Sector/Thematic Studies
6,688 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 -
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 62
-
Publication
Unlocking Nature-Smart Development: An Approach Paper on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-08-05)Unlocking Nature-Smart Development: An Approach Paper on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services is part of a series of papers by the World Bank Group that outlines the development challenges and opportunities associated with blue and green biodiversity and ecosystem services. The paper makes the case that the rapid global decline in nature is a development issue and proposes six global response areas intended to guide governments and inform broader discussions on how to integrate nature into development agendas. As countries formulate a set of new global biodiversity targets, this paper also offers insights that could inform the design and implementation of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, as well as the World Bank Group’s ongoing support to this agenda. -
Publication
Mine Closure: A Toolbox for Governments
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-04-23)The objective of this toolbox is to provide policy makers, governmental administrators, and lawmakers with the information needed to develop a broad governance framework that reduces the risks of an improperly managed mining industry and helps ensure successful mine closure. Every jurisdiction is unique and will require a solution that fits their legislative, cultural, economic and historical context. The toolbox is meant to provide examples of good international industry practice and basic legislative requirements that should be in place to facilitate closure. It also provides practical guidance and explanations for the key components of and process for developing a governance framework specific to mine closure. The tools found herein are based on GIIP including ICMM’s ‘Integrated Mine Closure: Good Practice Guide’, APEC’s ‘Mine Closure Checklist for Governments’, and other guidelines, frameworks, and standards. The ICMM and APEC publications include excellent information (e.g. checklists), which can be used in conjunction with this toolkit to guide the development of these frameworks. Section five sets out the legal elements that should be in place to facilitate closure, while sections six and seven highlight the socioeconomic and technical requirements of closure respectively. In each section guidance has been provided on key items that should be included in legislation, as well as suggested content to appear in policies and guidelines. Sections eight, nine, and eleven provide additional tools that are relevant for governments and other stakeholders in assessing and implementing closure practices. Section ten addresses some of the unique challenges that arise from legacy mines that were not closed in accordance with good international industry practice. -
Publication
Agricultural Land Use and Sustainable Livelihoods in the Mekong Delta: Alternative Scenarios and Policy Implications
(Washington, DC, 2021)The Mekong Delta (MKD) is Vietnam’s most productive agricultural region, and its agroeconomy is well integrated into international markets. Nevertheless, there are increasing threats to the MKD’s agricultural achievements, and other serious questions are emerging about the sustainability of many of the prevailing production systems. Sea level rise, caused by climate change, is increasingly threatening the viability of once protected cropping systems in the coastal areas. This study seeks to contribute to the planning effort for the MKD by addressing some analytical gaps, especially around the technical feasibility and socioeconomic characteristics of alternative agricultural production systems in the context of the evolving natural conditions in the region, and more specifically in the MKD’s three subregions (that is, Upper, Middle, and Coastal). The primary purpose of the study is to fill in that gap by reviewing and assessing different livelihood models and land-use scenarios in the MKD using multi-criteria of technical feasibly, climate change, environmental adaptability, economic and financial, and social aspects to inform the ongoing agricultural transformation in the MKD. -
Publication
Adaptation Principles: A Guide for Designing Strategies for Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-11-17)Effective action on resilience and climate change adaptation can be a complex task—requiring coordinated efforts from the highest levels of government to individual households and firms. The Adaptation Principles offer a guide to effective climate change adaptation, containing hands-on guidance to the design, implementation and monitoring of national adaptation strategies. It specifies six guiding principles, which correspond to common policy domains: 1) Ensuring resilient foundations through rapid and inclusive development; 2) Facilitating the adaptation of firms and people; 3) Adapting land use and protecting critical public assets and services; 4) Increasing people’s capacity to cope with and recover from shocks; 5) Anticipating and managing macroeconomic and fiscal risks; 6) Ensuring effective implementation through prioritization and continuous monitoring. While outlining these universal Adaptation Principles, this guide shows that each country needs to tailor these actions to its specific needs and priorities. To guide this process, Adaptation Principles offers concrete and practical tools: Screening questions to identify the most urgent and effective actions, toolboxes illustrating common datasets and methodologies to support decisions, indicators to monitor and evaluate progress, and case studies on how the COVID-19 pandemic influences priorities in taking effective adaptation action. -
Publication
Metropolitan Medellin: Somos10—Integrating Ten Municipalities into One Metropolis
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-11-13)Globally, cities are the source of over 70 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. Cities are also the engines of the global economy, concentrating more than half the world’s population, and they are where the middle class is rapidly expanding. Indeed, by the year 2050, two-thirds of the world will be urban, with cities accommodating an additional 2.5 billion people over today’s total. Nearly all of this urban growth will occur in developing countries. This concentration of people and assets also means that the impacts of natural disasters, exacerbated by the changing climate, may be even more devastating, both in terms of human lives lost and economic livelihoods destroyed. These effects will disproportionately burden the poor. Earth is on a trajectory of warming more than 1.5 degrees Celsius unless important decarbonizing steps are taken.Often urban policymakers prescribe integration as the solution to steering urbanization towards decarbonization to achieve greater global and local environmental benefits. However, little is known about the struggles—and successes—that cities in developing countries have in planning, financing, and implementing integrated urban solutions. The main objective of this report is to understand how a variety of developing and emerging economies are successfully utilizing horizontal integration—across multiple infrastructure sectors and systems—at the metropolitan scale to deliver greater sustainability. This report explores how integrated planning processes extending well beyond city boundaries have been financed and implemented in a diverse group of metropolitan areas. From this analysis, the report derives models, poses guiding questions, and presents three key principles to provoke and inspire action by cities around the world. -
