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Towards the Sustainable and Low-Carbon Development of Oasis Landscapes in Tunisia: Technical Report
Get PDFThis report provides strategic guidance to support the Government of Tunisia in advancing the sustainable development of oasis landscapes in southern Tunisia. It offers an overview of these landscapes, estimates greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from current management practices, and identifies opportunities for GHG mitigation and job creation through more sustainable approaches. Scenario analyses explore various development pathways and their implications, while practical recommendations and a preliminary action plan outline potential investments. As a key deliverable of the World Bank’s “Nature-based Solutions for Recovery and Sustainable Development of the Oasis and Ecotourism Sectors in the Maghreb” program, the report also aims to inform future discussions between the World Bank and the Government of Tunisia regarding investment and analytical initiatives
Exploring Plastic Circularity Opportunities in the Electrical and Electronics Sector
Get PDFMalaysia’s home appliances sector generates substantial plastic waste, primarily from end-of-life items like refrigerators and televisions. Key recyclable plastics include polypropylene (PP) and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), which have broad application potential. However, only a small portion of this waste is collected and recycled, highlighting the need for cross-sector recycling strategies such as open-loop systems. A national collaborative effort is essential to improve recycling in the electrical and electronics (E&E) sector. This third report in the Malaysian Plastic Circularity Series explores durable plastic recycling opportunities, aiming to attract private investment and build a sustainable market across the value chain
PFR Fundamentals: Fiscal Policy and Women’s Economic Empowerment
No full textThis PFR Guidance Note on Fiscal Policy and Women’s Economic Empowerment supports World Bank country teams in integrating a gender lens into the macro fiscal, revenue, and expenditure chapters of PFRs. Fiscal policy can play an important role in reducing gender gaps, enhancing women’s economic empowerment, and contributing to inclusive growth. The design and administration of tax policies can impact gender equality. Public spending on services like childcare, eldercare, water, sanitation, and safe transport can ease unpaid care burdens that disproportionately fall on women. Investments in digital access and infrastructure also support women’s labor force participation (LFP) .While not all fiscal policy instruments can directly address gender disparities, fiscal policy remains a powerful lever for advancing inclusive growth and improving women’s wellbeing
Exploring Enabling Energy Frameworks for Electric Mobility in Rwanda
Get PDFThe report Exploring Enabling Energy Frameworks for Battery Electric Buses in Rwanda assesses the capacity of Rwanda’s energy sector to support the growing shift toward electric mobility, with a focus on battery electric buses (BEBs). Undertaken within the framework of the World Bank’s Rwanda Urban Mobility Improvement Project (RUMI), the study evaluates technical, regulatory, institutional, and financial considerations critical to this transition. It assesses projected electricity demand, grid impacts, and the deployment of charging infrastructure, with a particular focus on urban centers such as Kigali. The analysis highlights the importance of smart charging, cost-reflective tariffs, and alignment with international standards to ensure grid stability and long-term system compatibility. The report also reviews policy frameworks, investment opportunities, and the potential role of public-private partnerships in scaling infrastructure. A case study of the Nyabugogo transit hub demonstrates the benefits of integrated planning and decentralized energy solutions. The findings and recommendations aim to strengthen a coordinated and data-driven approach to BEB implementation that balances growing transport electrification needs with energy system resilience
Seismic Resilience: Experience and Lessons Learned from Japan
Get PDFJapan is a global leader in seismic resilience. The whole country is exposed to high risk of earthquakes, as well as landslides, floods, extreme weather
events, and other hazards. Over the years, Japan has adapted its disaster regulations and practice, learning from past experiences and integrating new
technologies and information into its approach. In addition to strengthening seismic resilience in the country and innovating approaches to it. Japan
is also among the leading international actors promoting reforms and good practices in disaster risk management (DRM) more generally. Japan has been instrumental in the promotion of the Hyogo Framework for Action and the Sendai Framework
for Disaster Risk Reduction. Following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami (GEJE), Japan further scaled up its efforts to support countries
around the world with DRM-related knowledge, experience, best practices, and innovation
Living or Leaving: Life in the Mekong Delta Region of Viet Nam
