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Recipe for a Livable Planet: Achieving Net Zero Emissions in the Agrifood System
The global agrifood system has been largely overlooked in the fight against climate change. Yet, greenhouse gas emissions from the agrifood system are so big that they alone could cause the world to miss the goal of keeping global average temperatures from rising above 1.5 centigrade compared to preindustrial levels. Greenhouse gas emissions from agrifood must be cut to net zero by 2050 to achieve this goal. Recipe for a Livable Planet: Achieving Net Zero Emissions in the Agrifood System offers the first comprehensive global strategic framework to mitigate the agrifood system’s contributions to climate change, detailing affordable and readily available measures that can cut nearly a third of the world’s planet heating emissions while ensuring global food security. These actions, which are urgently needed, offer three additional benefits: improving food supply reliability, strengthening the global food system’s resilience to climate change, and safeguarding vulnerable populations. This practical guide outlines global actions and specific steps that countries at all income levels can take starting now, focusing on six key areas: investments, incentives, information, innovation, institutions, and inclusion. Calling for collaboration among governments, businesses, citizens, and international organizations, it maps a pathway to making agrifood a significant contributor to addressing climate change and healing the planet.
Future Amman Positioned at a Juncture: Three Strategies Toward Climate-Smart Spatial Transformation
In "Future Amman Positioned at a Juncture: Three Strategies Toward Climate-Smart Spatial Transformation," the intricate dynamics of Amman's urban landscape are meticulously studied to offer a comprehensive roadmap toward spatial transformation. With a focus on growth dynamics, resource allocation, asset management, and planning reforms, the book lays out three strategies crucial for Amman's future development. Strategy 1 delves into the necessity of leveraging spatial planning to manage growth effectively and foster synergies across various sectors. Strategy 2 emphasizes the urgency of strategic sequencing and prioritization of actions to optimize limited resources within Amman's evolving landscape. Finally, Strategy 3 underscores the untapped potential of Amman's public land assets and enterprises in driving economic development and sustainable land value capture. Through insightful analysis and pragmatic recommendations, the publication offers a compelling narrative for policymakers, urban planners, and stakeholders invested in shaping Amman's future as a vibrant, inclusive, and resilient city.
Vibrant Cities - On the Bedrock of Stability, Prosperity, and Sustainability
How will the world’s developing cities become vibrant—capable of meeting the climate, social, and economic challenges of tomorrow? Vibrant cities offer firms and households high expectations for good returns on investments, for a sustainable and resilient future, and for dynamic and inclusive growth. Cities thrive not only by increasing incomes and wealth for a select few but by improving common welfare through the equitable provision of basic services and opportu¬nities. To do this, tomorrow’s vibrant cities will be: 1.Resilient and low carbon—Limiting greenhouse gas emissions, reducing vulnerability to climate related hazards, and rebounding from disasters and pandemics. 2.Inclusive—Meeting basic needs for all residents, while enabling all to aspire realistically to a bet¬ter life through investment in skills and through equitable access to job opportunities. 3.Productive—Driving economic growth, creating jobs, boosting incomes, and financing critical social and infrastructure investments. The report provides new evidence, analysis, and policy insights to advance green, resilient, and inclusive urban development—drawing on the latest thinking in spatial urban development and public economics. While spotlighting the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA), it offers general insights for city and country leaders around the world. In doing so, it lays the foundations to shore up our technical assistance and policy engagements for urban development in MENA and elsewhere through a new policy framework—inform, support, and protect.
World Bank Annual Report 2023: A New Era in Development
This annual report, which covers the period from July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023, has been prepared by the Executive Directors of both the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA)—collectively known as the World Bank—in accordance with the respective bylaws of the two institutions. Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank Group and Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors, has submitted this report, together with the accompanying administrative budgets and audited financial statements, to the Board of Governors.
Defueling Conflict Environment and Natural Resource Management as a Pathway to Peace: Executive Summary
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.
Tunisia Economic Monitor, Spring 2024: Renewed Energy to the Economy
Tunisia’s already modest economic recovery almosthalted in 2023, amidst a severe drought, tight financingconditions and the modest pace of implementingreforms. With this slowdown, the Tunisian economy in2023 was still below its pre-Covid level, marking oneof the slowest recoveries in the Middle East and NorthAfrican region. Agriculture was the main driver of the2023 economic slowdown, declining by 11 percent asthe drought forced the government to introduce irrigationrestrictions. This highlights the urgency for Tunisiato adapt to climate change. The weak domesticdemand and the fiscal consolidation appear to haveadded to the drought-related losses, with the declinesin construction and commerce sectors offsetting someof the gains from export markets, particularly tourism.The growth slowdown–especially in labor-intensivesectors–translated into higher unemployment andlower labor force participation.
