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How Will Changing Eldercare Needs Impact Indonesia's Workforce?
No full textIndonesia’s population is aging, signaling both challenges and opportunities for the nation’s workforce. The old-age dependency ratio, the proportion of elderly to the working-age population, is expected to more than double over the next quarter of a century, from 11.0 percent in 2025 to 22.8 percent in 2050. Higher dependency ratios are associated with lower economic growth, and aging populations can lead to higher medical expenses and a shrinking workforce. Although formal eldercare systems are expanding, most elderly people in low- and middle-income countries rely on family-based care, which hinders caregivers' labor supply, particularly women. At the same time, healthy elderly often contribute to unpaid childcare and domestic work, which frees time for younger individuals to work. While previous studies suggest that the continued engagement of elderly in the labor force could enhance overall productivity, including that of younger workers, emerging evidence casts some nuances. Older workers could limit opportunities of younger workers when older and younger workers exhibit substitutable skills. Global evidence suggests that the continued engagement of elderly in the labor force can both limit opportunities for younger workers and enhance overall productivity. Given the complex relationship among aging, care, and market work, country-specific analysis is needed to guide policy decisions to minimize the risks and harness the opportunities of aging for the workforce. This report explores how the aging population shapes the eldercare needs and the workforce needs to inform the policy dialogue on Indonesia’s care economy. It provides descriptive evidence of the magnitude of both the financial and nonfinancial support that elderly Indonesians require and how these needs have shifted over time. It also presents information on how eldercare needs are currently met and unpacks the relationships among aging, care provision, and labor market outcomes. It does not provide a comprehensive analysis of aging’s effects on the economy; it focuses instead on the nexus of aging, care, and work. The report aims to inform the implementation of Indonesia’s strategic goal of strengthening care systems by identifying the challenges of current eldercare arrangements and reviewing the evidence of promising solutions
ID Meets Instant: Enabling Trusted, Inclusive Fast Payments through Digital ID
Full text linkDigital public infrastructure has become a foundation for building modern, inclusive digital economies. Its three core pillars - digital ID, fast payment systems (FPS), and trusted data exchange - enable secure participation, efficient service delivery, and innovation across sectors. Yet in most countries, these pillars have evolved in parallel rather than as an integrated system, resulting in persistent frictions for users, providers, and authorities. This white paper presents a conceptual model for integrating digital identity into fast payment systems and introducing new ways to make and receive payments through verifiable credentials. The objective is to explore how interoperability between digital ID and payments can address enduring challenges related to fraud prevention, customer onboarding, authentication, and the seamless integration of identity into transaction flows. The paper highlights how identity-linked credentials can support broader inclusion and functionality. Credentials can be delivered through multiple access channels, including digital ID wallets, interoperable wallets, payment service provider (PSP) applications, QR codes, and single-use tokens, ensuring usability across different devices and connectivity conditions. The model also supports controlled delegation, enabling individuals, businesses, or automated agents to act on behalf of users under clearly defined and auditable rules. The white paper situates this framework within international experience, noting that while some jurisdictions have begun linking digital ID and payments, most implementations remain narrowly focused on onboarding and know-your-customer processes. At the same time, the paper recognizes that integrating identity and payments at scale raises significant governance, legal, and operational challenges. Effective implementation requires robust frameworks for consumer protection, data privacy, liability, and institutional coordination, as well as careful attention to user experience and trust
Bosnia and Herzegovina Public Finance Review: Fiscal Policy and Growth - Smart Revenue, Inclusive Spending
Full text linkThe Public Finance Review (PFR) for Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) aims to support policymakers in strengthening medium-term fiscal frameworks and aligning
fiscal policy with sustainable and inclusive growth. Against the backdrop of BiH’s
highly decentralized governance structure, heightened demographic pressures, and
a consumption-driven economy, the review identifies key challenges that threaten
long-term fiscal stability and EU convergence
The Effect of Survey Mode on Data Quality: Experimental Evidence from Nigeria
Full text linkThis paper uses a large-scale experiment in rural Nigeria to study the role of survey mode—in-person versus over the phone—in survey measurement and data quality. The experimental design isolates mode effects from other common sources of errors in surveys and covers 20 outcome measures across topics such as health, labor, shocks, wellbeing, and food security. The findings indicate consistent mode effects across outcomes, with phone responses differing from in-person responses by 17-18 percent at the median. These effects are large relative to other errors in phone surveys, such as under-coverage of households without phones. A within-respondent design enables capturing the full, respondent-level distribution of mode effects and finds them to vary much more than the averages reveal. Respondents with higher education levels are less prone to mode effects, whereas mode effects sharply increase in prevalence as respondents face more answer options. As the reliance on phone surveys in low- and middle-income countries grows, these findings indicate areas with large potential for data quality gains and have first-order implications for economic research in low- and middle-income countries
Global Fertility Responses to Climate-Related Hazards Depend on Population Disruption, Lethality, and Hazard Type
No full textGlobal fertility is declining, yet it remains unclear whether and how climate-related hazards contribute to realized fertility change. This paper combines global fertility data with disaster records for 1950–2023 to estimate fertility responses to climate-related hazards, distinguishing between population disruption (affected-rate exposure) and lethality (death-rate exposure). Climate-related hazards show no systematic fertility response under population disruption but are associated with persistent fertility reductions under lethality lasting at least 15 years. Aggregate climate estimates mask heterogeneity across hazard types: storms and drought-related hazards drive fertility declines, whereas heat and cold waves are associated with modest fertility increases. Hydrological events show additional negative effects in high-lethality episodes. Over time, disruption-based effects remain weak, and lethality-based effects are consistently negative, although they have attenuated in recent decades. Fertility responses vary little across income groups, and non-climate disasters remain fertility-reducing. These results show that fertility responses to climate risk depend on hazard type and lethal severity, rather than on how many people are affected
