Publication: Inclusive Growth at a Crossroads: Part One of Strengthening Inclusion and Facilitating the Green Transition
Loading...
Published
2021-07-21
ISSN
Date
2021-07-27
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
The period of the COVID-19 pandemic will be marked and remembered. It will certainly be known for the ongoing health crisis that has reverberated across the world, leading to significant social impacts, rising inequality and poverty rates, and the steepest recession in Europe since World War II. It could, however, also be known as the trigger for a shift towards policies that will enhance developmental and environmental outcomes. With economies at a crossroads, it is up to governments to make this shift happen. Countries in Europe will need to ensure a green, resilient and inclusive recovery. This report explores the impacts of COVID-19 on inclusive growth and considers the policies that are needed to strengthen resilience and to ensure that inclusivity is woven into the fabric of societies.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2021. Inclusive Growth at a Crossroads: Part One of Strengthening Inclusion and Facilitating the Green Transition. EU Regular Economic Report;No.7. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36023 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Labor Markets for Inclusive Growth(Washington, DC, 2013-04)This policy note outlines short, and medium-term policy options for addressing critical challenges affecting labor markets in Mexico, and in particular labor productivity. As labor is the main source of income for most of the population, poverty is closely linked to underemployment and low wages. Yet labor markets have played a limited role in poverty reduction in Mexico. Labor income accounted for just 22 percent of the decline in poverty in Mexico over the last decade compared with 38 percent in the rest of the region. Between the third quarter of 2008 and the third quarter of 2011, the labor income poverty index2 continued to decline in Brazil, Ecuador, and Peru but increased in Mexico. The equivalent measure produced by CONEVAL (Consejo Nacional de Evaluation), shows the labor poverty trend to be increasing through the first quarter of 2012. Finding the right bundle of policies to improve labor productivity and the functioning of the labor markets can serve to improve economic growth and welfare outcomes.Publication Inventory of Policy Responses to the Financial and Economic Crisis(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-04)This report presents an overview of general findings from International Labor Office (ILO) and World Bank (WB) database. The report only uses a fraction of this large and rich database and is an invitation for researchers and practitioners to use the data for more in-depth research, which can be helpful for policy makers in identifying effective approaches to maintain and promote employment, while protecting living standards during times of crisis. The goal of this report is to take stock of policy responses during the recent economic and financial crisis and suggest areas where policy-makers should focus to improve their capacity to respond to future shocks. The report has following sections: section one gives introduction. Section two begins with an overview of macroeconomic and sector policies. Section three presents analysis of labor market policies to promote labor demand. Section four presents programs to facilitate job matching and preserve skills. Section five is social protection. Section six is minimum wages. Section seven is social dialogue. Section 8 is international labor standards. The last section summarizes key findings and proposes an agenda for future work.Publication Advancing Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance in ASEAN Member States : Framework and Options for Implementation, Volume 2. Technical Appendices(Washington, DC, 2012-04)This report is part of a project being jointly conducted by the World Bank, the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Secretariat, and United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR). It aims to provide capacity building on disaster risk financing and insurance (DRFI) in ASEAN Member States. DRFI is a relatively new topic and, therefore, training and capacity building of local stakeholders is essential. Governments must understand the benefits and the limitations of disaster risk financing and insurance as part of their comprehensive Disaster Risk Management (DRM) strategies. This report presents main findings and recommendations on DRFI in the ASEAN region. Following the World Bank disaster risk financing and insurance framework, it consists of five chapters, including this introduction. Chapter two presents a preliminary economic and fiscal risk assessment of natural disasters in ASEAN Member States. Chapter three provides an overview of the fiscal management of natural disasters currently implemented by ASEAN Member States. Chapter four reviews the state of the private catastrophe insurance markets, including property catastrophe risk insurance, agricultural insurance, and disaster micro-insurance. Chapter five identifies five main recommendations for strengthening the long-term financial and fiscal resilience of ASEAN Member States against natural disasters, as part of their broader disaster risk management and climate change adaptation agendas.Publication Nigeria - Competitiveness and Growth : Country Economic Memorandum, Volume 3. Technical and Statistical Annexes(Washington, DC, 2007-05)The theme of this report is Nigeria's competitiveness and growth. This report consequently focuses on constraints, opportunities and strategic choices associated with increasing productivity and growth of the Nigerian economy on a sustained basis. Its objective is not to present a "blueprint" for Nigeria's growth but rather to raise issues and provide some options for the consideration of policy makers and other Nigerian stakeholders. The report is structured in four main sections. The first section analyzes Nigeria's growth history, examines the recent growth pick up and assesses its sustainability. The second section analyses how the critical constraints to competitiveness and growth may be addressed. The third section discusses how trade -domestic and external - can be used more effectively to drive growth and poverty reduction. The final chapter provides policy conclusions and suggestions on what could be key elements of a growth agenda for Nigeria. The analysis in this report suggests the following key elements for a growth strategy for Nigeria: 1) Strengthening actions to tackle the most immediate constraints to the competitiveness of the economy presented by infrastructure and the business environment; 2) Using domestic trade more effectively to enhance productivity and competitiveness by strengthening their functioning, and building stronger linkages between the oil and non-oil sectors, and over time strengthening Nigeria's integration into global markets; 3) Ensuring that the poor can participate more fully in growth by placing urgent emphasis on (i) finding ways to give back some of the proceeds of oil windfall directly to Nigerians; (ii) raising agricultural productivity-including through enhanced technology; and (iii) encouraging the transition from informality to the formal sector; and 4) Building the human capital and technological base of the economy over the longer term.Publication Reducing Vulnerability and Promoting the Self-Employment of Roma in Eastern Europe through Financial Inclusion(Washington, DC, 2012-09-04)This chapter highlights the growing global and European financial inclusion agenda and provides a brief assessment of vulnerability and labor market outcomes for Roma in Eastern Europe. Financial inclusion is considered by many to be among the main instruments to improve welfare, especially among the poor, which need financial services as much as, if not more, than non-poor, to reduce vulnerability and improve self-employment. Following a brief description of the main data sources used in the analysis, the chapter highlights the very high levels of vulnerability and exclusion among Roma in Eastern Europe and the poor labor market outcomes by any measure, including extremely low employment rates and high informality. Against this background, the following chapters assess financial exclusion among Roma, and self-employment levels and (credit) barriers to starting businesses. The final chapter highlights international experiences promoting comprehensive, incremental approaches to financial inclusion.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Argentina Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)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 Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)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 Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)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 World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.Publication Lebanon Economic Monitor, Fall 2022(Washington, DC, 2022-11)The economy continues to contract, albeit at a somewhat slower pace. Public finances improved in 2021, but only because spending collapsed faster than revenue generation. Testament to the continued atrophy of Lebanon’s economy, the Lebanese Pound continues to depreciate sharply. The sharp deterioration in the currency continues to drive surging inflation, in triple digits since July 2020, impacting the poor and vulnerable the most. An unprecedented institutional vacuum will likely further delay any agreement on crisis resolution and much needed reforms; this includes prior actions as part of the April 2022 International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff-level agreement (SLA). Divergent views among key stakeholders on how to distribute the financial losses remains the main bottleneck for reaching an agreement on a comprehensive reform agenda. Lebanon needs to urgently adopt a domestic, equitable, and comprehensive solution that is predicated on: (i) addressing upfront the balance sheet impairments, (ii) restoring liquidity, and (iii) adhering to sound global practices of bail-in solutions based on a hierarchy of creditors (starting with banks’ shareholders) that protects small depositors.