Publication:
Risks and Opportunities of Participation in Global Value Chains

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (683.06 KB)
1,204 downloads
English Text (52.58 KB)
171 downloads
Published
2014-04
ISSN
Date
2014-05-14
Editor(s)
Abstract
This is a background paper to the 2014 World Development Report. Risk is inherent to the pursuit of opportunity. This paper surveys the recent literature and looks at the risks and opportunities firms and their workers face in the global value chains. First, it examines the risk-sharing mechanisms that firms provide from the national and global perspectives; second, it takes a closer look at the new opportunities and challenges for firms and individuals in the global arena; third, it discusses the role of economic upgrading and social upgrading; and finally it sheds light on how the government can help people manage risks and reap the benefits in the participation of global value chains.
Link to Data Set
Citation
Gereffi, Gary; Luo, Xubei. 2014. Risks and Opportunities of Participation in Global Value Chains. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 6847. © http://hdl.handle.net/10986/18333 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
  • Publication
    The Economic Value of Weather Forecasts: A Quantitative Systematic Literature Review
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-09-10) Farkas, Hannah; Linsenmeier, Manuel; Talevi, Marta; Avner, Paolo; Jafino, Bramka Arga; Sidibe, Moussa
    This study systematically reviews the literature that quantifies the economic benefits of weather observations and forecasts in four weather-dependent economic sectors: agriculture, energy, transport, and disaster-risk management. The review covers 175 peer-reviewed journal articles and 15 policy reports. Findings show that the literature is concentrated in high-income countries and most studies use theoretical models, followed by observational and then experimental research designs. Forecast horizons studied, meteorological variables and services, and monetization techniques vary markedly by sector. Estimated benefits even within specific subsectors span several orders of magnitude and broad uncertainty ranges. An econometric meta-analysis suggests that theoretical studies and studies in richer countries tend to report significantly larger values. Barriers that hinder value realization are identified on both the provider and user sides, with inadequate relevance, weak dissemination, and limited ability to act recurring across sectors. Policy reports rely heavily on back-of-the-envelope or recursive benefit-transfer estimates, rather than on the methods and results of the peer-reviewed literature, revealing a science-to-policy gap. These findings suggest substantial socioeconomic potential of hydrometeorological services around the world, but also knowledge gaps that require more valuation studies focusing on low- and middle-income countries, addressing provider- and user-side barriers and employing rigorous empirical valuation methods to complement and validate theoretical models.
  • Publication
    Direct and Indirect Impacts of Transport Mobility on Access to Jobs: Evidence from South Africa
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-11-12) Iimi, Atsushi
    Access to jobs is essential for economic growth. In Africa, unemployment rates are notably high. This paper reexamines the relationship between transport mobility and labor market outcomes, with a particular focus on the direct and indirect effects of transport connectivity. As predicted by theory, wages are influenced by the level of commuting deterrence. Generally, higher earnings are associated with longer commute times and/or higher commuting costs. Local accessibility is also important, especially for individuals with time constraints. Both direct and indirect impacts are found to be significant in South Africa, where job accessibility has been challenging since the end of apartheid. For the direct impact, the wage elasticity associated with commuting costs is significant. Returns on commute are particularly high for women. Local accessibility to socioeconomic facilities, such as shops and health services, is also found to have a significant impact, consistent with the concept of mobility of care. To enhance employment, therefore, it is crucial to connect people not only to job locations but also to various socioeconomic points of interest, such as markets and hospitals, in an integrated manner. This integration will enable individuals to spend more time working and commuting longer distances.
  • Publication
    The Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29) Abalo, Kodzovi; Boehlert, Brent; Bui, Thanh; Burns, Andrew; Castillo, Diego; Chewpreecha, Unnada; Haider, Alexander; Hallegatte, Stephane; Jooste, Charl; McIsaac, Florent; Ruberl, Heather; Smet, Kim; Strzepek, Ken
    Estimating the macroeconomic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation options is a topic of intense research. This paper presents a framework in the World Bank's macrostructural model to assess climate-related damages. This approach has been used in many Country Climate and Development Reports, a World Bank diagnostic that identifies priorities to ensure continued development in spite of climate change and climate policy objectives. The methodology captures a set of impact channels through which climate change affects the economy by (1) connecting a set of biophysical models to the macroeconomic model and (2) exploring a set of development and climate scenarios. The paper summarizes the results for five countries, highlighting the sources and magnitudes of their vulnerability --- with estimated gross domestic product losses in 2050 exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product in some countries and scenarios, although only a small set of impact channels is included. The paper also presents estimates of the macroeconomic gains from sector-level adaptation interventions, considering their upfront costs and avoided climate impacts and finding significant net gross domestic product gains from adaptation opportunities identified in the Country Climate and Development Reports. Finally, the paper discusses the limits of current modeling approaches, and their complementarity with empirical approaches based on historical data series. The integrated modeling approach proposed in this paper can inform policymakers as they make proactive decisions on climate change adaptation and resilience.
