Sector/Thematic Studies

6,688 items available

Permanent URI for this collection

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.

Sub-collections of this Collection

Items in this collection

Now showing 1 - 10 of 24

Plastic Waste in Road Construction: A Path Worth Paving? Application of Dry Process in South Asia

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-05-24) Patil, Pawan ; Stankevich, Natalya ; Tsydenova, Nina ; Diana, Zoie

As global plastic waste continues to grow, the global community is coalescing to reduce plastic waste. Some stakeholders are also exploring new options to use plastic waste as partial substitute for raw material. The use of plastic waste as a bitumen modifier in road construction, referred to here as ‘plastic roads’, is one option being explored. We reviewed the scientific literature, news articles, and patents; conducted a cost-effectiveness analysis; and interviewed representatives from private companies and independent, scientific researchers to determine the existing knowledge gaps regarding the (1) technology feasibility, including engineering performance; (2) environmental issues; (3) occupational health; (4) economic viability; and (5) industry standards surrounding plastic roads. We found that many companies are starting to implement or pilot this technology worldwide though key gaps in engineering performance, such as cracking resistance, remain. The environmental issues reviewed also have research gaps, including the generation of hazardous air pollutants during production; microplastics and nanoplastics generation during use; and leaching of additives from plastic waste during use. Industry standards for the use of plastic waste in road construction are lacking. In addition, there is prevailing uncertainty in the economic viability of the technology. As a result of these key research gaps, the Ways Forward section presents a roadmap for short- and longterm research priorities.
GovTech Maturity Index, 2022 Update — South Asia Regional Brief

(Washington, DC, 2023-04-11) World Bank

According to the GovTech Maturity Index (GTMI) 2022 update for the South Asia (SAR) region, five countries are in group A or B, exhibiting substantial focus on GovTech initiatives, and the remaining three countries are in group C. These initiatives were largely linked with enhancing the delivery of public services and strengthening core government systems. The regional average GTMI score of 0.608 is higher than the global average of 0.552, which demonstrates the progress made in the last two years. However, there are some country-specific gaps in all GovTech dimensions that represent significant opportunities for improvements in public sector digital transformation, as indicated in the report.
Pakistan – Human Capital Review: Building Capabilities Throughout Life

(Washington, DC, 2023-04-04) Ersado, Lire, ; Hasan, Amer ; Geven, Koen Martijn ; Kathuria, Ashi Kohli ; Baron, Juan ; Bend, May ; Ahmed, S. Amer

Pakistan can realize major economic growth and development by investing in its people and their human capital. But the reality is that Pakistan’s human capital is low and has improved only marginally over the past three decades. Inequalities in human capital outcomes have persisted or widened over time between the rich and poor, men and women, and rural and urban areas and among the provinces. Human capital outcomes are low across the board, with even the most economically advantaged groups in Pakistan having lower human capital outcomes than less economically advantaged groups in peer countries. Pakistan’s Human Capital Index (HCI) value of 0.41 is low in both absolute and relative terms. It is lower than the South Asia average of 0.48, with Bangladesh at 0.46 and Nepal at 0.49. Pakistan’s human capital outcomes are more comparable to those in Sub-Saharan Africa, which has an average HCI value of 0.40. To enhance its human capital, Pakistan should adopt a life cycle approach to building, protecting, and deploying human capital, starting before birth, continuing through early childhood development, and schooling, culminating in increasingly productive employment. This calls for a long-term commitment, recognition of the multidimensional and cumulative nature of human capital investments, deliberate efforts from multiple stakeholders and sectors to build on intersectoral linkages, and a continuity of policies across political parties and governments. Many countries previously at Pakistan’s level of development have managed to precisely do this, even with regional variations and gaps just as large. Pakistan has the tools to implement the recommendations in this report, provide stewardship for human capital investments, and enhance economic growth over the long term. Pakistan’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that the country can manage complex challenges, despite its institutional constraints.
FinHealth Andhra Pradesh (India): Analyzing Public Financial Management Systems that Affect Service Delivery Outcomes

