Sector/Thematic Studies
6,481 items available
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Economic and Sectoral Work are original analytic reports authored by the World Bank and intended to influence programs and policy in client countries. They convey Bank-endorsed recommendations and represent the formal opinion of a World Bank unit on the topic. This set includes the sectoral and thematic studies which are not Core Diagnostic Studies. Other analytic and advisory activities (AAA), including technical assistance studies, are included in these sectoral/thematic collections.
Sub-collections of this Collection
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Country Gender Assessment -
Recent Economic Development in Infrastructure -
Energy Study -
Energy-Environment Review -
Equitable Growth, Finance & Institutions Insight -
Debt and Creditworthiness Study -
General Economy, Macroeconomics, and Growth Study -
Legal and Judicial Sector Assessment -
Gender Innovation Lab Federation Causal Evidence Series -
Health Sector Review
Items in this collection
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Publication
Managing the Fiscal Implications of Public-Private Partnerships in a Sustainable and Resilient Manner: A Compendium of Good Practices and Lessons Learned from the COVID-19 Pandemic
(Washington, DC, 2023-03-22)Public-private partnerships (PPPs) can sometimes be perceived as a means for delivering infrastructure for free. A more nuanced but still inexact view is that they are a mechanism to overcome fiscal constraints. Some argue, perhaps rightly, that often governments enter PPP contracts without fully understanding their fiscal implications. These misconceptions lead to several challenges. There is evidence that fiscal sustainability is often overlooked or ignored by countries with PPP programs, with long-term fiscal implications the governments did not understand or manage well. Governments also struggle with perceptions that they are not fully transparent about the real, ultimate costs of PPP projects. This report aims to illustrate how to improve fiscal risk management and treatment of fiscal commitments and contingent liabilities (FCCL) arising from PPP projects, to build better Infrastructure post-COVID-19. It intends to be a resource for World Bank client countries, including low income and fragile economies, to design their fiscal PPP management frameworks in a viable way that helps them develop their PPP programs while maintaining medium-to-long-term fiscal sustainability and resilience. With that in mind, Volume I highlights and contextualizes the main findings from a set of case studies that assessed the PPP fiscal risk management framework in select countries, and synthesizes the observable and qualitative results in managing the impact of crises, in particular the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on that, it also explores how this crisis has affected PPP projects and overall PPP programs, and suggests improvements to FCCL management frameworks in order to strengthen the capacity of countries to continue with their PPP programs in a sustainable fiscal manner. Volume II contains the detailed case studies on which Volume I is based. -
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Infrastructure Tokenization: Does Blockchain Have a Role in the Financing of Infrastructure?
(World Bank, Washington DC, 2023-03-22)The purpose of this report is to assess whether digitizing the equity or debt financing used for infrastructure projects using blockchain, that is, tokenized infrastructure, provides enough benefits to justify the use of this technology. The information presented here aims to inform the World Bank whether it should explore the possibility of tokenizing one of its infrastructure projects. The conclusions are based on interviews with tokenization start-ups, experts, and the review of current and planned regulatory frameworks in selected jurisdictions and use cases/pilots to date. -
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The Climate Change and Conflict Nexus in West Africa: A New Approach for Operationally Relevant Vulnerability Assessments
(Washington DC, 2023-03-21)This report advances usable knowledge on how climate change and conflict interact in the region. Its findings contribute to a growing body of research examining the links between climate change and conflict outcomes. Its objective is twofold: first, to strengthen the evidence base on the relationship between climate change and socio-institutional fragility, violence, and conflict in West Africa; and second, to develop operationally relevant vulnerability data to enable clustering of locations with similar sources of vulnerability (in terms of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity) to climate and conflict risks. In doing so, the report breaks substantial new ground. It explicitly represents the spatial distribution of climate-related conflict vulnerability and its association with a range of biophysical, social, and economic factors. It identifies the associations between different climate drivers and conflict outcomes and develops a predictive model based on machine learning to assess the extent to which climate-related variables can predict conflict outcomes. It also uses a set of in-depth case studies to examine the potential mechanisms that may mediate the climate change and conflict relationship. Finally, the report highlights why and how specific locations are vulnerable to climate and conflict risks, rather than mapping levels of climate change and conflict vulnerability across space as most existing vulnerability indices typically do. In each of these ways, the report provides useful information to design, evaluate, and assess the operational effectiveness of projects that address climate and conflict-related vulnerability. -
