Sector/Thematic Studies
6,525 items available
Permanent URI for this collection
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
-
Country Gender Assessment -
Recent Economic Development in Infrastructure -
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 -
Health Sector Review
Items in this collection
1 - 10 of 618
-
Publication
Jobs, Food and Greening: Exploring Implications of the Green Transition for Jobs in the Agri-food System
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-05-16)The agri-food system (AFS) employs about one third of the global workforce and contributes about one third of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This together with its large exposure to the effects of climate change and environmental degradation makes what happens in AFS central to the green transition and its implications for jobs and the structural transformation. Microeconomic evidence suggests that the adoption of climate smart agricultural practices will increase labor requirements, at least in the short run and at lower levels of incomes, when its mechanization is still limited. Econometric macro-model-based simulations suggest however that especially substantial investment in climate friendly agricultural R&D as well as soil and water preserving practices and market integration will more than offset the negative effects of climate change and even accelerate the structural transformation, especially in Sub Saharan Africa. Overall, the findings underscore the tremendous potential of increasing agricultural and climate friendly R&D investment for brokering an environmentally sustainable structural transformation. Repurposing of agriculture’s current US$ 638 billion support package towards supporting more climate friendly practices, including to overcome the time lag between the moment of investment and the realization of the benefits, provides an important policy entry point. -
Publication
Assessing the Benefits and Costs of Nature-Based Solutions for Climate Resilience: A Guideline for Project Developers
(World Bank, 2023-05-12)This document aims to guide the design, implementation, and use of studies to value the benefits and costs of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) for climate resilience projects. Reliable quantification of the costs and benefits of NBS for climate resilience can facilitate further mainstreaming of these interventions by articulating the value proposition of NBS across sectors, improve impact evaluation, and for identifying additional funding and financing for projects. This report provides an overview of methods and approaches, along with a decision framework to guide the design of NBS cost and benefit assessment. The decision framework presented should enable project developers to come up with a cost-effective approach for quantifying the benefits and costs of NBS that is effective and convincing in the context of climate resilience projects. To illustrate this in practical applications, eight case studies from World Bank projects are also included to better show how different valuation methods are applied in the field. -
Publication
Urban Heat in South Asia: Integrating People and Place in Adapting to Rising Temperatures
(World Bank, Washington DC, 2023-04-28)This policy brief evaluates the current state of the knowledge of and plans to manage urban heat in South Asia. First, the brief examines heat in South Asian cities through the different layers of the urban environment: buildings, communities, and cities. Next, it adds the human element and explores different population groups that are vulnerable to urban heat in the region: children, informal workers, and residents of informal settlements. Together, this analysis forms the basis of three major recommendations and a conceptual framework to provide policymakers with direction on where greater attention and resources are required to improve urban heat management in South Asia. -
Publication
Making the European Green Deal Work for People: The Role of Human Development in the Green Transition
(Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2023-04-24)Climate change is the single most important existential threat of our times. Mounting average global temperature contributes to rising sea levels, more frequent extreme weather events, deteriorating biodiversity, and shifts in the sustainability of agriculture and aquaculture. The European Green Deal (EGD) is the response of the European Union (EU) to the climate challenge. It will establish regulations and incentives to nudge European society toward a more sustainable economy. To achieve these ambitious goals the EGD combines a wide range of regulations, policies, and intervention. But a green transition is only possible with an enabling human transition, and only with the proper human development (social) policies to support this transition. This report identifies the human development (HD) policies needed to enable the green transition in Europe. -
Publication
Environment and Natural Resources Supplementary Guidance Note for Risk and Resilience Assessments
(Washington DC, 2023-04-20)This supplementary guidance note is based on the report, Defueling Conflict: Environment and Natural Resource Management as a Pathway to Peace (2022), which was funded by the State and Peacebuilding Fund. This document is intended to encapsulate the key ideas to support Risk and Resilience Assessment (RRA) teams to collect knowledge on and deepen and nuance the treatment of the environment and natural resources in RRAs. Additional examples and analyses are available in the original report. -
