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.
Pacific Economic Update, August 2023: Recovering in the Midst of Uncertainty - Special Focus : Harnessing the Benefits of Pacific Migration

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-08-03) World Bank

The global economic recovery remains fragile, creating choppy seas for the recovering Pacific. While global conditions have gradually improved since the pandemic and spillovers from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, progress on reducing inflation in major economies has proven more challenging than expected. Given that all Pacific countries are net importers, this has resulted in persistently high imported inflation. The speed of monetary policy tightening by major central banks has slowed, but easing is unlikely in the near term. Aggregate demand in major trading partners of the Pacific (particularly Australia and New Zealand) remains lackluster. This could limit demand for travel and tourism services and other income sources such as remittance and commodity exports. Despite uncertainties in the global economic recovery, Pacific economies are expected to see ongoing expansion in 2023 and 2024. Fiji led the Pacific’s post-COVID-19 recovery with open borders and a strong rebound in 2022 and is now on track to reach its pre-pandemic output level in 2023. Ongoing recovery expectations in the Pacific are broadly in line with March 2023 World Bank projections except for Tuvalu and Palau, where growth has been revised down given weaker than expected outcomes in construction and tourism. In 2023, Pacific growth is expected to reach 3.9 percent and then moderate to 3.3 percent in 2024 as the initial post-COVID-19 rebound dissipates and the region moves towards its long-term trend growth of 2.6 percent. Nonetheless, uncertainty remains high and depends on whether a soft landing can be achieved among key trading partners as they battle ongoing inflation. Inflation remained stubborn across the Pacific at an average of over 6.7 percent in 2022, a substantial increase from the 1.5 percent average during 2019-2021. This has increased the risk of vulnerable populations falling into poverty. In line with global trends, Pacific inflation is expected to decline to an average of 6.0 percent in 2023 and gradually subside thereafter.
Liberia Economic Update, June 2023: Getting Rice Right for Productivity and Poverty Alleviation

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

In the last two years, Liberia’s economic performance has improved. Inflation remained in single digits despite high global food and fuel prices and a relaxation in monetary and fiscal policies. Liberia’s poverty rate is projected to have declined slightly in the last two years as GDP growth rebounds and inflation moderates. On the external side, Liberia’s current account balance improved in 2022, thanks to the continued increase in mining export earnings. The increase in gold export in 2022 offset the increase in imports. Liberia’s medium-term economic outlook is positive, but uncertainties remain. Even as it has been trying to recover from a decade of weak economic and social performance, Liberia’s overall productivity and economic efficiency remain low, especially in vital sectors of the economy, including agriculture. Demographic trends, economic growth, and a strong preference for rice are the main drivers of demand. Yet, Liberia produces only one-third of its rice needs due to several constraints, including limited access to technology, inefficient farming practices, low public and private investments, and a fragmented value chain, among other factors that have kept productivity low. Amid low production, the increase in imported rice prices continues to fuel food insecurity, poverty, and vulnerabilities in Liberia. Domestic production would need to triple to satisfy local demand, but increasing production would require significant investments in the rice sector, as well as policy actions. This report provides some broad directions for policies.
Seventh Ghana Economic Update: Price Surge - Unraveling Inflation’s Toll on Poverty and Food Security

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-07-24) Kwakye, Kwabena Gyan ; Corral Rodas, Paul Andres ; Elmaleh, David ; Sebastian, Ashwini Rekha

Ghana’s economy entered a full-blown crisis in 2022, after having rebounded from the COVID-19 slowdown in 2021. In response to the macroeconomic challenges, the authorities enacted some fiscal adjustment in 2022 but fell short of their consolidation targets; the 2023Q1 fiscal deficit (cash) was within target. Expenditure consolidation and revenue mobilization continued to be hampered by structural constraints. To address these unsustainable domestic and external imbalances, the authorities embarked on a comprehensive debt restructuring operation. Against the backdrop, growth is projected to decelerate further in 2023-24, before picking up in the medium-term. The government has embarked on an ambitious fiscal consolidation plan: however, delivering on it will require addressing long-standing revenue mobilization and budget control weaknesses. In 2023, the authorities intend to finance the fiscal deficit from multilateral (and other official) sources, in the context of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) - supported program, and from the domestic treasury bills (T-bills) market. In addition, leveraging government programs to build up resilience against vulnerability is an imperative and should not be suspended during the crisis. Beefing up the government’s payments through the livelihood empowerment against poverty will be critical. Second, support for food self-sufficiency is needed in Ghana (a goal for many countries now due to the global food crisis), while opening the country to generate more export revenues. The Ghana Tree Crops Diversification Project can serve as a critical puzzle piece of the country’s current challenges. The project will support poverty alleviation while setting the country up to generate more foreign revenues in the medium to long-term.
Jobs, Food and Greening: Exploring Implications of the Green Transition for Jobs in the Agri-food System

