Sector/Thematic Studies
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Economic and Sectoral Work are original analytic reports authored by the World Bank and intended to influence programs and policy in client countries. They convey Bank-endorsed recommendations and represent the formal opinion of a World Bank unit on the topic. This set includes the sectoral and thematic studies which are not Core Diagnostic Studies. Other analytic and advisory activities (AAA), including technical assistance studies, are included in these sectoral/thematic collections.
Sub-collections of this Collection
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Country Gender Assessment -
Recent Economic Development in Infrastructure -
Emerging Technologies -
Energy Study -
Energy-Environment Review -
Equitable Growth, Finance & Institutions Insight -
Debt and Creditworthiness Study -
General Economy, Macroeconomics, and Growth Study -
Legal and Judicial Sector Assessment -
Gender Innovation Lab Federation Causal Evidence Series
Items in this collection
1 - 10 of 11
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Publication
R&D Policy and the Role of Research Institutions in Fostering Green Innovation in Poland
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-05-18)The diagnostic and analysis presented in this report unveils a complex and challenging picture of Polish R&D capacity and its technological preparedness to engage and deliver green-innovation solutions for regions and industries. The report pinpoints opportunity areas to catch up, as well as the competences that Poland can leverage to address capacity and preparedness challenges. Policy goals should, therefore, ensure that actions by the state, research centers, universities, private sector, and all agents in the innovation eco-system help meet environmental and sustainable development commitments. -
Publication
Greening Public Human Development Buildings in Croatia: Support for the Implementation of the European Green Deal in the Croatian Health and Education Sectors
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-05-18)The goal of this policy note is twofold: first, to identify and propose how to address some of the key regulatory and implementation hurdles that Croatia and potentially other EU Member States are facing in greening their HD infrastructure while improving HD outcomes; and second, to compile best practices and examples in green design, construction, and renovation of public HD buildings. The Note will also provide guidance and encourage dialogue among relevant policy makers at national, regional, and local levels, and with targeted clients. Furthermore, the recommendations would address the importance of green skills development and other related topics relevant to the implementation of EUGD. Overall, the analysis results and the recommendations on these issues could also be useful for World Bank experts and other external stakeholders focused on the green economy and human development. -
Publication
Steering the Human Development Strategy for a Sustainable Green Economy in the Slovak Republic
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-05-17)The rippling effects of multiple overlapping crises on the economy, declining education outcomes, and inability of the education system to meet the upcoming needs of the labor market puts the Slovak Republic in a human capital crisis. There is a misalignment between the supply and outcomes of the education system and requirements of the labor market. Education-to-work pathways through vocational and tertiary education are insufficient to prepare students for the green economy transition. Education-to-work pathways need to be flexible to align worker choices with needs of the labor market. This policy note provides a deep dive into the education situation in the Slovak Republic and proposes specific policy recommendations aiming at the skilling and reskilling toward the green and digital agenda, utilizing European and international experiences in this area. -
Publication
Designing and Delivering Government-Led Graduation Programs for People in Extreme Poverty
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-02-17)While governments face significant obstacles in designing and delivering approaches for people living in extreme poverty, a substantial body of research shows that programs can achieve transformative impact by addressing the socioeconomic barriers that often exclude this population. An increasing number of governments are adopting and scaling economic inclusion programs, including Graduation programs, to address the multidimensional vulnerabilities of people living in extreme poverty. By integrating the Graduation approach into their poverty reduction initiatives, governments can increase the impact and scale of their initiatives by investing in the systems, processes, and capacities needed to reach those furthest behind and deliver multidimensional, timebound, and sequenced program interventions. This In Practice paper shares insights and learning from four non-governmental organizations on the potential to scale up government-led Graduation programs for people living in extreme poverty. It contributes to the growing policy space around economic inclusion and identifies good practices for designing and implementing government-led Graduation programs. It makes recommendations and identifies key considerations for governments on how to identify, reach, and deliver impactful programming to individuals and households facing socioeconomic exclusion and marginalization. -
Publication
Opportunities for All: Brazil Policy Notes 2022
(Washington, DC, 2022-12)This package of Public Policy Notes is directed to Brazilian policy makers and society to present the World Bank Group’s overview of key challenges facing the country at this juncture, and possible ways forward to address them. We present an agenda prioritized around four issues of core relevance to Brazil’s recovery and its future resilience. First is the goal of financing development sustainably given the immediate challenge of situating the country’s enormous growth, inclusion and climate action needs within a credible macroeconomic framework and efficient and effective fiscal policies. The second theme addressed in this note is building opportunities through productivity-led growth. With the growing reliance of Brazilians on social assistance policies, it is critical to keep sight of growth and jobs as the most important vehicles for the dignity and upward mobility of the poor. Third is increasing the capabilities and economic inclusion of the poor so that they are better able to capture the opportunities that come with growth. Thefourth theme we address in this note is meeting Brazil’s potential as a as a leader in green and climate friendly development. This document is accompanied by a package of six policy presentations and an underlying set of more detailed policy reports that can be accesses here: https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/brazil. -
Publication
From Learning Recovery to Education Transformation: Insights and Reflections from the Fourth Survey on National Education Responses to COVID-19 School Closures