  • Publication
    From Policy to Practice: Lessons from the Implementation of the Refugee Work Rights Policy in Ethiopia
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-11-10) Perez, Ana Maria; Rozo, Sandra V.
    This paper examines the early implementation of Ethiopia’s refugee work rights policy, with a focus on the issuance of permits that enable refugees to engage in economic activities. Building on significant legal and institutional advances under the 2019 Refugee Proclamation and subsequent directives, the analysis explores how these reforms are being operationalized in practice. Using a mixed-methods approach, combining document review, administrative data analysis, and semi-structured interviews, the paper identifies both progress and remaining challenges. Permit issuance has increased since the adoption of detailed operational guidance in 2024, reflecting the Government of Ethiopia’s commitment to operationalizing its progressive legal framework and ensuring that refugees can exercise their right to work. However, take-up remains modest, with about 5.2 percent of the working-age population holding a permit. Preliminary evidence suggests that coordination gaps, limited subnational capacity, low awareness among refugees and employers, and disincentives to formalize in a largely informal labor market are contributing to the low take-up. The paper offers policy suggestions, grounded in the Ethiopian context and emerging evidence, to help translate legal commitments into improved labor market outcomes for refugees.
  • Publication
    Monitoring Global Aid Flows: A Novel Approach Using Large Language Models
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-11-04) Luo, Xubei; Rajasekaran, Arvind Balaji; Scruggs, Andrew Conner
    Effective monitoring of development aid is the foundation for assessing the alignment of flows with their intended development objectives. Existing reporting systems, such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Creditor Reporting System, provide standardized classification of aid activities but have limitations when it comes to capturing new areas like climate change, digitalization, and other cross-cutting themes. This paper proposes a bottom-up, unsupervised machine learning framework that leverages textual descriptions of aid projects to generate highly granular activity clusters. Using the 2021 Creditor Reporting System data set of nearly 400,000 records, the model produces 841 clusters, which are then grouped into 80 subsectors. These clusters reveal 36 emerging aid areas not tracked in the current Creditor Reporting System taxonomy, allow unpacking of “multi-sectoral” and “sector not specified” classifications, and enable estimation of flows to new themes, including World Bank Global Challenge Programs, International Development Association–20 Special Themes, and Cross-Cutting Issues. Validation against both Creditor Reporting System benchmarks and International Development Association commitment data demonstrates robustness. This approach illustrates how machine learning and the new advances in large language models can enhance the monitoring of global aid flows and inform future improvements in aid classification and reporting. It offers a useful tool that can support more responsive and evidence-based decision-making, helping to better align resources with evolving development priorities.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    MIGA Annual Report 2013 : Insuring Investments, Ensuring Opportunities
    (Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2013-10-11) Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency
    In fiscal year 2013, Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) issued 2.8 billion dollars in investment guarantees for projects in our developing member countries. At 1.5 billion dollars, representing more than half of new business, the bulk of MIGA's guarantees issued support investments in Sub-Saharan Africa. Sixty-nine percent of new business volume this year was in complex projects in infrastructure and extractive industries, a strategic priority for the Agency. This year, 82 percent of MIGA's new volume fell into one or more of strategic priority areas: investments in the world's poorest countries, "South-South" investments, investments in conflict-affected countries, and investments in complex projects. MIGA also established the conflict-affected and fragile economies facility to further deepen support to this priority area.
  • Publication
    IFC Annual Report 2009 : Their/Our Story, Creating Opportunity Where It's Needed Most
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2009) International Finance Corporation
    The global economic crisis has opened an uncertain chapter, especially for the 2.5 billion people who live on less than $2 a day. Many of them lack access to electricity, or clean water, or basic health care. For at least a decade, economic growth in developing countries helped expand the availability of basic necessities while steadily reducing the number of people in poverty. But this year, the number of people in extreme poverty is expected to be much higher than was predicted before the crisis. Unemployment is rising. Yet many countries lack the domestic resources needed to speed up development. International Finance Corporation (IFC) has responded swiftly and creatively to improve the lives of the most vulnerable people by working with the private sector to create conditions for sustainable prosperity, wherever the need is greatest. IFC has quickly ramped up its advisory efforts and mobilized its donor partners to help governments, clients, and markets cope with the crisis and recover speedily. Priorities include: helping financial institutions better manage their risks and their nonperforming loans; complementing investment efforts in banking for small and medium enterprises, microfinance, and housing finance with advice to financial institutions; supporting governments' efforts to keep trade flowing with advice on trade logistics; helping governments facing larger deficits widen their tax base; encouraging governments to simplify their bankruptcy systems to allow indebted companies to recover faster; advising boards of directors on risk management and crisis intervention; and helping governments redesign public-private infrastructure projects that face crisis-related difficulties.
