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Kaila, Heidi

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Kaila, Heidi Kristiina, Kaila, H.K.
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Last updated:August 20, 2025
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Heidi Kaila is an Economist in the Office of the Chief Economist, Africa Region at the World Bank. Prior to this position, she worked at the Poverty and Equity Global Practice of the World Bank and was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Cornell University. The focus of her research and operational work is on poverty reduction and development policies related to human capital, migration, agricultural livelihoods, and conflict. Heidi has published articles in peer-reviewed academic journals, policy papers and reports, and has experience in collecting large household surveys in Madagascar, Nigeria, Nepal, and Vietnam. Heidi holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Copenhagen, and a Master’s and a Bachelor’s in Economics from the University of Helsinki.

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2020 - 202632000 - 20191
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    Migration: Africa’s Untapped Potential
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-08-21) Abdel Jelil, Mohamed; Adhikari, Samik; Do, Quy-Toan; Kaila, Heidi; Marzo, Federica; Nsababera, Olive; Seshan, Ganesh; Shrestha, Maheshwor
    Migration in Africa is primarily driven by the search for economic opportunity, safety, and security, including from environmental hardships. However, migration’s potential to uplift African livelihoods remains largely untapped. While nearly 15 percent of the world’s migrant population is from Sub-Saharan Africa, two-thirds of Sub-Saharan migrants stay within Africa, and the majority move within regional economic communities. Africa is also home to a quarter of the world’s refugees, primarily hosted in neighboring countries. Africa is now at a pivotal crossroads. With a rapidly growing young population facing economic stagnation, conflict, and climate change, the continent’s workforce is expected to increase by 600 million people by 2050, making up a third of the world’s youth. In contrast, labor forces in high-income and upper-middle-income countries are set to decline by 200 million. This demographic divergence opens a window of opportunity for Africa to enhance its migration management systems. Realizing the potential of migration requires deliberate policies to address challenges and maximize the benefits of migration for both origin and destination countries, as well as for the migrants. Investing in migration systems can better support migrants across the migration cycle, from developing skills in demand domestically, regionally, and globally to ensuring dignity and safety in transit or at their destination. Increasing the number of legal migration pathways is crucial to disincentivize irregular movements and foster safe, orderly migration. Effective migration management also includes promoting integration in host societies and facilitating voluntary returns. This can be achieved through instruments such as bilateral labor migration agreements with destination countries. Entering these agreements as a unified bloc would strengthen individual countries’ bargaining power, improve conditions for migrants, and maximize the economic benefits of migration. Additionally, the empowerment and self-reliance of refugees and internally displaced persons call for increased collaboration among African nations.
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    Do Bilateral Labor Agreements Increase Migration? Global Evidence from 1960 to 2020
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-17) Adhikari, Samik; Cha'ngom, Narcisse; Kaila, Heidi; Shrestha, Maheshwor
    This paper estimates the impact of bilateral labor arrangements on migration between two countries. It uses comprehensive data on bilateral migration and bilateral labor agreements across all country pairs for each decade from 1960 to 2020, and employs an empirical specification with a rich set of fixed effects. In the preferred and most stringent specification, the findings show that signing a bilateral labor agreement increases migration from an origin country to a destination country by 76 percent (0.57 log points) in the decade of signing. The effect persists for up to three decades. The impacts are higher for corridors without a pre-existing regular flow and for destinations in the Gulf Cooperation Council. In contrast, the effect is virtually absent for origin countries in Africa, driven by countries with weak government effectiveness. The estimates imply that bilateral labor agreements can lead to substantial welfare gains: low- and lower-middle-income countries can earn an additional US$120 million annually from a bilateral labor agreement. If countries in Sub-Saharan Africa were to experience similar impacts, the welfare gain from a single BLA could be as high as US$51 million per year for these origin countries.
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    Climate Risks, Exposure, Vulnerability and Resilience in Nepal
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-11-10) Amadio, M.; Behrer, A.P.; Bosch, L.; Kaila, H.K.; Krishnan, N.; Molinario, G.; Kaila, Heidi
    The authors investigate key climate change hazards affecting Nepali households and livelihoods: river flooding, heat exposure, drought, landslides, and air pollution. The authors analyze the distributional impacts of these hazards by combining spatial distributions of exposure with measures of socio-economic vulnerability and coping ability. While landslides are more likely to occur in the northern mountainous areas of Nepal, the southern parts of Nepal are at higher exposure to river flooding, heat, and drought hazards. Coping ability is highest in the southern lowlands (Terai) and urban settlements, which leaves northern, mountainous areas more vulnerable, despite being less affected. New human settlements in mountainous areas are built on steeper slopes as flat land in valleys has become scarce, which increases their vulnerability to floods and landslides. Forward modelling (2041-2060) shows increasing severity of heat and intensifying extreme rainfall. The increase in extreme precipitation events affects particularly the historically less-affected western provinces with relatively low economic development. Overall, the northern parts of the country will require concerted support to withstand shocks, and in the south, investments in agricultural livelihoods will be needed to support adaptation to climate risk. Proactive, spatially targeted investments are needed by all levels of government to mitigate the welfare impacts of these diverse climate change hazards. National investments in human capital are required to transform Nepali livelihoods in line with a green transition.
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    Conflict, Household Victimization, and Welfare: Does the Perpetrator Matter?
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-09) Kaila, Heidi; Azad, M. Abul Kalam
    This paper studies the relationship between conflict and household welfare by using a detailed panel data set of household victimization across the most conflict-affected regions in Nigeria between 2010 and 2017, during a time characterized by a sharp increase in conflict. The North East region has been hardest hit with the recent Boko Haram insurgency. The North Central region has seen clashes between herders and farmers over land and resources. Several militant groups operate in the oil-producing Niger Delta region, where their aim is to extract resources by disrupting oil production. By exploiting the plausibly exogenous variation in the timing, intensity, and spatial distribution of victimization, this study finds that becoming a victim of conflict leads to higher food insecurity and decreased consumption. Since different types of actors have different motivations for their actions, the consequences of victimization might vary depending on the perpetrator. The study finds that events perpetrated by insurgents are the most detrimental to consumption, whereas food insecurity increases as a consequence of insurgent and criminal activity. This is in line with the results being strongest in the North East, which also has the highest intensity of conflict. The study also finds that property-related events are more detrimental to consumption and food insecurity than are violent events. Likewise, it finds suggestive evidence that violent events, as well as events perpetrated by insurgents and bandits, are detrimental to mental health. The findings highlight the importance of collecting nuanced information on victimization in conflict-affected areas.