Publication
Assessment of Jamaica’s Climate Change Mitigation Potential and Implications for its Updated NDC: Sectoral Modelling and Analysis
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06-01)Jamaica remains committed to its contribution as the world continues to address the challenge of climate change. In line with the voluntary requirements of the Paris Agreement, the country intends to increase the ambition of the mitigation component of its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). This report presents the modelling results that can inform Jamaica’s updated NDC submission, along with discussing the potential adaptation co-benefits available to Jamaica as a result of its mitigation actions. -
Publication
A Review of Integrated Urban Planning Tools for Greenhouse Gas Mitigation: Linking Land Use, Infrastructure Transition, Technology, and Behavioral Change
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-02)Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) over the next 30 years will critically depend upon urban land use and infrastructure development actions taken across multiple sectors (buildings, energy, transportation, water-sanitation, and waste) in global cities. Integrated urban planning addresses a multiplicity of urban sustainability objectives (e.g., economy, environment, inclusivity, and resilience) (GPSC, World Bank 2018), including cross-sectoral and cross-scale linkages (Ramaswami et al. 2016) and connection of physical planning with social, cultural, behavior, and policy dimensions. The objective of this report is to review the state of knowledge (science) and the state of practice (models actually used by cities for policy) for modeling the GHG mitigation benefits achievable through integrated urban planning across the four levers, with attention to the foundational Lever 1, CUD. Although the field of urban sustainability is relatively young, and the availability of robust data is uneven across world cities, our review found that significant scientific advances have occurred in modeling the four levers representing integrated urban planning in the context of GHG mitigation. Within each of the four levers, more than 30+ strategies were identified in the literature. For all the strategies, the GHG mitigation potential can be modeled using the same structure of algorithms, which is computed by multiplying two key parameters: the first parameter is the strategy effect per unit of an intervention, i.e., the reduction in demand or resource use per unit of intervention. The second parameter is the penetration rate or adoption rate of each intervention in the strategy scenario. Examples include the percentage of households experiencing CUD improvements or purchasing energy-efficient cars compared to the baseline. This rate has a high impact on the citywide potential for GHG mitigation from implementing a strategy and is shaped by human behavior and policy. -
Publication
Overhauling Management of Agriculture to Improve Sector Performance: Synthesis Report
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-01-25)The essence of good government is doing the right things, in the right way, in the right place. This functional review focuses on those three issues, first asking whether there are tasks that do not need to be done at all, or at least not by a government ministry, then asking whether necessary tasks can be done better and more efficiently, and finally asking what the best institutional location and structure is to carry out those tasks. -
Publication
Assessment of Jamaica’s Climate Change Mitigation Potential and Implications for its Updated NDC: Sectoral Review
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020)This report considers the opportunities based on domestic commitments already made for Jamaica to enhance the ambition of the mitigation commitments of its future Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). It also identifies the adaptation co-benefits these opportunities might bring, which could provide an input into the qualitative narrative of the next NDC and specifies the additional technical work that will be needed to confirm these opportunities within a revised NDC. -
Publication
Sand and Dust Storms in the Middle East and North Africa Region: Sources, Costs, and Solutions
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-11-30)Dust storms are capable of transporting sediment over thousands of kilometers, but due to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region’s proximity to the Sahara Desert, the region is one of the dustiest in the world. While natural sources such as the Sahara are the main contributors to dust storms in MENA, land-use changes and human-induced climate change has added anthropogenic sources as well. Like sources, drivers of sand and dust storms are also natural and anthropogenic, as both wind speed and land management can cause them. Dust deposition has wide-ranging health impacts, such as causing and aggravating asthma, bronchitis, respiratory diseases, and infections and lung cancer. Apart from devastating health impacts, dust also impacts the environment, agriculture, transport, and infrastructure. Globally, welfare losses from dust are approximately 3.6 trillion USD, where costs are about 150 billion USD and over 2.5 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on average in MENA. Besides investing in early warning systems, governments all over the world are designing policies to mitigate the impact of sand and dust storms, both at national and regional levels. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) launched a sand and dust storm warning system that aims to deliver reliable dust storm forecasts through a network of research organizations all over the world. It aims to improve the ability of countries to deliver quick and high-quality sand and dust storm forecasts and knowledge to users through an international partnership of research and operational organizations.