  • Publication
    IFC's Sustainability Framework : From Policy Update to Implementation
    (Washington, DC, 2013) International Finance Corporation
    International Finance Corporation (IFC s) sustainability framework, which articulates our commitment to sustainable development and transparency. The performance standards are a vital part of the framework and address a range of environmental and social risks and opportunities faced by the private sector. This project highlights key environmental and social issues of current and emerging importance, including climate change, business and human rights, supply chain management, and biodiversity and ecosystem services. It discusses implementation challenges in the financial as well as the non-financial sectors, and summarizes some of the lessons learned through IFC s recent review and update of its sustainability framework. This project summarizes some of the key emerging issues in sustainability, and highlights valuable lessons learned from experience in applying sustainability principles. The subsequent sections attempt to capture the results of the review and update process, from the challenges of addressing emerging issues in the performance standards to the practical application of these principles across sectors in diverse circumstances. It focuses on key themes arising from the recently completed consultation process, and then highlights challenges moving forward in implementing sustainability standards.
  • Publication
    Investment Climate Assessment : Enterprises' Perception in Post Revolution Tunisia
    (Washington, DC, 2014-02) World Bank
    Located in the heart of the North African coastline, adjacent to vital shipping channels connecting Europe and Asia, Tunisia has long been a regional economic influence in the Middle East and North Africa. Although socialist policies dominated the Tunisian economy throughout the latter half of the 20th century, Tunisia has re-focused its economic strategy on key indicators such as foreign investment, domestic job creation, exports and tourism. These have become the backbone of the Tunisian economy and have helped strengthen relationships with primary trading partners in the European Union. Exports such as textiles, computer arts and petrochemicals now account for a significant portion of the Tunisian economy. This liberal economic development strategy created years of stable annual growth and improved living standards well into the 2000s. However, this growth was unequal due to a culture of corruption and cronyism that reached its height during the era of former President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali from 1987 through 2011. Years of progressive economic growth were stymied by rising unemployment and government waste. Discontent for the Ben Ali government boiled over in January 2011 with a revolution to overthrow the president, ruling party and Parliament. In the ensuing months of uncertainty, declines in tourism and investment contributed to an overall economic decline that lasted throughout much of the year. The political climate also remained uncertain as Tunisians worked to form a new coalition government and transition into a democratic system.
  • Publication
    The World Bank Annual Report 2008
    (Washington, DC, 2008) World Bank
    The World Bank Group's work focuses on achievement of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The goals call for eliminating poverty and achieving inclusive and sustainable globalization. The MDGs lay out a blueprint for the World Bank Group, setting its priorities and measuring its results. The World Bank is the world's largest funder of education; the world's largest external funder of the fight against HIV/AIDS; a leader in the fight against corruption worldwide; a strong supporter of debt relief; and the largest international financier of biodiversity, water supply, and sanitation projects. The recipients of the World Bank Group's fiscal 2008 financial commitments are using the funds in more than 670 projects, many of them collaborative efforts of two or more of the affiliates. The projects are designed to overcome poverty and enhance growth by improving education and health services, promoting private sector development, building infrastructure, and strengthening governance and institutions. They are practical plans to help developing countries move from poverty and become more competitive in a globalizing world. The Bank Group is also preparing a strategic framework on climate change and development - a plan for integrating climate change and development challenges without compromising growth and poverty reduction efforts. The framework will include priorities, approaches, and a road map for action in helping countries mitigate or adapt to climate change. In addition, the Bank Group has set a goal of scaling up its portfolio of investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency projects by an annual average of 20 percent through 2010.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21) Luna-Bazaldua, Diego; Levin, Victoria; Liberman, Julia; Gala, Priyal Mukesh
    This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.
  • Publication
    Argentina Country Climate and Development Report
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11) World Bank Group
    The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.
  • Publication
    World Bank Annual Report 2024
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-25) World Bank
    This annual report, which covers the period from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, has been prepared by the Executive Directors of both the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA)—collectively known as the World Bank—in accordance with the respective bylaws of the two institutions. Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank Group and Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors, has submitted this report, together with the accompanying administrative budgets and audited financial statements, to the Board of Governors.
  • Publication
    Digital Africa
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13) Begazo, Tania; Dutz, Mark Andrew; Blimpo, Moussa
    All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.
  • Publication
    Digital-in-Health
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-08-18) World Bank
    Technology and data are integral to daily life. As health systems face increasing demands to deliver new, more, better, and seamless services affordable to all people, data and technology are essential. With the potential and perils of innovations like artificial intelligence the future of health care is expected to be technology-embedded and data-linked. This shift involves expanding the focus from digitization of health data to integrating digital and health as one: Digital-in-Health. The World Bank’s report, Digital-in-Health: Unlocking the Value for Everyone, calls for a new digital-in-health approach where digital technology and data are infused into every aspect of health systems management and health service delivery for better health outcomes. The report proposes ten recommendations across three priority areas for governments to invest in: prioritize, connect and scale.