CADR. Advanced economies offer a model for how the future of work will look in Central America and the Dominican Republic (CADR), but important differences in development stages mean that the labor market impacts of technological progress are distinct now and are likely to continue to be in the near future. The report focuses on these technologies as the most likely to have shaped labor markets in the region in the recent past and the most likely to shape them in the near future. The report first examines how technological progress within the region is shaping what workers do and how they do it. The report goes beyond the analysis of susceptibility to automation to dissect the factors underlying recent labor market transformations and undercover the extent to which technological change has played a role in these transformations. The report also examines how technological progress outside of the region is shaping labor markets within it by investigating how robot adoption in the United States is affecting the demand for CADR workers in CADR countries and for CADR workers in the United States.Publication Bioeconomy Paraguay: Innovation and Economic Diversification(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-08-12) World BankThis 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.Publication From Landlocked to Land of Opportunity: Paraguay Country Economic Memorandum(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-09) World BankParaguay 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.Publication CEMAC Economic Barometer, May 2024, Vol. 6(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-02) World BankThe 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.