Get PDFThe Mekong Delta has long been one of Viet Nam’s most vital economic and agricultural hubs. Home to nearly 18 million people and the source of most of the country’s rice, fruit, and fish exports, it has played a central role in national development. Yet its economic weight has diminished as Viet Nam’s growth has shifted away from agriculture. Even so, the region made remarkable strides in reducing poverty in recent decades, buoyed by high agricultural productivity, expanding wage employment in the non-agricultural sector, and rising remittances. That momentum has now faltered. A succession of environmental shocks, both climate-driven and human induced, has eroded these gains and exposed the fragility of the Delta’s development model. This report draws heavily on the extensive body of academic and policy research that has documented the Mekong Delta’s evolving social, economic, and environmental landscape. The analysis builds on these foundational insights to understand the structural forces shaping livelihoods and mobility in the region. These findings are complemented by new and old evidence from the 2024 Life in the Mekong Survey and the Viet Nam Household and Living Standards Survey (VHLSS), which together provide a snapshot of household welfare, migration patterns, and perceptions of risk and opportunity. By integrating established research with new empirical data, the report aims to present a grounded and current account of the transitions underway in the Mekong Delta, anchored in evidence and oriented toward actionable policy recommendations
Evidence from Groundwater Irrigation in India
Get PDFThis study explores the impact of private investment in groundwater extraction for irrigation on the spatial and sectoral distribution of rural economic activity in India. Exploiting a kink in access to groundwater, generated from an absolute technological constraint on the operational capacity of irrigation pumps with depth of the water table, there is evidence of a significant improvement in agricultural production accompanied with modest consumption gains. Groundwater extraction causes a substantial increase in population density, but has no effect on the employment rate or labor reallocation between sectors of the economy. Furthermore, irrigated agriculture appears to provide additional employment opportunities for waged labor from surrounding non- irrigated villages
Revisiting Public Capital Needs: An Analysis of Growth-Maximizing Investment with Efficiency and Congestion Effects
Get PDFThis paper estimates growth-maximizing levels of public capital and investment across countries using a structural framework that accounts for three critical features: public investment efficiency, human capital levels, and congestion effects. A harmonized panel data set covering 166 countries over 1960–2024 was assembled to estimate public capital output elasticities for the entire sample and for countries clustered by income group. These estimates are used to calibrate an endogenous growth model yielding closed-form expressions for the optimal public investment-to-output ratio. The analysis finds a public capital output elasticity of around 0.20, which implies that countries invest slightly below their growth-maximizing levels. For the full sample and a homogeneous elasticity of public capital, the observed investment-to-output ratio averages 4.6 percent, significantly below the growth-maximizing level of 5.4 percent. The shortfall in aggregate investment becomes even more significant when using higher output elasticities of public capital. The aggregate results show considerable heterogeneity: public investment in advanced and emerging economies is, on average, 1.5 to 1.8 percent of gross domestic product below the growth- maximizing levels, while in low-income countries the gap is far wider at 3.2 percent of gross domestic product. Improving public expenditure efficiency can enable countries to increase investment without compromising fiscal sustainability. The analysis also finds that countries with large resource revenues, greater revenue and expenditure volatility, weaker fiscal governance, and lower institutional quality are more likely to have excessive levels of public investment. These results provide benchmarks for assessing public investment gaps and underscore the importance of expenditure efficiency, high-quality fiscal governance, and robust public institutions in achieving optimal levels of public investment
Commodity Markets Outlook, October 2025
Get PDFCommodity prices are expected to decline by about 7 percent overall this year, reflecting subdued global economic activity, elevated trade tensions and policy uncertainty, ample global supply of oil, and weather-related supply shocks. In 2026, commodity prices are forecast to fall by a further 7 percent, a fourth consecutive year of decline, as global growth remains sluggish and the oil market oversupplied. Energy price movements are envisaged to continue contributing to global disinflation in 2026. Metals and minerals prices are expected to remain stable in 2026, while agricultural prices are projected to edge down, primarily due to strong supply conditions. Precious metals prices are expected to rise another 5 percent, after a historically large, investment-driven rally of about 40 percent in 2025. Risks to the commodity price projections are tilted to the downside. Key downside risks include weaker-than-expected global growth, a longer-than-assumed period of economic policy uncertainty, and additional oversupply of oil. Upside risks include intensifying geopolitical tensions, the market impact of additional oil sanctions, supply reductions stemming from additional trade restrictions, unfavorable weather conditions, faster-than-expected rollout of new data centers. Commodity price volatility in recent years has revived interest in supply management via international commodity agreements. Historical experience, however, shows that the most effective policy is to promote diversification, innovation, transparency, and market-based pricing—measures that build lasting resilience to commodity price volatility
