Other ESW Reports
242 items available
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This includes miscellaneous ESW types and pre-2003 ESW type reports that are subsequently completed and released.
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Publication
Household Surveys during Multiple Crises: Modifying Questionnaires to Assess the Impact of Shocks
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-09-25)Beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has experienced multiple global crises in the last few years. As countries adapt to a new normal, multi-topic household surveys should also be adapted to account for the impacts of shocks on household welfare. By reviewing the standard household survey questionnaires included in the guidebook, capturing what matters: essential guidelines for designing household surveys, the authors provide technical guidance on issues to consider when reviewing, designing, or updating questionnaires for household surveys during or after a major shock - relying on lessons learned from the World Bank’s Living Standards Measurement Study program. -
Publication
Voices from Yemen
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-09-14)This report highlights respondents’ lived experiences during Yemen’s conflict as experts of their own experiences. This report aims to present the voices of Yemenis who have now spent eight years living through a civil war, economic crisis, and close to famine. This report is among the few authentically capturing Yemeni voices on a range of day-to-day issues from different governorates across the country. But arguably the small sample size limits ability to generalize findings. However, generalizing findings was not the intention of the report. For each theme, 'Voices from Yemen' presents a multi-stakeholder perspective to mitigate bias towards a single stakeholder group or geographical area. Moreover, the report’s findings are in line with those in quantitative reports, such as ‘Surviving in the Times of War’ or the ‘World Bank Phone Survey’ report on food security. ‘Voices from Yemen’ presents a comprehensive picture of suffering derived from human stories behind the statistics. The conflict has made Yemeni lives unaffordable, uncertain, vulnerable, and often unbearable. The power of people’s speech and the intensity of their stories narrate their grave vulnerabilities and the sense of helplessness and suffering the conflict has caused. -
Publication
Unlocking Blue Carbon Development: Investment Readiness Framework for Governments
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-09-11)The purpose of this paper is to provide a practical framework to guide governments in catalyzing and scaling up public and private investment in Blue Carbon as part of their blue economy development. It does this by describing in detail a Blue Carbon Readiness Framework, a step-by-step, well-illustrated guide with simple checklists. Client countries can use the illustrations and checklists to determine their readiness to catalyze and scale up investment in blue carbon credit finance. The Blue Carbon Readiness Framework consists of three pillars: 1. Data and Analytics; 2. Policy and Institutions; 3. Finance. -
Publication
The Leaders of the Twin Transition in Asia: Mapping Capabilities through Digital and Green Patents
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-08-17)This report examines how technology affects digital and green transitions in 128 cities across 17 Asian countries. It identifies cities that lead, follow, or have the potential to develop green and digital technologies using patent data analysis. Relatedness Density maps are produced for each digital and green technology, indicating the level of potential and the relative position each city has to develop Twin Transition technologies. A complementarity indicator is used to identify potential partner cities that can provide complementary capabilities to a city to develop green or digital technology. The analysis finds that digital and green technologies are not necessarily closely associated with each other, though some technologies can be used for both, such as smart grids. Furthermore, digital capabilities affect the development of both digital and green technologies. Based on the findings, the research suggests cities need to consider the relative strengths of their technologies instead of following a 'one-size-fits-all' approach, and cities need to target partners cities that can offer complementary capabilities to enable the green and digital transitions. -
Publication
North and Northeastern Development Initiative (NEDI): Boosting Shared Prosperity for the North and Northeastern Counties of Kenya
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-08-10)Kenya’s north and northeastern region is a host to 11 percent of the total population scattered across 63 percent of the country’s landmass. The arid and semi-arid region experiences recurrent droughts that create vulnerabilities for the nomadic pastoralist communities, pervasive insecurity, suffers fragility, and has been a host to the largest population of refugees in sub-Saharan Africa over the last three decades. These policy choices contributed to the significant lag in most of the development indicators for this region compared to the rest of the country. The region has huge infrastructure deficits, low literacy rates, and contributes only a modest 4.7 percent to the national gross domestic product. To address the socio-economic disparities and inequality challenges, the Government of Kenya with support from World Bank (WB) launched the North and Northeastern Development Initiative (NEDI) in 2018. The NEDI, the region’s first significant, integrated, and transformative investment, cuts across foundational sectors including energy, water, transport, social protection, displacement, and agriculture. -
Publication
Affordable Devices for All: Innovative Financing Solutions and Policy Options to Bridge Global Digital Divides