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-05-16) Nico, Gianluigi ; Christiaensen, Luc

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.
Diagnosing the Binding Constraints to Better Jobs: An Approach and Framework

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-05-16) Osborne, Theresa

The persistent lack of good jobs that is, an inadequate level or quality of jobs, inefficient and/or inequitable jobs outcomes is a key economic issue in developing (and some developed) economies. Yet policy responses often lack an understanding of the causes. While the proximate drivers, such as low productivity growth, slow capital deepening, or a lack of firms and other organized economic actors, may share patterns, the policy roots and circumstances of these outcomes vary a great deal by country. Thus, making progress in a meaningful and lasting way requires, in the first instance, a clear understanding of the binding constraints which, if alleviated, would result in a substantial structural improvement to jobs outcomes. Binding constraints could arise in a host of policies and institutions, including possibly inadequate human capital and labor market policies but also in infrastructure, regulatory, financial, judicial and other areas. This paper provides a data-driven approach and framework for diagnosing the truly binding constraints to better jobs. The approach is to rule out broad categories of constraints using economic logic and data, and to utilize an array of empirical indicators to test whether remaining candidate constraints are binding. While this paper outlines an exhaustive approach, the style of thinking and techniques can also be applied selectively to fill analytical gaps and ensure that key issues are not left unaddressed.
Western Balkans Regular Economic Report, No.22, Fall 2022: Beyond the Crises

(Washington, DC, 2022-10) World Bank

The economies of the Western Balkans continue to face a turbulent external environment, placing households, firms, and governments under acute stress. Just as the post-COVID recovery of 2021 began to fade and the region returned to a normalized rate of economic growth, the Western Balkan region now faces a new combination of challenges. The war in Ukraine, and the resultant sharp increase and energy prices and slowdown in global growth, is weighing on economic performance in all six economies. Higher energy and food prices have pushed inflation to levels unseen for many years, eroding purchasing power and business confidence. Monetary tightening in advanced economies is pushing up financing costs and weakening external demand. Following a strong rebound in 2021, growth, although still robust, was on a decelerating path in the first half of 2022. In Q1 of 2022, the Western Balkan economies remained resilient overall, supported by sizable policy actions at the EU, euro area, and national levels. First-quarter growth was particularly strong in tourism-based economies and in Serbia. However, growth decelerated in Q2, as countries had to deal with the direct consequences of the war and is projected to continue decelerating in the second half of the year reflecting higher base levels of growth in Q3 and Q4 2021 and the stronger global headwinds.
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.
Working for Inclusion: Economic Inclusion in Contexts of Forced Displacement

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-06-15) Heisey, Janet ; Sánchez, Inés Arévalo ; Bernagros, Alexi

Since 2012, the number of forcibly displaced people has more than doubled, reaching 89.3 million by the end of 2021. Ongoing conflicts, including the war in Ukraine, will result in even larger numbers of forcibly displaced people. The economic and human development impacts of forcible displacement present challenges for the people who have been displaced, the communities that host them, and governments that receive them. Governments, humanitarian organizations, and others are using economic inclusion programs as one strategy to increase income and assets and build the resilience of displaced people and host populations living in poverty. An estimated 95 economic inclusion programs are underway in contexts of forced displacement in 45 countries, more than half led by governments. This note examines the experience of economic inclusion programs that serve forcibly displaced people, including internally displaced people, refugees, and their host communities. It also examines the emerging lessons learned in program design and delivery based on new data on the footprint of economic inclusion programs and a review of evidence on forced displacement and economic inclusion programming.
Ethiopia - Rural Income Diagnostics Study: Leveraging the Transformation in the Agri-Food System and Global Trade to Expand Rural Incomes

(Washington, DC, 2022-06) World Bank

Ethiopia began the decade on a great run, with high economic growth and significant gains in poverty reduction nationally. But the gains were unevenly shared. Multiple shocks at the beginning of the new decade threaten to discontinue progress and possibly undo most of the gains made in the recent past. This rural income diagnostics (RID) study seeks to inform how to promote growth in rural incomes to accelerate poverty reduction. The objective of the RID is to examine how those who currently reside in rural areas can have higher incomes in the future, which can entail one or more members moving to urban areas. The focus is on income growth that results in higher incomes on average, but also income that is less volatile because of due consideration to effective risk reduction and management, and to ensuring that growth is sustainable. While the RID focuses only on income that is earned by rural households, it is much more detailed in its identification of the constraints because of this narrower focus. The diagnostic provides evidence to validate constraints and key areas of focus in ongoing agriculture and rural policy reforms and other relevant reforms under the Homegrown Economic Reform Agenda (HGERA), elevate the importance of some reforms where immediate action is required, and provide empirical arguments to support important policy interventions where consensus may be lacking or there is policy hesitation.