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  • Publication
    State and Trends of Carbon Pricing: International Carbon Markets
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-12-08) World Bank
    As developing nations grapple with the largefinancing needs required to achieve our climate goals, the urgency to mobilize sub stantial capital towards communities, nature, and broader developmental efforts is resoundingly clear. In this context, carbon markets, both under the Paris Agreement and the voluntary carbon market (VCM), can channel much-needed finance towards climate action. In all, 120 nations have considered the role of international carbon markets to support mitigation action and achievement of their nationally determined contribution (NDC) targets, and many corporations are seeking high-quality carbon credits to meet their voluntary climate commitments. Done right, carbon markets can help us get the resources we need now, at scale, and accelerate action by providing much needed source of finance. They can also encourage accelerated action to meet NDCs, providing financing needed to implement them. In its annual State and Trends of Carbon Pricing Report, the World Bank has been tracking domestic carbon pricing policies, such as carbon taxes and emissions trading systems, that are critical to incentivize action to reduce emissions. With the growing potential for carbon markets as a means to increase climate finance under both the Paris Agreement and VCM, there is a renewed interest in understanding carbon market developments. This report aims to supplement the annual State and Trends report and contribute to the global effort to promote market transparency and trust by providing digestible insights into the state of play of international carbon markets.
  • Publication
    Europe and Central Asia Economic Update, Fall 2023: Sluggish Growth, Rising Risks
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-10-05) Kasyanenko, Sergiy; Izvorski, Ivailo; Singer, Dorothe
    Europe and Central Asia continues to be negatively impacted by the Russian Federation’s invasion of Ukraine, tighter global financial conditions, persistent inflation, and global economic fragmentation. Economic growth in the region is projected to remain weak relative to the long-term trend, delaying the convergence of living standards to those of high-income countries. The impacts of climate change are becoming a serious constraint on growth, as extreme weather events are affecting the region with increased frequency and severity. Economic growth for the emerging market and developing economies of the Europe and Central Asia region has been revised up to 2.4 percent for 2023. The pickup in growth reflects improved forecasts for Ukraine, Central Asia, Türkiye and Russia. Downside risks cloud the outlook. High inflation may persist amid heightened volatility in global commodity markets and a surge in energy prices. Global financial conditions may tighten further. And global growth, already the weakest on record for any five-year period since 1990, may slow further.
  • Publication
    MENA Economic Update, October 2023 - Balancing Act: Jobs and Wages in the Middle East and North Africa When Crises Hit
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-10-05) Elmallakh, Nelly; Gatti, Roberta; Torres, Jesica; Lederman, Daniel; Lotfi, Rana; Suvanov, Ilias; Silva, Joana
    Covid-19. The Russian invasion of Ukraine. Commodity price volatility. The rise of global inflation and interest rates. Currency depreciations among indebted middle-income economies. And now, natural disasters. As a sequence of events, the consequences can be both tragic and long-lasting. After analyzing the macroeconomic prospects of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region, this edition of the regional Economic Update assesses the human toll of macroeconomic shocks in terms of lost jobs and deteriorating livelihoods of the people of MENA. Growth is forecast to decelerate in 2023 after experiencing an oil-price induced growth spurt in 2022 among the high-income oil exporters of the region. Yet as the region continues to recover from the impact of the COVID-19 shock and navigates the heightened volatility in its terms of trade, the region’s labor force is contending with the ramifications for their livelihoods of the inflationary pressures associated with currency fluctuations in some countries. The authors estimate that the macroeconomic shocks of 2020-22 led to an additional 5.1 million individuals becoming unemployed in MENA. Will these shocks permanently scar the hard-working people of MENA? The report answers this question by highlighting the trade-offs facing labor markets when facing macroeconomic shocks. A critical trade-off pertains to the loss of jobs versus decreases in real incomes, neither of which is desirable. The report advocates for maintaining the flexibility of real wages and discusses policy options to support the most vulnerable.
  • Publication
    Latin America and the Caribbean Economic Review, October 2023 - Wired: Digital Connectivity for Inclusion and Growth
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-10-04) Zambrano Riveros, Jorge Andres; Beylis, Guillermo; Maloney, William; Vuletin, Guillermo
    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.
  • Publication
    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.
  • Publication
    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.
  • Publication
    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.
  • Publication
    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.
  • Publication
    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.
  • Publication
    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) Roseman Norfleet, Julia Renee; Izvorski, Ivailo; Lokshin, Michael M.; 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.