04. Serial Publications

1,863 items available

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http://hdl.handle.net/10986/11863

These reports are produced on a periodic basis, typically semiannually.

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 1863

Africa’s Pulse, No. 28, October 2023: Delivering Growth to People through Better Jobs

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-10-04) World Bank

Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to slow to 2.5 percent in 2023 from 3.6 percent in 2022. It is projected to increase to 3.7 percent in 2024 and 4.1 percent in 2025. However, in per capita terms, the region is projected to slightly contract over 2015-2025. The region faces many challenges, including a "lost decade" of sluggish growth, persistently low per capita income, mounting fiscal pressures exacerbated by high debt burdens, and an urgent need for job creation. Tackling these multifaceted issues requires comprehensive reforms to promote economic prosperity, reduce poverty, and create sustainable employment opportunities in the region. This will require an ecosystem that facilitates firm entry, stability, growth, and skill development that matches business demand.
Latin America and the Caribbean Economic Review, October 2023 - Wired: Digital Connectivity for Inclusion and Growth

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-10-04) Beylis, Guillermo ; Maloney, William ; Vuletin, Guillermo ; Zambrano Riveros, Jorge Andres

Latin America and the Caribbean continues to face adverse global headwinds: high interest rates, modest G-7 growth, soft commodity prices and uncertain prospects in China will all depress growth. Well-grounded policy responses have led to largely recovering employment and income losses from the pandemic and falling rates of inflation. However, the region faces the mutually reinforcing triple challenges of low growth, limited fiscal space, and citizen dissatisfaction. Expanding digital connectivity offers a possibility to make progress on all three fronts. To maximize the social benefits of connectivity as well as to ensure that it does not exacerbate spatial, educational, gender or racial inequalities, three challenges are important to address: first, expanding coverage to the remaining unconnected areas as well as improving the quality of service; second, increasing the productive use of existing infrastructure, and; third, as with any other infrastructure "hardware," investments in "software" - such as digital and traditional skills, managerial capabilities, supportive regulatory frameworks, and deeper financial markets are critical.
South Asia Development Update, October 2023: Toward Faster, Cleaner Growth

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-10-03) World Bank

At just under 6 percent, South Asia is expected to grow faster than any other emerging market and developing economy (EMDE) region in 2024–25. However, for all countries, this will represent a slowdown from pre-pandemic averages. Several potential adverse events could derail this outlook, including risks related to fragile fiscal positions. Government debt in South Asia averaged 86 percent of GDP in 2022, above that of any other EMDE region. In some countries, outright defaults have short-circuited growth while, in others, increasing domestic borrowing by governments has driven up interest rates and diverted credit away from the private sector. Elections could add to spending pressures. An urgent policy priority for the region is, therefore, to manage and reduce fiscal risks. Over the longer term, the policy priority is to accelerate growth and job creation in a sustainable manner. The energy transition, away from fossil fuels toward sustainable sources of energy, presents an opportunity for the region to lift productivity, cut pollution, reduce its reliance on fuel imports, and create jobs. South Asia uses twice as much energy to produce each unit of output as the global average and the region lags in the adoption of advanced energy-efficient technologies. Even fiscally constrained governments can take action to support the energy transition with market-based regulations, information campaigns, broader access to finance, and reliable public power grids. With about 9 percent of the region’s workers employed in pollution-intensive activities, and these workers less educated and more often informally employed than the average worker, the energy transition will create challenging labor market shifts. This calls for measures to boost job creation and facilitate worker mobility, geographically and across sectors.
World Bank East Asia and the Pacific Economic Update, October 2023: Services for Development

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-10-01) World Bank

Economic activity in developing East Asia and Pacific has recovered from the recent shocks and is growing. However, output remains below pre-pandemic levels in many countries and inflation remains higher than target ranges in some countries. Near-term growth will depend on the dynamics of global growth and commodity prices, and financial tightening, which is likely to continue in the face of high inflation in the US. Taking a long-term view, growth in EAP has been faster and more stable than in much of the rest of the world. The result has been a striking decline in poverty and, in the last decade, also a decline in inequality. But it would be a mistake to let these achievements obscure vulnerabilities, past, present, and future. The region must implement structural, macro-financial, and climate-related reforms to address the problems of slowing productivity growth and scars from the pandemic, even as it faces up to the major challenges of deglobalization, aging and climate change.
From Infection to Inflation

(Washington, DC, 2023-05-11) World Bank

Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have faced extraordinary challenges over the last three years that reverted the social gains of the previous two decades. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in severe health impacts and a reversal in many of its socioeconomic gains. The unprecedented disruption to education and health during the COVID-19 pandemic will leave lasting scars on human capital accumulation and the welfare of an entire LAC generation. A year after the onset of COVID-19, the region is bouncing back, yet not sufficiently fast to put the worst effects of the pandemic behind it. Despite the challenges ahead, the LAC region has the potential to overcome them in its traditional areas of comparative advantage and the opportunities arising from resilient green growth. It needs to take advantage of its comparative advantage in the green economy. The transition to the green economy can be an opportunity to improve well-being in the region by creating new quality jobs, enhancing labor incomes, and contributing to poverty reduction.
State and Trends of Carbon Pricing 2023

