Sector/Thematic Studies

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http://hdl.handle.net/10986/2110

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.

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Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa, home to more than 1 billion people, half of whom will be under 25 years old by 2050, is a diverse ...

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Nigeria Development Update December 2022 - Nigeria's Choice

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-11-30) World Bank

Nigeria’s economic performance has weakened since the previous Nigeria Development Update (NDU) was published in June 2022 under the title of “The Continuing Urgency of Business Unusual”. The global economic environment has weakened. Economic activity in most major economies has slowed in 2022 amid high inflation and central banks shifting toward contractionary monetary policies. External financing conditions, particularly for governments and private borrowers in frontier markets such as Nigeria, have tightened, as the US dollar has appreciated sharply against most other currencies to historically strong levels, and global benchmark interest rates have risen. Moving into 2023, growth in most regions is expected to weaken further, and uncertainty regarding the outlook remains elevated, partly because of key unknowns such as future developments related to the Russian Federation's invasion of Ukraine.
Adaptive Social Protection in Southern Africa

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-10-31) World Bank

The countries of the Southern Africa Customs Union (SACU) - Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, and South Africa are exposed to climatic shocks, especially drought, that pose a continual threat to lives and livelihoods across the subregion. The pandemic has compounded these existing vulnerabilities. Climatic shocks such as these tend to affect the poorest most, exacerbating inequalities and increasing poverty. Food insecurity, which is chronic in the subregion and both a root cause of vulnerability to drought and an outcome of it also increased as a result of impacts from the pandemic. Social safety net programs can help poor and vulnerable households manage the risks they face from shocks, helping to mitigate the impacts on poverty and food insecurity, but their effectiveness can be constrained in several ways. The mobilization of social protection in response to COVID-19 and the challenges that have emerged to that mobilization have strengthened the case for investments in preparedness ahead of future shocks. Adaptive social protection refers to an agenda for preparing social protection systems to improve their response to shocks and to build the resilience of poor and vulnerable households. This report takes stock of ASP in four of the five SACU countries and provides targeted recommendations for each country’s development.
Sierra Leone Economic Update 2022: Leveraging SME Financing and Digitization for Inclusive Growth

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-05-31) World Bank

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has set back the economy and fiscal balances of Sierra Leone, which are now further impacted by the war in Ukraine. Real gross domestic product (GDP) growth turned negative in 2020, while the government’s efforts to reduce the fiscal deficit were undermined by the need for emergency spending. Just when the economy began to recover, the war in Ukraine caused new disruption through sharply higher food and fuel prices. Thus, the authorities face both the short-term challenge of coping with these price shocks while recovering from the pandemic, and the medium-term challenge of renewing fiscal consolidation and promoting higher economic growth. Public finances have deteriorated since the onset of COVID-19. Inflationary pressures have accelerated since mid-2021, driven first by the post-pandemic rebound in consumption, and subsequently by global supply chain disruptions since the onset of the Ukraine war, and depreciation pressures on the Leone. Small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) can be engines of economic growth and job creation,under the right circumstances. Currently, in Sierra Leone, SMEs (along with micro-enterprises) provide livelihoods to approximately 70 percent of the population and represent over 90 percent of the domestic private sector. Access to finance for SMEs and digital finance are priorities for the government. Digital financial services (DFS) are not diversified, and mobile money remains the main driver. The payments infrastructure including the RTGS, ACH and securities settlement system needs to be upgraded. Sierra Leone lacks a modern credit reporting system. Key recommendations for greater SME access to finance are presented in this report.
Building a Responsive and Resilient Vocational Education and Training System in Benin

(Washington, DC, 2022-05) World Bank

Benin has embarked on an ambitious reform of rapid expansion of its technical and vocational education training (TVET) sector with the goal, among others, to increase enrollment tenfold by 2030. Investments in the Benin’s human development are important to support the government’s economic growth objectives. A specific area of focus and one that has received support from the very highest levels of government is the focus on skills development and TVET. The government has put in place significant reforms to support this subsector with the aim to increase the skills base of the Beninese workforce and the population more generally, to enhance the coordination and functioning of the sector, to strengthen sectoral and institutional governance, and to improve system efficiency and relevance of programs to the needs of the labor market. The objective of this policy note is to inform the ongoing TVET reforms. The note assesses the effectiveness of the TVET system in Benin and provides policy recommendations for improvements. This policy note also presents a perspective on the plans to rapidly expand the sector, drawing on the experience of other economies including high-growth East Asian countries, and considers global trends, technological advances, climate change, and structural challenges, including the high level of informal employment and gender inequality. The report is organized into five chapters. Chapter one presents background information outlining opportunities, challenges, and reforms in the Benin TVET system. Chapter two provides broader analysis of the TVET system in Benin. Chapter three analyzes the recent developments and reforms to system of governance and financing. While chapter four assesses the quality assurance (QA) system in TVET, chapter five summarizes the key reform options and policy recommendations.
Toward More People-Centered Service Delivery: Opportunities for the National ID System in Lesotho

(Washington, DC, 2022-05) World Bank

This note documents the current and emerging use cases for the national ID (NID) system in the Kingdom of Lesotho. It demonstrates considerable potential and progress to date, and makes recommendations for moving toward a more inclusive, trusted and service delivery-oriented NID system. Global experience has shown that national ID systems can promote more efficient, transparent and people-centered service delivery in the public and private sectors, particularly when the system is designed with the appropriate enablers and safeguards in place to support improved development outcomes and mitigate risks. As countries move toward digital economies and governance, ID systems often serve as an essential digital platform, underpinning the digital payment infrastructure and transactions, as well as the provision of online and offline government services.
Chad Economic Update - April 2022: Resilience in Uncertain Times - Harnessing Agriculture and Livestock Value Chains