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-08-10)Nearly 2.7 billion people globally are still offline and not using the internet. The majority (94 percent) of unconnected individuals live in low- and middle-income countries, where the cost of internet-enabled mobile devices remains a key connectivity barrier. This report aims to guide the efforts of policy makers and international financial institutions (IFIs) in promoting affordable mobile device ownership and increasing adoption and usage of broadband services, with a focus on these low-income individuals in developing countries often overlooked by previous research. The report examines the key themes and drivers of costs in the supply and demand for Internet-enabled mobile devices. The report also reviews various financing schemes and opportunities for private capital mobilization that could make it possible for low-income individuals to access a smartphone. -
Publication
Towards Better Labor Migration Systems in Northern Central America: Overview of Findings from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-08-01)This note aims to close the knowledge gap about the effectiveness and capacity of labor migration sending systems in NCA countries. The report assesses whether NCA countries have the fundamental elements of an effective labor migration sending system, identifies the missing elements, and offers recommendations for strengthening the systems over time. Filling such a knowledge gap is critical to inform policies that maximize the benefits and minimize the costs of economic migration. Programs and policies that help expand legal pathways for regular migration will not only promote mutually beneficial migration, but could be a step, albeit small, towards dissuading individuals from pursuing risky migration patterns. Indeed, evidence from Mexico indicates that investing in legal labor pathways can reduce irregular migration (Clemens and Gough, 2018). In this context, this note summarizes the main findings from three institutional diagnostics of the labor migration sending systems in NCA countries, with a view to deepening the understanding of the supply side of labor flows. To this end, and building on previous World Bank experience globally, a diagnostic tool was developed to identify what steps the NCA governments have taken to recognize and respond to foreign demand for workers. The tool examines if appropriate structures, systems, processes, and resources exist to prepare and deliver adequate labor supply arrangements in the context of bilateral agreements (BLAs) or Temporary Work Agreements (TWAs) with other countries. The diagnostic tool is organized around four main pillars to regulate, facilitate, fortify, and further access of labor migrants to international labor markets. -
Publication
RWI Phase 3 Report on Regulatory Trends
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-07-25)The Regulatory Watch Initiative (RWI) is designed as a supplementary tool to aid national administrations in contemplating, analyzing, and drafting policies, laws, and regulations. It can also provide insight on comparative measures to spur Digital Economy growth by informing decision-makers about gaps, trends, and best practices for developing a fully enabling environment and to support the adoption of digital infrastructure for integrated and balanced economic and social development. -
Publication
Does Quality of Electricity Supply Matter for Development? An Evaluation of Service Level Benefits in Nepal
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-07-25)People desire electricity not for its own sake but for the wide-ranging services it provides from lighting, communication and entertainment, refrigeration, and cooking to space conditioning and business development or improvement. That is, electricity is only useful when it powers the appliances, machines, and other devices that yield outcomes favorable to household well-being and quality of life. An extensive body of literature shows that having an electricity connection contributes to enhancing household income, productivity, and children’s education, among other types of welfare benefits. The findings of these studies also show that the welfare impacts of electrification vary by the level of service provided and the type of household connection. -
Publication
Understanding Urban Informality in Iraq: Findings from the Informal Sector Enterprise Survey
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-07-24)In Iraq, like many countries around the world, the informal sector is a major contributor to employment and business activity. The Iraq Labor Force Survey (LFS) of 2021 estimated that more than half of the workers in the country do not contribute to social insurance, consequently informal. Recent surveys conducted by the Central Statistics Organization (CSO) and the Kurdistan Region Statistics Office (KRSO) in collaboration with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) found that 80 percent and 60 percent of businesses, respectively, are not registered with any public entity, consequently informal. Recognizing the prevalence of this sector and its role in people’s earning and consumption, this report extends the knowledge about Iraq’s urban informality through a new survey. The Informal Sector Enterprise Survey (ISES) was led by the World Bank, with the objective of further illuminating the characteristics of urban informal businesses and their workers. It was conducted in four key cities: Baghdad, Basrah, Najaf and Sulaymaniyah. It is complemented by two other World Bank surveys fielded around the same time: the World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) and the Micro-enterprise survey of 2022, both of which focus on formal businesses. The next sections are organized as follows. Section II explains the data collection process and final sample. Section III highlights the key findings. Section IV proposes some key policy and program priorities to improve the lives of the people who work in the sector and the performance of the businesses. Section VII concludes with a few remarks on the potential for future research on Iraq’s informality.