Croatia Country Climate and Development Report
Get PDFThe World Bank Group’s Country Climate and Development Reports (CCDRs) are a core diagnostic that integrates climate change and development. They help countries prioritize the most impactful actions that can reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and boost adaptation and resilience, while delivering on broader development goals. CCDRs build on data and rigorous research and identify main pathways to reduce GHG emissions and climate vulnerabilities, including the costs and challenges as well as benefits and opportunities from doing so. The reports suggest concrete, priority actions to support the low-carbon, resilient transition. As public documents, CCDRs aim to inform governments, citizens, the private sector and development partners and enable engagements with the development and climate agenda. CCDRs feed into other core Bank Group diagnostics, country engagements and operations, and help attract funding and direct financing for high-impact climate action.The World Bank Group’s Country Climate and Development Reports (CCDRs) are a core diagnostic that integrates climate change and development. They help countries prioritize the most impactful actions that can reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and boost adaptation and resilience, while delivering on broader development goals. CCDRs build on data and rigorous research and identify main pathways to reduce GHG emissions and climate vulnerabilities, including the costs and challenges as well as benefits and opportunities from doing so. The reports suggest concrete, priority actions to support the low-carbon, resilient transition. As public documents, CCDRs aim to inform governments, citizens, the private sector and development partners and enable engagements with the development and climate agenda. CCDRs feed into other core Bank Group diagnostics, country engagements and operations, and help attract funding and direct financing for high-impact climate action.The World Bank Group’s Country Climate and Development Reports (CCDRs) are a core diagnostic that integrates climate change and development. They help countries prioritize the most impactful actions that can reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and boost adaptation and resilience, while delivering on broader development goals. CCDRs build on data and rigorous research and identify main pathways to reduce GHG emissions and climate vulnerabilities, including the costs and challenges as well as benefits and opportunities from doing so. The reports suggest concrete, priority actions to support the low-carbon, resilient transition. As public documents, CCDRs aim to inform governments, citizens, the private sector and development partners and enable engagements with the development and climate agenda. CCDRs feed into other core Bank Group diagnostics, country engagements and operations, and help attract funding and direct financing for high-impact climate action.This Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) examines the implications of climate change and climate policy for Croatia’s development objectives, priorities, and pathways. It identifies opportunities for the country to achieve both its development goals and its climate commitments through a coherent set of policies. The report lays out a combination of sectoral and economy-wide policy reforms and targeted investments in near- and medium-term decarbonization and adaptation measures designed to achieve more rapid, more inclusive, and greener development. The idea is to maximize synergies between climate and development objectives, while addressing trade-offs among policy objectives and key transition challenges. The CCDR is structured in five sections: chapter focuses on Croatia’s development context, including its priorities; its main economic challenges; the risks that climate change, disasters, and national decarbonization efforts create; and the opportunities that the climate transition opens up. Chapter 2 analyzes Croatia’s existing climate commitments and policies and analyzes the institutional framework for achieving the country’s climate and development ambitions. Chapter 3 explores pathways to achieving decarbonization and climate resilience. Using Croatia’s commitment to climate neutrality by 2050 (net zero by 2050 [NZ2050]) as a basis, the chapter analyzes the challenges of, and opportunities for, achieving (a) its decarbonization goals associated with the energy, transport, waste, agriculture, and forests sectors by charting a representative net-zero pathway to 2050 as well as (b) resilience to climate change and natural hazards in the water, agriculture, and tourism sectors and in cities. Chapter 4 explores the macroeconomic and distributional implications of climate transition. It assesses the transition’s financial and economic costs and benefits, placing it in the context of the constrained macro-fiscal environment, and proposes options to enhance fiscal capacity to fund the transition. It also analyzes the transition’s impacts on poverty, equity, and jobs and proposes avenues for addressing these and financing the transition. Chapter 5 concludes with prioritized policy and investment packages and actions that should be emphasized over the next 3–5 years to enable Croatia to seize opportunities and reduce risks associated with climate change while achieving its development goals