(Washington, DC, 2022-04) World Bank

Chad’s gross domestic product (GDP) contracted by 1.2 percent in 2021 - the second consecutive year of recession - driven by a two-month suspension of oil production at its Esso plants, economic disruptions due to sociopolitical insecurity, and liquidity constraints because of delays in debt restructuring. Low oil revenue, coupled with increased spending to deal with shocks, widened the fiscal deficit to 4.3 percent of GDP in 2021. The 2022-24 economic recovery is expected to be fragile and subject to significant downside risks related to recurrent and emerging sources of vulnerability. With a slow and fragile economic recovery, the adverse effects of the pandemic on poor and vulnerable households are expected to last in the short to medium term. Chad can seize emerging opportunities offered by the political transition, increasing oil prices, and debt restructuring to undertake reforms aimed at renewing its social contract and reducing long-term vulnerabilities. Stronger agricultural and livestock value chains are critical to economic diversification, sustainable growth, and food security in the medium to long term. Livestock is the economy’s most important non-oil sector and represents a major income source in the agriculture sector. The government should take bold actions to strengthen or create agricultural and livestock value chains.
Closing Gaps, Increasing Opportunities: A Diagnostic on Women’s Economic Empowerment in Nigeria

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-03-03) World Bank

As Nigeria faces the immediate challenge of stimulating economic recovery in the wake of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic and corresponding economic shocks, it also can address the sizable gender gaps that undermine women’s economic empowerment and hinder inclusive economic growth. Gender disparities in earnings not only hold back the Nigerian economy, they also represent an opportunity: closing the gender gaps in key economic sectors could yield additional gains of US9.3 billion dollars or up to US22.9 billion dollars. Women’s economic empowerment will also be key to accelerating a demographic transition and reaping the gains of a demographic dividend. Drawing on data from the most recent Nigeria General Household Survey (2018-2019), this report makes five critical contributions: (1) highlighting the gender gaps in labor force participation; (2) documenting the magnitude and drivers of the gender gaps in key economic sectors; (3) diving deep into three contextual constraints: land, livestock, and occupational segregation; (4) measuring the costs of the gender gaps; and (5) offering policy and programming recommendations of innovative options to close the gender gaps.
Malawi - Gender-Based Violence Assessment: Scope, Programming, Gaps and Entry Points

(Washington, DC, 2022-03) World Bank

The objective of this assessment is to provide background information about GBV issues, policies, programming, and gaps in Malawi, for the purpose of assisting the World Bank (WB) to 1) consider how to directly support efforts to address GBV in Malawi; 2) inform strategies for integrating attention to GBV in development programming; and 3) understand the extent of GBV response programming. In addition to providing an overview of data on the scope of GBV in Malawi, the assessment investigates: legislative and policy protections related to GBV; systems and coordination mechanisms in place for addressing GBV in Malawi; and GBV response and prevention programming. The assessment analyzes key gaps across these areas of investigation based on inputs from key stakeholders as well as the desk review and concludes with several recommendations for WB to consider assisting in addressing these key gaps.
Malawi Gender Assessment

(Washington, DC, 2022-03) World Bank

The government of Malawi has committed to addressing gender inequality and improving women’s wellbeing. The government has implemented multiple strategic development plans to guide policy creation and implementation. The current ongoing strategic plan is the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MDGS) III, which is aimed at alleviating poverty and fostering sustainable economic growth. In January 2021 the government of Malawi introduced the Malawi 2063 Vision, a strategic development plan which aims for low-middle income status by 2030.i To meet the goals set out in Malawi 2063, human capital development, private sector development, economic infrastructure, and environmental stability have been highlighted as critical drivers to be addressed. While the MDGS III and the Malawi 2063 Vision both include a focus on gender equality, this is largely done through a human capital and voice and agency lens, with considerably less focus on how closing gender gaps in the productive economic sectors can boost economic growth and poverty reduction. In the MDGS, gender is placed under ‘other development areas’ and grouped together with issues relating to youth, disability, and social welfare, with outcomes to be monitored including those focused on access to basic services, women’s roles in various levels of decision-making, and gender-responsive budgeting. In the Malawi 2063 Vision, gender is principally discussed under the human capital ‘enabler’ section.
Madagascar Economic Update: Navigating Through the Storm

(Washington, DC, 2022) World Bank

Development prospects in Madagascar continue to be hampered by the country’s low growth potential and exposure to frequent, deep, and persistent crises. Following a recession in 2020 that was about three times deeper than in the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa, an economic recovery started in Madagascar in 2021 but was interrupted in 2022 by a sequence of domestic and international shocks. In addition to these new headwinds, the growth potential of the economy has been negatively impacted during the crisis by a retrenchment in private investment, deteriorating human capital and weakening governance. In this context, growth projections were downgraded to 2.6 percent in 2022 and to an average of 4.4 percent in 2023-2024, with the poverty rate now expected to remain close to 80 percent by 2024. This can only happen if the government kickstarts far-reaching reforms supporting private investment and job creation, better access to basic services and infrastructure, and greater resilience to shocks. Several policy priorities are highlighted as particularly urgent in this Economic Update. This report also highlights the importance of boosting public school performance following the continued deterioration in learning outcomes and advocates for a set of reforms reinforcing teachers’ selection and evaluation, salary and school grant management, redress mechanism and local community engagement.