( 2023-05) World Bank

This report provides an up-to-date overview of existing and emerging carbon pricing instruments around the world, including international, national and subnational initiatives. It also investigates trends surrounding the development and implementation of carbon pricing instruments and some of the drivers seen over the past year. Specifically, this includes the use of carbon taxes, emissions trading systems, and crediting mechanisms. Key topics covered in the 2023 report include how governments have responded to the global energy crisis, uptake of ETSs and carbon taxes in emerging economies, and progress in carbon markets and supporting frameworks, including implementation of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.
Europe and Central Asia Economic Update, Spring 2023: Weak Growth, High Inflation, and a Cost-of-Living Crisis

(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2023-04-06) Izvorski, Ivailo ; Lokshin, Michael M. ; Roseman Norfleet, Julia Renee ; Singer, Dorothe ; Torre, Iván

Economic growth slowed sharply last year in Europe and Central Asia, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a surge in inflation, and the sharp tightening of monetary policy and financing conditions hit private consumption, investment, and trade. The marked increase in food and energy prices boosted inflation to a pace not seen in 20 years. The burden of inflation was spread unevenly across households. The poorest households faced inflation that was more than 2 percentage points higher than the inflation faced by the richest households, with this difference exceeding 5 percentage points in some countries. Poverty and inequality rates derived from household-specific inflation rates differ from those based on the standard consumer price index (CPI) approach. These differences have important policy implications, because many programs use CPI–based inflation adjustments, which do not accurately capture changes in the cost of living of targeted populations. Output growth in the region is projected to remain little changed in 2023 but better than projected in January 2023, largely reflecting upgrades to the pace of expansion in Poland, Russia, and Türkiye.
Altered Destinies: The Long-Term Effects of Rising Prices and Food Insecurity in the Middle East and North Africa

(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2023-04-06) Gatti, Roberta ; Lederman, Daniel ; Islam, Asif M. ; Bennett, Federico R. ; Andree, Bo Pieter Johannes ; Assem, Hoda ; Lotfi, Rana ; Mousa, Mennatallah Emam

Growth is forecasted to slow down for the Middle East and North Africa region. The war in Ukraine in 2022 exacerbated inflationary pressures as the world recovered from the COVID 19 pandemic induced recession. The response by central banks to raise rates to curb inflation is slowing economic activity, while rising food prices are making it difficult for families to put meals on the table. Inflation, when it stems from food prices, hits the poor harder than the rich, thus compounding food insecurity in MENA that had been rising over decades. The immediate effects of food insecurity can be a devastating loss of life, but even temporary increases in food prices can cause long-term irreversible damages, especially to children. The rise in food prices due to the war in Ukraine may have altered the destinies of hundreds of thousands of children in the region, setting them on paths to limited prosperity. Food insecurity imposes challenges to a region where the state of child nutrition and health were inadequate before the shocks from the COVID-19 pandemic. The report discusses policy options and highlights the need for data to guide effective decision making.
Africa’s Pulse, No. 27, April 2023: Leveraging Resource Wealth During the Low Carbon Transition

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-04-05) World Bank

Economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa slowed to 3.6 percent in 2022, from 4.1 percent in 2021 but may be bottoming out. Weak investment growth and macroeconomic instability are weighing on economic activity. Inflation remains persistently high and above target despite early and sizable interest rate increase. Amid unfavorable global financial conditions and high levels of debt, African policymakers must bank on their domestic policy space to restore macroeconomic stability, deepen structural reforms to foster inclusive growth, and implement policies that harness the region's resource wealth during the low carbon transmission. This natural wealth holds significant untapped economic potential to address fiscal challenges and drive economic transformation. The low carbon transition is irreversible and will be intensive in the minerals required for the clean energy transition, many of which are abundant across Africa.
Expanding Opportunities: Toward Inclusive Growth

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

South Asia’s outlook is shaped by both good and bad news in the global economy. Lower commodity prices, a strong recovery in the services sector, and reduced disruptions in value chains are aiding South Asia’s recovery but rising interest rates and uncertainty in financial markets are putting downward pressure on the region’s economies. Countries in South Asia, especially those with large external debt, face difficult tradeoffs as they respond to these pressures. Growth prospects have weakened, with large downside risks in most countries given limited fiscal space and depleting foreign reserves. Going forward, broad reform programs, including a sustainable fiscal outlook, are needed to put South Asia on a more robust and inclusive growth path. Inequality of opportunity, which is higher in South Asia than in other regions of the world, is both unfair and inefficient. Reducing inequality of opportunity and increasing economic mobility will help broaden countries’ tax base and boost support from the population for the critical reforms.