(World Bank, Washington DC, 2022-08) Jha, Rajesh ; Smith, Owen ; Jain, Manoj

While high levels of political commitment to improve health outcomes in the state have ensured that Andhra Pradesh (AP) ranks fourth among the category of twenty-one large states in the NITI Aayog Health Index, the health sector is challenged by an epidemiological transition with rising incidence of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). The state has made significant achievements in the last five years in almost all key maternal and child health indicators. Despite these improvements, prevalence of diarrhea and acute respiratory infections (ARIs) among children under five years appears to be on the rise. Wide inter district variations in the health outcomes indicate challenges in equity and access. Since tax-financed government revenues are essential for progress toward universal health coverage (UHC), and efficient allocation and use of such revenues is more critical in resource-constrained environments, the state government agreed to undertake an assessment of public financial management (PFM) systems within the health sector. In recognition of this agenda, an assessment of the potential for achieving better alignment between the PFM and health systems was undertaken in August 2022. AP was the first state in India for the assessment.
Plastic Waste: A Journey Down the Indus River Basin in Pakistan

(Washington, DC, 2022-06) World Bank

The perennial presence of plastic waste in the Indus River and its tributaries is a recent addition to the already extensive list of threats to water quality, ecological health, and environmental sustainability in Pakistan. While there is some information available, although insufficient, both on surface water resources as well as on solid waste management (SWM) in Pakistan, the intersection of the two remains grossly under-studied in research circles and underrepresented on policy forums. This study delineates the interface between land based plastic waste and the Indus River system with the objective of raising plastics-in-rivers as a major policy and developmental issue, and providing a starting point for researchers, policy makers, and development and environmental professionals to expand the agenda of SWM to include protection of rivers. It is the first study of its kind in Pakistan and uses a combination of active sampling of floating waste at key sites in the Indus River system, passive sampling of waste dumped along the banks at those sites, consultations with key stakeholders in the sector, and a review of relevant policies, laws, and literature.
Variable Renewable Energy Competitive Bidding Study

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-04-28) World Bank

This study was commissioned to support the government of Pakistan, the provincial energy departments, and the electricity regulator in the implementation of competitive bidding for the procurement and development of all future variable renewable energy (VRE) capacity in the country. The decision was taken in 2017 to move from a “cost-plus” tariff-setting regime for future solar and wind power capacity to one based on the principles of competitive bidding, following international trends and the very positive results seen in terms of steep cost reductions in other countries. In many locations, these cost reductions have led to solar and wind becoming the “least-cost” form of power generation, although this has already been achieved in Pakistan through gradual declines in the tariff awarded on a cost-plus basis to solar and wind projects by NEPRA, the electricity regulator. The report is structured as follows: Section 2 outlines key background issues of relevance to competitive bidding mechanisms for RE in Pakistan; Section considers potential arrangements for deployment of competitive bidding; Section 4 analyzes tender governance processes; Section 5 examines detailed arrangements for the design of competitive bidding; Section 6 evaluates implementation arrangements; Section 7 considers the impact of the forthcoming Competitive Trading Bilateral Contract Market (CTBCM) on renewable energy (RE) competitive bidding mechanisms; Section 8 reviews information technology needs; Section 9 considers communications and marketing strategies; and Section 10 reviews the potential for introducing local content arrangements.
Nepal Development Update: Global Challenges and Domestic Revival

(Washington, DC, 2022-04-13) World Bank

Nepal continues to struggle with the COVID-19 pandemic, but the ongoing COVID-19 vaccination drive has helped to reduce the fatality rate. The country experienced a first wave in March 2020, a second wave in mid-April 2021, and a third wave in January 2022. In response, social distancing measures were imposed but gradually became less stringent as COVID-19 progressed from the first to the third wave, driven in part by the COVID-19 vaccination drive that began in January 2021. Vaccination also contributed to a reduction in the fatality rate. As of March 2022, more than 60 percent of the population has received two doses of COVID-19 vaccines. High frequency indicators suggest that the economy continued to recover in the first half of FY22 after rebounding in FY21 from a contraction in FY20.
South Asia’s Digital Opportunity: Accelerating Growth, Transforming Lives