Publication
Scaling Up to Phase Down: Financing Energy Transitions in the Power Sector
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-04-20)The Scaling Up to Phase Down approach is a contribution by the World Bank to the ongoing debate on how to accelerate energy transition in low- and middle-income countries (LICs and MICs)—as called for by the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change—while simultaneously widening access to the reliable and affordable energy that underpins countries’ development goals. The approach is intended to be a bridge between the challenges facing World Bank clients who are seeking to transition their power sectors and the development partners supporting their efforts. The energy transition is the process of shifting the global energy system away from the consumption of fossil fuels and toward low-carbon technologies in order to support international goals of limiting climate change. In the next decade, much of this transition will first occur in the power sector because solutions using newer technologies have the potential to become cost competitive with appropriate interventions, and also because the power sector is a powerful pathway for decarbonizing other sectors—most notably transport, buildings, and industry. The power sector is therefore the focus of this report. The power sector transition will advance energy efficiency and decarbonize the energy supply by expanding renewable energy and strengthening electricity networks in order to integrate renewable energy, demand-side management, and end-use electrification. In LICs and MICs, this transition aims to meet the rapidly growing demand for energy in a way that supports inclusive development consistent with net-zero global emissions by mid-century, and builds resilience to the changing climate. A just transition in the power sector should address the needs of workers and communities who are affected by the shift away from fossil fuels; provide modern energy access to millions of people; and protect vulnerable customers from unaffordable energy prices. For the first time, the World Bank has outlined a vision for how the international community can support LICs and MICs to overcome critical barriers that are paralyzing the power sector transition. Drawing on findings of the first set of Country Climate and Development Reports produced by the World Bank, and decades of engagement with energy sector development, this approach distills understanding of the unique challenges that LICs and MICs face in undertaking this transition at the scale and pace required to meet their development and climate needs. The approach may help both World Bank clients and development partners in preparing a roadmap to catalyze and sustain a virtuous cycle that unleashes urgently needed investment in power sector transition. Chapter 1 explains that the capital-intensive nature of clean energy investments, combined with the lack of access to affordable capital, have a disproportionate and distorting effect on the power sector transitions of LICs and MICs. Even where renewable energy has the potential to provide a more affordable energy supply and improve energy security and health, the up-front capital costs that must be borne leave LICs and MICs locked into using costly fossil fuels. Chapter 2 discusses additional barriers to the scaling up of clean energy and the concomitant phasing down of coal. The commitment of governments will be essential in order to foster the policies, regulations, and institutions needed to prepare a pipeline of projects that can attract private capital. This chapter argues that concessional finance is essential in order to overcome the barriers to investments of private capital at the necessary levels. Chapter 3 discusses how public and concessional support must be deployed with a disciplined approach in order to scale up clean energy and energy efficiency. Chapter 4 explains the need to phase down the use of unabated coal, and the instruments to do so in a manner that manages losses and protects the most vulnerable. Chapter 5 concludes the paper with a discussion of how larger and sustained volumes of concessional capital could be more effectively structured within country-based programmatic approaches and technology demonstration partnerships in order to scale up the financial resources and political momentum for transitioning the power sector. -
Item
A Tale of Two Transitions: Iraq’s Energy Sector and Macroeconomic Stability in a Climate-Constrained World