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Digital Climate Information and Agriculture Advisory Delivery Mechanisms in West Africa
(Washington, DC, 2023-03-21)By advancing knowledge on digital climate information and agriculture advisory services (‘agromet services’) in support of West Africa’s farmers, this report has two objectives. First, it aims to identify priority actions for promoting digital agromet services under the West Africa Food System Resilience Program (FSRP) with a focus on Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Niger, and Togo. Second, the report strives to provide insights on the required ingredients for creating viable agromet delivery models to all stakeholders involved in the production and dissemination of weather and climate information. These stakeholders include representatives from the Ministries of Agriculture (MOAs), National Meteorological Services (NMSs), Disaster Risk Management (DRM) specialists, interested parties from the private sector and civil society, and development practitioners. This report’s findings were obtained through i) a benchmarking analysis of ten case studies examining existing delivery mechanisms of digital agromet services, and ii) semi-structured interviews with public institutions complemented by desk research. Case study results indicate that providers of agromet services should bundle different service types and diversify revenue streams to ensure that their offerings are impactful and viable. The report also finds that increasing levels of trust between the public and the private sector would facilitate the creation of innovative climate information delivery models based on public-private engagement (PPE). Other key recommendations to enhance agromet services include continuing to invest in the technical and human capacity of the region’s NMSs, increasing collaboration between NMSs and agricultural extension services, and establishing clear regulatory frameworks on digitalization and open data. -
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Towards a More Equitable Development: Constraints and Opportunities for Women in Djibouti
(Washington, DC, 2023-03-17)Djibouti has experienced a record of strong economic growth and has made considerable progress in various developmental indicators in recent years. Despite this important progress, major challenges remain as Djibouti’s development has not been equitable nor inclusive, including from a gender perspective. Djibouti has experienced dynamic social change reflected in the considerable improvement over the years in women’s rights and responsibilities as well as their access to opportunities, but the patriarchal societal structure and the disconnect between constitutional and legal frameworks continue to impede women. This gender assessment provides a comprehensive view of the status of women in Djibouti along three dimensions: endowments in human capital, economic opportunities, as well as voice and agency, which encompasses issues such as gender based violence, decision making, and political participation, among others. -
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Institutional and Procurement Practice Note on Cloud Computing: Cloud Assessment Framework and Evaluation Methodology
(Washington DC, 2023-03-16)Despite widespread awareness on the benefits of cloud computing, authorities in most of the World Bank’s client countries have not explored the opportunity of adopting cloud computing solutions. Task teams are finding it difficult to provide relevant advice to the counterparts and address their concerns. Most authorities have identified risks of moving to cloud computing: Will their data be safe? Will they have sovereign control over access to data stored offshore? Will privacy be protected? These risks are real. Due to an inadequate assessment framework to identify and assess these risks, the typical response of most client governments is to develop a government’s cloud (G-Cloud or GovCloud). This seems logical for more sensitive or mission critical data. However, this is not enough. Adopting a hybrid cloud model, which leverages the cloud services from the private sector to work in conjunction with the G-Cloud can offer immense opportunities to save costs, improve security, enhance performance, and strengthen resilience in a post COVID-19 world. However, client governments need guidance to change their policy response on cloud computing - from the risk-avoidance to the one of risk-management. This note provides guidance on institutional and procurement arrangements and risk mitigation methodology for acquiring and managing public cloud solutions using a whole-of-government approach. -
Publication
The Costs of Environmental Degradation from Plastic Pollution in Selected Coastal Areas in the United Republic of Tanzania: Technical Report