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-03-27) World Bank

The report presents both the opportunities of and the bottlenecks for furthering the digital agenda. It emphasizes that the first step is to get the basics right. This includes enabling access to and adoption of high-quality affordable broadband, initiating a paradigm shift in building digital public platforms and accelerating digital financial services. Part of this includes integrating digital ID, digital payments, and data sharing platforms so they can become ‘digital stacks’ that allow service providers to build and innovate their own platforms and systems on top. Supporting digital businesses, fostering digital skills, and creating the necessary trust environment are also critical to the digital agenda. Further, a successful digital agenda at country levels would benefit from regional integration that entails cross-border connectivity, data infrastructure, and payment systems.
Where Is the Value in the Chain?: Pathways out of Plastic Pollution

(Washington, DC, 2022) World Bank

Where Is the Value in the Chain? Pathways out of Plastic Pollution aims to support policy makers in their efforts to address plastic pollution. By examining the economic and financial implications of plastic management, the report provides key recommendations on how to create a comprehensive approach to addressing plastic pollution and to help policy makers make informed decisions for plastic pollution management. The report brings together new evidence from three analytical undertakings. First, Tackling Plastic Pollution: Toward Experience-Based Policy Guidance is a review of existing literature and a summary of findings from the ex post analysis of the effectiveness of plastics policies in 10 countries and states and an evidence-based policy guidance aimed at policy makers and stakeholders involved in design, implementation, and evaluation of policies to manage plastic pollution. Next, the Plastic Substitution Tradeoff Estimator (the Estimator) is an innovative model that estimates the external costs of 10 plastic products and their alternatives along their entire life cycle, developed and piloted in five countries. The Estimator can be applied in any country to identify what substitution materials, or what combination of them, would perform best in a given scenario and to examine tradeoffs between plastics and alternatives to help establish targets for reduction and substitution. Finally, the Plastic Policy Simulator (PPS) is a country-level, data-driven model for policy analysis to better describe the impacts of different policy instruments and policy packages on individual economic agents and on the plastic value chain at large. The PPS has been developed as a universal model and piloted in Indonesia. Its objective is to support policy makers and others in government, industry, and civil society in search of policy solutions to stem the flow of plastics by bringing an evidence-based approach to policy.
Fostering Gender-Transformative Change in Sustainable Forest Management: A Case Study of DGM Indonesia

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022) Canpolat, Ezgi ; Shakirova, Meerim ; McElhinny, Vince ; Westerman, Kame ; Cruz, Alli ; Buppert, Theresa

The DGM Indonesia (DGM-I) country project focuses on improving clarity and security of land rights for Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs), as well as improving livelihood opportunities from sustainable forests and land. In implementation since March 2017, with 63 subprojects either in implementation or completed, there are ample opportunities for detailed examination of a particular DGM-I subproject. This can offer insight into whether and how DGM projects are influencing women’s participation and leadership on the ground, and can also provide an indication of the extent to which the project may be influencing broader social and gender norms in Indonesia. In turn, this case study informs the wider line of inquiry of the World Bank DGM & REDD+ Gender Study, which follows a conceptual framework of gender transformative change to analyze the contribution the DGM-I project is making to women's economic achievement, access to and control over productive assets, voice, and agency that support positive changes in women’s leadership and meaningful participation. The conceptual framework for this study follows a stepwise, yet flexible and dynamic, progression toward gender transformative change. The framework begins by assessing the inputs that the DGM project provides to beneficiaries, such as assets, information, skills, and capacity building. This assessment looks at what types of inputs are provided, as well as to whom and how they are provided. Next, we assess through the framework how those inputs have influenced women’s income and assets, and building on that, how women are gaining voice and agency. Next, we assess whether and how those changes in voice and agency are influencing gender norms, attitudes, and perceptions of women and men at multiple levels, from individual to household to community. Finally, we look at whether those shifts have the potential to be sustained beyond the lifetime of the project and influence more formal practices, rules, policies, and laws that treat women in an unequal way.