(Washington, DC, Montreal, New York, Paris, 2022-09)To explore how countries have progressed in learning recovery and longer-term education transformation, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Bank have conducted the fourth round of the Survey on National Education Responses to Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) school closures (joint survey’, with responses from Ministries of Education in 93 countries. While the first three rounds of the survey were implemented in relatively rapid succession during the periods May to June 2020, July to October 2020, and February to June 2021, respectively, the fourth round was implemented more than one year after the last data collection during the period April to July 2022, when almost all schools had re-opened and policymakers were beginning to reflect on responses going forward in the post-pandemic normalization period. Findings from the joint survey are supplemented by data from the global education recovery tracker (GERT) survey, administered with 166 World Bank and UNICEF country offices between May to July 2022. This report includes the main findings from the surveys, which are analyzed and presented along the lines of the five RAPID key policy actions. Furthermore, each of these analyses is complemented by a discourse of the policy implications and related measures required for longer-term education transformation to address the longstanding systemic bottlenecks, ensure future system sustainability, and achieve national, regional, and global goals, including sustainable development goal 4 on education. -
Publication
The Business Case for Gender-Responsive Climate-Smart Mining
(Washington, DC, 2022-08-08)Transitioning to a low-carbon economy is critical to the sustainability of the planet. A recent World Bank report found that increasing demand for clean energy technologies can increase demand for minerals such as graphite, lithium, and cobalt by nearly 500 percent by 2050. Even though the authors expect recycling rates to go up in the future, mining will still be required to supply critical minerals: the shift to a low-carbon future will be mineral-intensive, and mining will remain a critical industry. It is in this context that the World Bank Group established the climate-smart mining initiative (CSM), which is sustained by a partnership between industry and country governments. The initiative supports the sustainable extraction, processing, and recycling of the minerals and metals that are needed for low-carbon technologies. The concept is built upon four pillars: (i) climate mitigation; (ii) climate adaptation; (iii) reducing material impacts; and (iv) creating market opportunities. -
Publication
The Distributional Impact of Taxes and Social Spending in Bulgaria with an Application to Green Fiscal Policies
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-06)This paper uses methods developed by the Commitment to Equity Institute and data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions Survey as well as the Household Budget Survey to assess the impact of the fiscal system on poverty and inequality in Bulgaria. This paper presents the first detailed distributional analysis of the fiscal system in Bulgaria including an analysis of the contribution of the individual components of the system. Overall, the author find that the fiscal system in Bulgaria contributes to inequality reduction. The authors find that the fiscal system is poverty reducing when using the lower US$5.50 2011 revised PPP poverty line, and poverty increasing when using the higher EU at-risk-of-poverty poverty line. The difference in results is due to different incidence of taxation along the income distribution. Th authors find that most of the redistributive and poverty-reducing impacts are attributable to contributory pensions, though this is not likely to be sustainable in the context of a rapidly aging population and a dwindling contributory base. Direct taxes and transfers are relatively ineffective in reducing inequality and have one of the lowest redistributive impacts in the EU. As an application of the CEQ framework, the author consider the poverty and inequality impacts of increasing carbon taxation and removing fossil fuel subsidies in line with Bulgaria’s decarbonization goals. The authors find that these measures lead to an increase in poverty but have negligible impacts on inequality. The authors find that recycling revenues through targeted lump-sum transfers has the greatest mitigating impact on poverty and leads to declines over baseline inequality. -
Publication
Consumer and Market Study in Southwest and West Nile Refugee-Hosting Areas in Uganda
(Washington, DC, 2021-12)The International Finance Corporation (IFC) commissioned a consumer and market study to explore economic activities, employment trends, consumption levels, and consumer preferences of refugees and host communities in Uganda’s largest refugee-hosting areas in the Southwest and West Nile regions. The study covers a gap in existing research on the economic situations of forced displacement, which is often conducted from a humanitarian perspective and rarely offers the private sector view. The study presents the refugees’ economic activities in their distinct roles as consumers, producers, suppliers, and salaried workers from the view of a private sector firm entering the market. It builds on earlier research conducted by the Uganda Investment Authority, in partnership with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), which produced investment profiles for refugee-hosting districts. The report is divided into eight chapters. Chapter one introduces the study. Chapter two outlines the study methodology. Chapter three provides socioeconomic baseline data, such as educational attainment, employment, and income, comparable by region and population group (refugees versus host communities). Chapter four explores access to telecommunication and financial services. Chapter five analyzes household consumption expenditure, the volume of economic activity, consumer preferences, and access to finance and telecommunication services. Chapter six discusses findings from the business survey. Chapter seven briefly looks at agricultural value chains in the Southwest and West Nile. Chapter eight presents investment opportunities in the refugee-hosting districts for the private sector. -
Publication
Strategy for Sustainable Hydropower Development in the Jhelum Poonch River Basin Pakistan
(Washington, DC, 2021-06)IFC has remained financer and development partner in hydropower projects in Pakistan. In this process, IFC has developed a comprehensive approach for developing sustainable hydropower as a cheaper and cleaner energy that benefits the environment as well as the communities in the area. A key part of the approach involves raising environmental and social standards in hydropower development through its advisory engagements. Strategy for Sustainable Hydropower Development in the Jhelum Poonch River Basin (JPRB) is one such IFC initiative implemented through a multistakeholder-engagement process to provide practical guidance for government, developers, and other stakeholders. The proposed strategy presents key lessons learned from hydropower projects in the Jhelum-Poonch River Basin as well as other related basins during construction and operation. It enhances the knowledge base of the Jhelum-Poonch Basin and provides recommendations for hydropower developers and government to implement best practice in their projects. This helps strike a balance between conservation and development by minimizing negative environmental and social impacts from hydropower projects in the basin. The strategy provides recommendations for government and regulators on how to improve policy and regulation to strengthen the hydropower sector. Developers can make good use of this report to strengthen their planning, systems, and business operations.