Cervigni, Raffaello

Person:
Cervigni, Raffaello

Global Practice on Environment and Natural Resources, The World Bank

Fields of Specialization

Climate change economics, Disaster Risk Management, Water Resources Management

ORCID

0000-0002-2602-6482

Departments

Global Practice on Environment and Natural Resources, The World Bank

Last updated: January 31, 2023

Biography

Raffaello Cervigni is a lead environmental economist with the World Bank's Environment and Natural Resources Global Practice. A native of Italy, Cervigni has led the water resource management, natural resource management, and disaster risk management communities within the Africa region. His areas of expertise are environmental economics, adaptation to climate change, low carbon development, and regional development. Cervigni has been with the World Bank for more than 21 years and prior to his current position, he was the senior natural resources management specialist in the Middle East and North Africa region. He joined the World Bank as a research assistant and has experience working in the regions as well as the central environment unit. Before joining the Bank, Cervigni worked in the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance as a coordinator in the project evaluation division. He was also a research associate at the Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment based at the University of East Anglia. Cervigni holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of London as well as a Master of philosophy majoring in economics from the University of Oxford.

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Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 10

The Economic Case for Nature: A Global Earth-Economy Model to Assess Development Policy Pathways
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-06-29) Johnson, Justin Andrew; Ruta, Giovanni; Baldos, Uris; Cervigni, Raffaello; Chonabayashi, Shun; Corong, Erwin; Gavryliuk, Olga; Gerber, James; Hertel, Thomas; Nootenboom, Christopher; Polasky, Stephen; Gerber, James; Ruta, Giovanni; Polasky, Stephen
The Economic Case for Nature is part of a series of papers by the World Bank that lays out the economic rationale for investing in nature and recognizes how economies rely on nature for services that are largely underpriced. This report presents a first-of-its-kind global integrated ecosystem-economy modelling exercise to assess economic policy responses to the global biodiversity crisis. Modeling the interaction between nature’s services and the global economy to 2030, the report points to a range and combination of policy scenarios available to reduce the impact of nature’s loss on economies. This modeling framework represents an important steppingstone towards ‘nature-smart’ decision-making, as it seeks to support policymakers who face complex tradeoffs involving the management of natural capital, and hence achieving growth that is resilient and inclusive.
The Ocean Economy in Mauritius: Making It Happen, Making It Last
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-03-31) Scandizzo, Pasquale Lucio; Cervigni, Raffaello; Cervigni, Raffaello; Scandizzo, Pasquale Lucio
The book aims at assessing the overall potential of the Ocean Economy (OE) to contribute to Mauritius' development, at identifying key sectoral and cross-cutting challenges to be overcome in order to seize that potential; and at evaluating ways to ensure the OE's longer-term sustainability, addressing in particular environmental and climate change concerns. While the book discusses specific projects in selected sectors, this is intended only to illustrate opportunities and challenges (including in terms of resource mobilization); an appraisal of the technicaland financial feasibility of individual projects would go beyond the scope of this work and would have to be conducted as part of separate follow-on activities. This book reflects data and information available as of March 31, 2017.
Mitigating Drought Impacts in Drylands: Quantifying the Potential for Strengthening Crop- and Livestock-Based Livelihoods
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2018-04-02) Carfagna, Federica; Cervigni, Raffaello; Carfagna, Federica; Cervigni, Raffaello; Fallavier, Pierre
Drylands account for three-quarters of Sub-Saharan Africa's cropland, two-thirds of cereal production, and four-fifths of livestock holdings. Today frequent and severe shocks, especially droughts, limit the livelihood opportunities available to millions of households and undermine efforts to eradicate poverty in the drylands. Prospects for sustainable development of drylands are assessed in this book through the lens of resilience, understood here to mean the ability of people to withstand and respond to droughts and other shocks. An original model was developed expressly to consistently and coherently evaluate different type of interventions on the ground, which provided a common framework to anticipate the scale of the challenges likely to arise in drylands, as well as to generate insights into opportunities for addressing those challenges. Such modeling framework consisted in a) estimating the baseline vulnerability profiles of people living in drylands (2010), b) estimate the evolution of vulnerability by 2030 under a range of assumptions, c) calculated the number of people affectedby drought in the different administrative units of each country, and d) evaluate different types of interventions in agriculture and livestock for mitigating drought impact by calculating the potential for reducing the number of people affected for each scenario and conducting a simplified · benefit/cost (B/C) analysis for each type of intervention. For livestock, simulation models were used to estimate the impacts of feed balances, livestock production, and household income resilience interventions under different climate scenarios). For agriculture, the DSSAT (Decision Support System for·Agrotechnology Transfer) framework was used to assess the potential impact on yields likely to result from adoption of five crop farming technologies: (1) drought-tolerant varieties, (2) heat-tolerant varieties, (3) additional fertilizer, (4) agroforestry practices, (S) irrigation (6) water-harvesting techniques and selected combinations thereof.
