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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Togo Jobs Diagnostic: Confronting Challenges and Creating Opportunities for More Good Quality Jobs for All

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-08-04) Karlen, Raphaela ; Rother, Friederike ; editors

Togo, a small country with a young and growing population, must look to the development of more and better jobs to recover from recent shocks, accelerate poverty reduction and enhance social cohesion. While Togo’s employment rate is high, many are working low productive jobs with meager earnings and no access to social protection. Demographic pressures imply that Togo’s economy will need to absorb an additional one million labor market entrants between now and 2030. To create more, and better jobs, especially for young workers, substantive reforms are required to accelerate a structural transformation towards higher productivity activities. Besides improving the competitiveness of and access to finance for the private sector, improving conditions in the agricultural sector needs to be at the core of these reforms, as that sector will remain the main source of jobs and livelihoods for Togolese in the foreseeable future.
Realizing Education's Promise: A World Bank Retrospective

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-08-01) World Bank

As the largest external financier of education in low- and middle-income countries, the World Bank is committed to ensuring that all children around the world have free, inclusive, equitable, and quality education to achieve their potential. Our portfolio of investments in education has continued to grow, and our projects focus on ensuring that high-quality learning takes place for everyone, everywhere. In “Realizing Education’s Promise: A World Bank Retrospective”, we explore our operations and research across the globe since the first World Development Report (WDR) on education in 2018, which illuminated the scale of the learning crisis. In this new publication, we spotlight major milestones in our work over the past five years, highlighting successes, reflecting on what remains to be done, and sharing our vision for the way forward.
An Operational Approach to Enhancing Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment in World Bank Projects

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-07-28) World Bank

Gender equality has long been central to the World Bank’s twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity in a sustainable manner. More recently, women’s and girls’ empowerment (WGE) has become a priority in the Africa region in the context of the region’s demographic transition. There has been a proliferation of World Bank projects with development objectives that include “empowerment”, yet there remains a lack of consensus around its definition and operationalization. This note lays out a pragmatic Operational Approach to enhancing women’s and girls’ empowerment in World Bank projects. It is not intended to provide a new definition of empowerment or to present a new framework. Instead, the objective of the note is to translate widely accepted empowerment concepts into an operational approach to WGE that Bank Task Team Leaders (TTLs) can use in their project and ASA work. The approach includes: (i) a systematic way to analyze constraints to achieving WGE in the context of lending or analytical products; (ii) a list of potential intervention areas within the three empowerment pillars that can be integrated into World Bank projects; and (iii) guidance on how to incorporate the operational approach to WGE into project design.
How to Design a Grievance Mechanism that Responds to Gender-Based Violence? Learning from South Sudan

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-07-28) Rawal, Palak

The grievance mechanism is based on a survivor-centric approach i.e., empowering the survivor of gender-based violence by prioritizing their rights, needs, and wishes. This note provides an overview of the grievance mechanism’s setup and details for teams who may be considering implementing a similar mechanism in their projects.
Gender-Based Violence Country Profile: Guatemala

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-06-01) World Bank

With a population of approximately 18.2 million people, Guatemala is the most populous country in Central America. Guatemala has one of the highest rates of femicide in the world, with violent deaths of women increasing from 1.3 per 100,000 women in 2020 to 1.6 per 100,000 women in 2021, resulting in 527 femicides reported in 2021 and 534 in 2022, and 69 femicides reported by March 2023. High-risk groups facing multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination include young and adolescent girls, indigenous women, those who have experienced adolescent pregnancies, early unions or marriages, women and girls living with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ groups. In order to address violence and discrimination against women and girls in Guatemala, various initiatives and policies have been implemented by the government and civil society organizations. However, much work remains to be done to effectively address the root causes of these issues and ensure the safety and wellbeing of all women and girls in the country.
Gender-Based Violence Country Profile: Honduras

(Washington, DC, 2023-06-01) World Bank

Honduras has a small and informal economy that is predominantly agricultural, but its strategic location, solid industrial base, ample resources, and young population indicate potential for inclusive and resilient economic growth. Despite the growth, Honduras remains one of the poorest and most unequal countries in the region. Honduras has one of the highest rates of violent deaths of women in the world, by 2021, there were reported 318 violent deaths of women. Honduras is both a source and transit country for human trafficking, with women being the most affected by it. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the situation, resulting in an increase in reported cases of domestic and intrafamily violence.
Gender-Based Violence Country Profile: Guyana