Tunisia Country Climate and Development Report
This Climate Change and Development Report (CCDR) establishes the case for a new economic model to address Tunisia’s challenging economic and social context and vulnerability to climate change. Building on extensive analyses and consultations (see Box 1 for our approach), the CCDR calls for a new model that emphasizes the role of the private sector in generating most jobs, while the state focuses on its regulating function, funding expenditures with the highest social and economic returns, and directing resources to interventions that are both economically and environmentally sustainable. The proposed model would involve major changes, such as using pricing to rationalize the consumption of resources and creating economic conditions that support private investments in climate adaptation and decarbonization. It would also involve a shift from recurrent public expenditures to public investments in adaptation and decarbonization.
Egypt Country Environmental Analysis: Promoting Circular Economy and Blue Economy for Environmental Sustainability
Over the last two decades, the Government of Egypt (GOE) has pursued its sustainable and resilient development. The Ministry of Environment (MOE) has improved the governance framework and promoted new policy instruments to meet growing environmental challenges. The Ministry of Environment (MOE) has improved the governance framework and promoted new policy instruments to meet growing environmental challenges. The purpose of this CEA is to help Egypt address some of these environmental challenges by providing strategic guidance to the GOE to achieve green, resilient, and inclusive growth while creating new jobs. This CEA has been developed in consultation with the GOE and has identified short-to medium-term priority areas in: (i) circular economy (CE) for industrial pollution and waste management; (ii) blue economy (BE) with a focus on sustainable coastal zone management; (iii) environmental governance; and (iv) innovative green financing mechanisms targeting the CE and BE. It was conducted by reviewing existing analytical work on environmental management in Egypt, current environmental regulations, strategies, reports, and public data. In addition, consultation workshops, meetings (with government representatives, nongovernmental organizations [NGOs], research institutions, private sector, and key experts), and focus group discussions were carried out to further modify or validate the findings.
The Knowledge Compact for Action: Transforming Ideas Into Development Impact - For a World Free of Poverty on a Livable Planet
Today’s global challenges are bigger, more complex, and more intertwined than ever before, from the relentless grip of poverty and stubborn persistence of inequality to the devastations caused by climate disasters, fragility, pandemics, and conflicts. Financing and investments alone cannot solve these problems in a global context of higher debt and scarce resources. Now more than ever, clients are demanding innovative ideas and successful experiences from other countries to tackle the ongoing and emerging global crises, regain the development progress of past decades and move faster towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. At the same time, recent breakthroughs in technology, including the rapid advances in artificial intelligence, offer enormous potential to revolutionize development work. Policymakers and practitioners across the globe are poised to benefit from new tools to innovate, act based on evidence and accelerate the transformation of new ideas into development outcomes that improve lives of the poor. This paper articulates the strategic direction of the Knowledge Compact for Action, which seeks to empower all WBG clients, public and private, by systematically making the latest development knowledge available to respond more effectively to increasingly complex development challenges. The Compact seizes the opportunity of the digital revolution, bringing together the wealth of data analytics, research and best practices accumulated by the WBG over decades and combining this knowledge with the WBG’s proven mix of public-private finance to power learning and innovative solutions. This includes capturing the tacit knowledge embedded in operations for policymakers and development practitioners to easily access lessons of development successes and failures in other countries. Ultimately, the Compact aims to take knowledge to a new level, placing it front and center of the WBG’s work to end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity on a livable planet.
MIGA Annual Report 2023
Celebrating thirty-five years since its founding, in FY23 MIGA issued a record 6.4 billion in new guarantees across forty projects. Through these projects, the Agency remained focused on encouraging private investors to help host governments manage and mitigate political risks. In FY23, as it did during the COVID-19 pandemic, MIGA demonstrated its agility to respond to crisis, employing multiple products during the year to assist the embattled people of Ukraine following Russia’s invasion. An institution of the World Bank Group, MIGA is committed to strong development impact and supporting projects that are economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable. MIGA helps investors mitigate the risks of restrictions on currency conversion and transfer, breach of contract by governments, expropriation, and war and civil disturbance. It also offers trade finance guarantees, as well as credit enhancement on obligations of sovereigns, sub-sovereigns, state-owned enterprises, and regional development banks.