Confronting Drought in Africa’s Drylands: Opportunities for Enhancing Resilience
(Washington, DC: World Bank; and Agence Française de Développement, 2016-05-02) Cervigni, Raffaello; Morris, Michael; Cervigni, Raffaello; Morris, Michael
Drylands make up about 43 percent of the region’s land surface, account for about 75 percent of the area used for agriculture, and are home to about 50 percent of the population, including many poor. Involving complex interactions among many factors, vulnerability in drylands is rising, jeopardizing the livelihood for of millions.
Enhancing the Climate Resilience of Africa's Infrastructure: The Power and Water Sectors
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2015-09-01) Cervigni, Raffaello; Neumann, James E.; Strzepek, Kenneth M.; Cervigni, Raffaello; Liden, Rikard; Neumann, James E.; Strzepek, Kenneth M.
This book evaluates -using for the first time a single consistent methodology and the state-of-the-arte climate scenarios-, the impacts of climate change on hydro-power and irrigation expansion plans in Africa’s main rivers basins (Niger, Senegal, Volta, Congo, Nile, Zambezi, Orange); and outlines an approach to reduce climate risks through suitable adjustments to the planning and design process. The book finds that failure to integrate climate change in the planning and design of power and water infrastructure could entail, in scenarios of drying climate conditions, losses of hydropower revenues between 5% and 60% (depending on the basin); and increases in consumer expenditure for energy up to 3 times the corresponding baseline values. In in wet climate scenarios, business-as-usual infrastructure development could lead to foregone revenues in the range of 15% to 130% of the baseline, to the extent that the larger volume of precipitation is not used to expand the production of hydropower. Despite the large uncertainty on whether drier or wetter conditions will prevail in the future in Africa, the book finds that by modifying existing investment plans to explicitly handle the risk of large climate swings, can cut in half or more the cost that would accrue by building infrastructure on the basis of the climate of the past.
Toward Climate-Resilient Development in Nigeria
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2013-06-03) Valentini, Riccardo; Cervigni, Raffaello; Santini, Monia; Cervigni, Raffaello; Valentini, Riccardo; Santini, Monia
This book analyzes the risks to Nigeria's development prospects that climate change poses to agriculture, livestock, and water management. These sectors were chosen because they are central to achieving the growth, livelihood, and environmental objectives of Vision 20: 2020; and because they are already vulnerable to current climate variability. Since other sectors might also be affected, the findings of this research provide lower-bound estimates of overall climate change impacts. Agriculture accounts for about 40 percent of Nigeria's Gross Domestic product (GDP) and employs 70 percent of its people. Because virtually all production is rain-fed, agriculture is highly vulnerable to weather swings. It alerts us that increases in temperature, coupled with changes in precipitation patterns and hydrological regimes, can only exacerbate existing vulnerabilities. The book proposes 10 practical short-term priority actions, as well as complementary longer-term initiatives, that could help to mitigate the threat to vision 20: 2020 that climate change poses. Nigeria's vision can become a reality if the country moves promptly to become more climate-resilient. Climate variability is also undermining Nigeria's efforts to achieve energy security. Though dominated by thermal power, the country's energy mix is complemented by hydropower, which accounts for one-third of grid supply. Because dams are poorly maintained, current variability in rainfall results in power outages that affect both Nigeria's energy security and its growth potential. In particular, climate models converge in projecting that by mid-century water flows will increase for almost half the country, decrease in 10 percent of the country, and be uncertain over one-third of Nigeria's surface. The overall feasibility of Nigeria's hydropower potential is not in question. On grounds of energy diversification and low carbon co-benefits, exploiting the entire 12 gigawatts (GW) of hydropower potential should be considered. Nigeria has a number of actions and policy choices it might consider for building up its ability to achieve climate-resilient development.
Assessing Low-Carbon Development in Nigeria : An Analysis of Four Sectors
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2013-01-01) Dvorak, Irina; Cervigni, Raffaello; Rogers, John Allen; Cervigni, Raffaello; Rogers, John Allen; Dvorak, Irina
The Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) and the World Bank have agreed to carry out a Climate Change Assessment (CCA) within the framework of the Bank's Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) for Nigeria (2010-13). The CCA includes an analysis of options for low-carbon development in selected sectors, including power, oil and gas, transport, and agriculture. The goal of the low-carbon analysis is to define likely trends in carbon emissions up to 2035, based on government sector development plans, and to identify opportunities for achieving equivalent development objectives with a reduced carbon footprint. This study comprises the following components: (i) development of a reference scenario of greenhouse gas (GHG) net emissions for the agriculture sector, consistent with vision 20: 2020 and other government plans; (ii) identification of opportunities for reduced net emissions- reduced emissions and or enhanced carbon sequestration- while achieving the same development objectives as in the reference scenario; and (iii) economic assessment of low-carbon options in order to help the Nigerian government to prioritize policy options. The study evaluates costs and benefits in a partial equilibrium setting, with no attempt to capture the indirect, general equilibrium effects of adopting low-carbon technologies or management practices. The results of this analysis (the first of its kind in Nigeria) should be considered as a first approximation of the potential for low-carbon development in the Nigerian agriculture sector. The study aims at providing policy makers with an order-of-magnitude estimate of mitigation potential, and an understanding of the value of dedicating further efforts (including through specific projects) at pursuing low-carbon development in agriculture, but is not meant to inform the design of specific, project-level interventions.
Low-Carbon Development : Opportunities for Nigeria
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2013-05-29) Henrion, Max; Cervigni, Raffaello; Rogers, John Allen; Cervigni, Raffaello; Rogers, John Allen; Henrion, Max
The Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) has formulated an ambitious strategy, known as Vision 20: 2020, which aims to make Nigeria the world s 20th largest economy by 2020. This book argues that there are many ways that Nigeria can achieve the Vision 20: 2020 development objectives for 2020 and beyond, but with up to 32 percent lower carbon emissions. A lower carbon path offers not only the global benefits of reducing contributions to climate change, but also net economic benefits to Nigeria, estimated at about 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). The FGN and the World Bank agreed, as part of the Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) 2010-13, to conduct an analysis of the implications of climate change for Nigeria's development agenda. The current volume focuses on low-carbon development. Building on the work under way on Nigeria's nationally appropriate mitigation actions, the authors evaluate opportunities to pursue national development priorities using technologies and interventions that reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs), referred to here as low-carbon options. The document is structured as follows: chapter one is introduction; chapter two provides essential background on the country and the economic sectors. Chapter three describes the analytical approach, providing a summary of how the scenarios were developed, methods of analysis, models, and the data and general assumptions used. Chapters four-seven present the analysis and results for each sector: agriculture and land use, oil and gas, power, and transport, respectively. Each chapter provides an introduction to the sector and the approach, findings, and recommendations for options and actions for low-carbon development. Chapter eight summarizes the key findings across sectors. It describes the main scenarios that were modeled across all sectors and their implications for GHG emissions and the economy. It provides general recommendations on how Nigeria can reconcile national growth objectives with low-carbon development using a cross-sector perspective.
Achieving Sustainable Development in Jordan: Country Environmental Analysis
(Amman: World Bank, 2010-09) Naber, Helena; Cervigni, Raffaello; Cervigni, Raffaello; Naber, Helena
This Country Environmental Analysis (CEA) has been developed by the World Bank in cooperation with the Government of Jordan. It aims to integrate environment into development and poverty reduction priorities. The CEA will be a vital instrument for designing Jordans future policies, by integrating the economic policy tools in our decision making processes. As the latest economic crises and its implications have shown, an economic model that is based on consumption alone cannot be sustained; accordingly many countries identified the need to green their economics as the base for sustainable growth and development. Jordans green economic initiative will enhance social integration, economic growth an environmental sustainability within one focused, measured and stable economic plan. Jordan is a small country that is rich in human capital; the green journey will be a twenty years program to retrofit our infrastructure, to become energy, water and resource efficient. The recommendations identified in this document will be the main drivers for the environmental policies in the country. The issue of adequate incentives for better quantity management clearly remains important, but is not addressed in this report. After the national agenda was established, it appears that the reduction of water related subsidies and the creation of incentives for allocating water to higher value added uses are being recognized as necessities that public policies will address in the future.
Addressing Climate Change in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-11) Pariente-David, Silvia; Cervigni, Raffaello; Rigaud, Kanta K.; Holten, Johanne; Coma Cunill, Roger
The brief includes the following headings: Middle East and North Africa (MENA) vulnerability to climate change; World Bank program - overall approach; reducing vulnerability; carbon emissions and low carbon growth; promoting low-carbon growth; and region-wide activities.