(World Bank, Washington DC, 2023-03-28)This paper assesses the costs and benefits of Iraq’s own energy transition from fossil fuel dependent power sector to one with a significantly higher share of renewables amid an accelerating global energy transition. The paper quantifies the returns of Iraq’s energy transition, its high exposure to the global energy transition due to the deep role of oil revenues in the provision of public finances, and the policy tradeoffs associated with moving towards a greener energy mix. The analysis finds that all decarbonization pathways of the electricity sector bring additional growth and productivity gains compared to maintaining the status-quo, albeit at different levels of cost effectiveness. However, all pathways (including existing GoI plans) are fiscally costly given the required upfront levels of capex and the subsidy. This cost could prove to be fiscally steep in deep decarbonization scenarios especially if the transition is fully financed by the public budget. Consequently, the success of the energy transition in Iraq will largely depend on the political context and on the ambition of a GoI-led reform process that can overcome any socio-political vested interest. It will also require popular understanding and support for the urgency of this transition. -
Publication
Green Growth in North Macedonia‘s Agriculture Sector
(Washington, DC, 2023-03-23)This report focuses on the agri-food sector in North Macedonia and investigates the potential and necessary actions for adopting a green growth trajectory. Agri-food is a key sector in need of transformation to achieve green growth in the country. The sector has great economic importance, and it is vulnerable to climate change and other environmental risks, which will compound current sector inefficiencies, including declining competitiveness. This report aims to assess: (i) the actions needed to re-focus agricultural support priorities in a manner that reflects green growth ambitions; (ii) policy financing implications; and (iii) the availability and capacity of effective policy implementation mechanisms. Finally, the potential impacts of greening agriculture support on farm efficiency are assessed and discussed. -
Publication
Digital Climate Information and Agriculture Advisory Delivery Mechanisms in West Africa
(Washington, DC, 2023-03-21)By advancing knowledge on digital climate information and agriculture advisory services (‘agromet services’) in support of West Africa’s farmers, this report has two objectives. First, it aims to identify priority actions for promoting digital agromet services under the West Africa Food System Resilience Program (FSRP) with a focus on Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Niger, and Togo. Second, the report strives to provide insights on the required ingredients for creating viable agromet delivery models to all stakeholders involved in the production and dissemination of weather and climate information. These stakeholders include representatives from the Ministries of Agriculture (MOAs), National Meteorological Services (NMSs), Disaster Risk Management (DRM) specialists, interested parties from the private sector and civil society, and development practitioners. This report’s findings were obtained through i) a benchmarking analysis of ten case studies examining existing delivery mechanisms of digital agromet services, and ii) semi-structured interviews with public institutions complemented by desk research. Case study results indicate that providers of agromet services should bundle different service types and diversify revenue streams to ensure that their offerings are impactful and viable. The report also finds that increasing levels of trust between the public and the private sector would facilitate the creation of innovative climate information delivery models based on public-private engagement (PPE). Other key recommendations to enhance agromet services include continuing to invest in the technical and human capacity of the region’s NMSs, increasing collaboration between NMSs and agricultural extension services, and establishing clear regulatory frameworks on digitalization and open data. -
Publication
The Climate Change and Conflict Nexus in West Africa: A New Approach for Operationally Relevant Vulnerability Assessments
(Washington DC, 2023-03-21)This report advances usable knowledge on how climate change and conflict interact in the region. Its findings contribute to a growing body of research examining the links between climate change and conflict outcomes. Its objective is twofold: first, to strengthen the evidence base on the relationship between climate change and socio-institutional fragility, violence, and conflict in West Africa; and second, to develop operationally relevant vulnerability data to enable clustering of locations with similar sources of vulnerability (in terms of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity) to climate and conflict risks. In doing so, the report breaks substantial new ground. It explicitly represents the spatial distribution of climate-related conflict vulnerability and its association with a range of biophysical, social, and economic factors. It identifies the associations between different climate drivers and conflict outcomes and develops a predictive model based on machine learning to assess the extent to which climate-related variables can predict conflict outcomes. It also uses a set of in-depth case studies to examine the potential mechanisms that may mediate the climate change and conflict relationship. Finally, the report highlights why and how specific locations are vulnerable to climate and conflict risks, rather than mapping levels of climate change and conflict vulnerability across space as most existing vulnerability indices typically do. In each of these ways, the report provides useful information to design, evaluate, and assess the operational effectiveness of projects that address climate and conflict-related vulnerability.