(Washington, DC, 2023-06-01) World Bank

Guyana faces several challenges, including poverty and high levels of inequality, ranking 114 out of 170 countries in the gender inequality index. Guyana faces significant challenges in addressing gender-based violence (GBV) and supporting women’s economic empowerment. The pandemic has only intensified these challenges, with women facing greater financial stress and caregiving burdens. The situation is further exacerbated by the influx of refugees and migrants, particularly from Venezuela, who are increasingly vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation and need proper assistance.
VAWG Prevention and Response Opportunities in FY21 Pipeline IPF Projects in Central America: Portfolio Review

(Washington, DC, 2023-06) World Bank

The Advisory Services and Analytics (ASA) Mitigating Gender-Based Violence Risks and Expanding the gender-based violence (GBV) portfolio in Central America carried out in FY21 aimed to develop and apply a methodology to screen World Bank (WB) projects across sectors to identify entry points for preventing and/or responding to GBV beyond actions to mitigate sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) and sexual harassment (SH). The ASA comprises several documents that are intended primarily for WB task teams, who can help their clients adopt GBV prevention and response measures in projects across sectors. This document uses a tool for integrating violence against women and girls (VAWG) actions in WB operations to identify a selected group of operations to address VAWG prevention and response actions that align to the scope of the operation.
Enhancing Links of Poor Farmers to Markets: A Practice Review for Economic Inclusion in Zambia

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-09-16) Sparkman, Tim ; Sackett, Jill ; Avalos, Jorge ; Varghese Paul, Boban

This report reviews the experiences of market linkage programs implemented globally, particularly those focused on poor smallholders, including women, as beneficiaries and farmers who participated in government social safety net schemes. The report highlights lessons learned by program implementers, governments, and other stakeholders related to efforts to link extremely poor households to productive markets. The research was commissioned to inform potential links between two World Bank projects that are currently supporting the economic inclusion of poor households in Zambia. The supporting women’s livelihood (SWL) program of the Girls’ Education and Women’s Empowerment and Livelihoods (GEWEL) Project provides a comprehensive package to promote economic inclusion among women from the poorest households. A second project, the Zambia Agribusiness and Trade Project (ZATP), enhances access to markets by linking producer organizations and high-growth small and medium-size enterprises to buyers (commercial off-takers) by facilitating productive alliances (commercial agreements between a producer organization and a commercial off-taker) and providing matching grants and technical support. A diagnostic of the status of and constraints facing SWL beneficiaries with respect to market linkages highlights the lack of upstream value chain linkages for them. The World Bank will provide technical assistance to the government of Zambia, through relevant ministries, to operationalize a mechanism, at scale, for forging market linkages by SWL households by linking them to ZATP beneficiaries. This report reviews and highlights the experiences of similar market linkages programs implemented globally, in an attempt to answer key questions raised by the program. This report describes operational considerations that may be relevant to the ZATP-GEWEL project context. It provides recommendations to guide the next steps in developing the ZATP-GEWEL pilot.
Collection of Policy Notes for the New Somali Government: Unlocking Somalia’s Potential to Stabilize, Grow and Prosper

(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2022-06) World Bank

The arrival of a new government provides an opportunity to reinvigorate the reform agenda to deliver inclusive growth for the Somali people. Since the establishment of the Provisional Constitution in 2012, Somalia has made commendable progress on many fronts. Macroeconomic stability has been maintained, high levels of indebtedness are being addressed through the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, several sector laws and institutions have been established, and a poverty reduction strategy paper has been developed – the ninth National Development Plan (NDP9). However, much remains to be done and the time has come to mark the next milestone in Somalia’s development trajectory through advancing reforms anchored in the HIPC process. The objective of the collection of policy notes is to provide sector-specific policy advice for the leadership of the new government, drawing on the expertise of the World Bank Group. This overview chapter synthesizes the advice across the sector policy notes and is organized in four sections. The first section outlines the current context. The second section presents the framework for organizing the policy notes. The third section summarizes the advice, and the fourth section concludes.