Malawi Economic Monitor, February 2026: Getting Reforms Right - Special Topic - Reversing Malawi's Export Decline
No full textThe new administration has initiated a series of important policy reforms, but sluggish growth, heightened inflationary pressures, and insufficient investment continue to undermine living standards. The newly elected administration has initiated important policy reforms to support macroeconomic stabilization since the September 2025 elections, but economic fundamentals remain weak. Malawi’s economy continues to struggle to keep up with population growth, resulting in eroding living standards. Real gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to have grown by only 1.9 percent in 2025, up slightly from 1.7 percent in 2024, but with the population expanding by around 2.6 percent, GDP per capita fell for the fourth consecutive year. The modest improvement in real GDP in 2025 reflected a partial recovery in agriculture after the 2024 drought. However, output remains constrained by below-average rainfall and shortages of inputs, including fertilizer, and weak industrial activity amid fuel and power supply disruptions, acute foreign exchange shortages, and other structural challenges. Macroeconomic stabilization remains the central priority as the new administration faces difficult choices, while managing growing public pressure following tax increases and price adjustments. The government has initiated long-overdue reforms to restore spending discipline, increase revenues, reprofile domestic debt, and restore policy discipline. However, fiscal and external imbalances remain large. Despite some progress, the challenges of high borrowing, rigid recurrent spending, weak export earnings, and constrained private investment remain largely unresolved. In turn, more will need to be done to advance the necessary macro-fiscal and structural reforms that can bolster investment, support exports, create jobs and enable the higher levels of economic growth needed to achieve the aims set out in Malawi 2063
Mapping Influence: Approaches to Managing Corruption Risks through Domestic Politically Exposed Persons Lists
No full textThis report explains how countries can better manage corruption and money laundering risks by identifying domestic politically exposed persons (PEPs) - public officials who hold influential positions. It provides practical guidance on whether and how governments should create domestic PEP lists (based on positions or named individuals), weighing benefits, costs, legal risks, and privacy concerns. Drawing on global standards (notably Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Recommendation 12) and country examples, it outlines six key steps to design, govern, update, and use PEP lists as part of a risk based anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML and CFT) standards approach. The goal is to improve targeting of high risk cases, reduce compliance burdens, and strengthen integrity systems
Frontier Market Economies: Promise, Performance, and Prospects
Full text linkFrontier markets—a subset of emerging market and developing economies characterized by meaningful but limited access to international financial markets—have considerable promise. Already home to one-fifth of the world’s population, but only 5 percent of its output, today’s frontier markets are projected to account for most of the global population increase to 2050. Many frontier markets have large natural resource endowments. Relative to other developing economies, they also have more physical capital, healthier and better-educated workforces, and stronger institutions. Access to international markets provides financing opportunities. Outcomes in frontier markets will be pivotal for global job creation and development progress.
As a group, frontier markets’ economic outcomes since 2000 have not fully delivered on this promise, however. Per capita output and investment growth in the median frontier market halved between the 2000s and the early 2020s. Poverty reduction progress has slowed. Financial openness has increased, and frontier markets’ share of global capital flows has risen, but financial integration remains partial. Surges in capital inflows support growth but are often followed by disruptive stops. Although sovereign debt maturities have increased, the composition of frontier markets’ debt implies vulnerabilities. Around 40 percent of frontier markets have defaulted since 2000. In the five years from 2020, frontier markets experienced more defaults than all other economies combined.
To capitalize on frontier markets’ potential, a multi-faceted policy approach is required. Some frontier markets have fared better than others, and faster-growing frontier markets since 2000 share some key features: stronger investment growth, more improved institutions, and better-contained government debt. Advancing financial integration while improving oversight capacity, developing local financial markets, and enhancing policy buffers can help harness investment; expanding and diversifying exports can support resilience and development. Bolstering macroeconomic stability and enhancing policy credibility can provide a platform for effective financial integration. Catalyzing investment and productivity growth, including via strong foundational infrastructure, is essential to helping frontier markets capitalize on their market access, demographic potential, and resource endowments
Firm Credit Constraints and Electronic Payments: A Global Analysis
No full textUnderstanding the drivers of credit constraints is essential for fostering private sector development and firm growth. This study examines the channels through which electronic payments influence firm credit constraints across 101 economies. It explores heterogeneity at the firm and aggregate levels to identify key policy and environmental factors that shape this relationship. The findings indicate that payment digitalization plays a critical role in alleviating firm credit constraints, particularly for small firms and in economies with weaker credit infrastructure and lower levels of financial development. These results support the view that electronic payments help reduce information asymmetries between firms and lenders, thereby improving lending opportunities
FY 2025 Angola Country Opinion Survey Report
Full text linkThe Country Opinion Survey in Angola assists the World Bank Group (WBG) in better understanding how stakeholders in Angola perceive the WBG. It provides the WBG with systematic feedback from national and local governments, multilateral/bilateral agencies, media, academia, the private sector, and civil society in Angola on 1) their views regarding the general environment in Angola; 2) their overall attitudes toward the WBG in Angola; 3) overall impressions of the WBG’s effectiveness and results, knowledge work and activities, and communication and information sharing in Angola; and 4) their perceptions of the WBG’s future role in Angola