(World Bank, Washington DC, 2023-03-16)Plastic waste negatively impacts ecosystems, public health, and local economies in Tanzania. For example, marine plastic and microplastic wastes contaminate beaches, sea grass areas and coral reef habitats, lower the quality of marine ecosystems and biodiversity, and endanger bird and marine wildlife through entanglement and the ingestion of plastics of different sizes. They also endanger human health through food chains. Valuation of the costs of environmental degradation (COED) from marine plastic pollution helps the country to understand the scale of the impacts and prioritize activities for mitigation of these impacts. This study developed the methodology to estimate the COED in the selected coastal areas in Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam. It is the first of its kind for valuing the impacts of marine plastic wastes on local economic sectors, public health, and marine ecosystems. The valuation results reveal that marine plastics pollution causes a net economic cost to the local economic activities, especially tourism, and the natural environment of study areas, and that in some areas costs can be quite significant. The analysis of the costs across study areas and sectors is useful for prioritizing marine plastic pollution management activities. -
Publication
South Asia Second Regional Gender Action Plan (RGAP) II, 2023–2028
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-03-16)The focus and approach of South Asia Second Regional Gender Action Plan (SAR RGAP) are based on an analysis of regional trends in key gender outcomes in South Asia, an assessment of SAR RGAP, and an extensive set of consultations, including country-level consultations conducted across the WBG. Implementation of SAR RGAP will take place in the context of the WBG’s broader strategy for gender and the latest International Development Association (IDA) commitments. The World Bank Group Gender Strategy prioritizes four domains of gender equality: (a) improving human endowments, (b) more and better jobs for men and women, (c) women’s access to productive assets, and (d) improving women’s voice and agency and engaging men and boys (WBG 2015). An update of the Gender Strategy is currently under preparation, with completion expected in 2024. SAR RGAP aligns with this broader strategy but is also selective and therefore focuses on the most pressing gender gaps in the region. SAR RGAP also follows the December 2021 IDA replenishment, aligning with all eight of its policy commitments for gender: (i) investing in women’s empowerment, (ii) scaling up productive economic inclusion, (iii) expanding childcare, (iv) supporting medium, and high-skilled employment opportunities for women, (v) closing the gap in digital technology, (vi) strengthening women’s land rights, (vii) increasing support for prevention of and response to GBV, and (viii) implementing fiscal policy and budget systems to close gender gaps. -
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Data Classification Matrix and Cloud Assessment Framework: Cloud Assessment Framework and Evaluation Methodology
(Washington, DC, 2023-03-16)This data classification matrix and cloud assessment framework supports the policy goals articulated in the World Bank’s Institutional and procurement practice note for cloud computing services in the public sector. The framework is intended to support World Bank client countries, practitioners, and multilateral and bilateral development partners to manage the risks of acquiring public cloud solutions. These suggestions are based on good practices identified in the practice note. The framework first offers a data classification scheme for government data and personally identifiable information (PII) of citizens that governments and their contractors handle based upon the confidentiality, integrity, and availability security objectives. The framework then suggests cloud security requirements corresponding to each proposed data classification level. These security requirements are based upon international standards and good practices identified in the practice note. The framework also offers a checklist for procuring agencies seeking to procure cloud services. -
Publication
Digital Public Goods for Disaster Risk Reduction in a Changing Climate
(Washington, DC, 2023-03-16)The growth of the disaster and climate risk analysis has largely taken place through the development of proprietary models and data only accessible to a restricted group of users. However, core digital assets have received a push early this century to open access so that larger populations can benefit from their use as public goods. This includes: (i) data used to produce evidence on past disasters or climatic conditions; (ii) models used by scientists to run future climate risk scenarios; (iii) technology and standards for disaster risk modeling; and (iv) crowdsourced maps created by volunteers and used by governments to prepare for and respond to crises. This briefing note aims to promote and explore ways that digital public goods can support disaster risk reduction. It starts by providing a series of definitions and historical context, before delving into the prevailing trends and opportunities that promote the use of open resources to support disaster risk reduction. The target audience for this note includes governments, international organizations, and other institutions that might want to play a role in advancing digital public goods. While the note focuses on disaster risk reduction, preventing new and reducing existing disaster risk, it also addresses the broader aspects of resilience and climate change adaption and might be of interest to practitioners or decision makers in those fields. Finally, this briefing note is a result of a collaboration between the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) with inputs from 40 people gathered through a virtual workshop in November 2021. While short and concise, this paper aims to inspire more discussions and actions at the nexus of digital technologies, disaster risk management, and international development.