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Tourism for Development: Lessons Learned from a Decade of World Bank Experience
Full text linkAcross low- and middle-income countries, tourism is increasingly seen as a powerful driver for economic growth, job creation, and the protection of cultural and environmental assets. This report shares key lessons learned from the past 10 years of World Bank knowledge and operational work in tourism. Over the past decade, the World Bank has mobilized over US$10 billion to support tourism development across 80 countries. In 2024, the authors reviewed over 100 World Bank tourism publications and a selection of 85 tourism lending operations that were active between 2012 and 2022 to identify trends in research and design and the factors that influence successful outcomes. This document presents a summary of the findings of that analysis. The analysis highlights the evidence of tourism’s role in development, examines research gaps, and recommends ways to improve the design of lending operations. This report is designed for professionals involved in tourism development, whether working within the World Bank or in partnership with other international organizations. It offers actionable insights to help ensure that tourism remains not only a driver of economic recovery, but also a pillar of sustainable and inclusive development
Educational Access and Learning Outcomes in Myanmar
Full text linkMyanmar’s education system stands at a critical juncture, shaped by overlapping crises and significant resilience. Following years of conflict, political instability, and economic stress, recent data reveal both progress and persistent vulnerabilities. Primary school enrollment has largely rebounded to levels observed before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the political crisis - particularly when compared to 2016/17 baseline estimates but participation in middle and high school remains severely constrained. This recovery trajectory underscores a stark divide: while younger children are increasingly returning to school, older adolescents especially those ages 15 to 17 face steep and often irreversible barriers to continuing their education. In fact, nearly 60 percent of all out-of-school children (OOSC) are in this older age group, and in some of the most conflict-affected states, high school net enrollment rates (NERs) remain as low as 5 percent in some states/regions. These patterns signal that the most urgent bottleneck to education access is no longer entry into the system, but keeping adolescents in school and offering meaningful second chance pathways for those who have already left
Beyond Wages: What Matters Most in Job Choice for Women in El Salvador
No full textThis paper studies job preferences among women in rural and peri-urban areas in El Salvador using a discrete choice experiment. Drawing on focus group insights, the analysis varies wages and five non‑wage job attributes—contract status, experience requirements, commute safety, residential address disclosure, and childcare availability—and estimates preferences using a mixed logit model. Women are willing to forgo substantial earnings for jobs that offer a safe commute, accessible childcare, and lower barriers to entry. Formal contracts play a limited role in job choice in this high informality context. Preferences are heterogeneous: risk averse and rural women place a particularly high premium on safety and childcare, while younger and less risk averse women are more sensitive to entry barriers and address related stigma. The results highlight the importance of labor market frictions that prevent wages from compensating for job disamenities and suggest that policies targeting safety, childcare, and access may be more effective than contract formalization in expanding women’s employment opportunities
The Real Price of Going Electric: Benchmarking E-Bus Transition Costs in LAC
No full textThis report benchmarks the costs of transitioning to electric bus (e-bus) fleets in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), drawing on data from 13 countries and 21 cities covering the period 2021–2025. It examines the full cost structure of e-bus deployment, including vehicle acquisition, charging infrastructure, and operating costs, and explains the substantial variation observed across markets. The findings show that e-bus costs are shaped by vehicle specifications, procurement scale, market maturity, and policy environments, with substantially greater price dispersion than conventional diesel buses. Charging infrastructure costs are highly sensitive to project scale, grid conditions, and depot location, highlighting the need for integrated transport and power sector planning. While e-buses offer clear operational advantages, these benefits depend on sound planning, competitive procurement, and coordinated policies. By improving transparency around key cost drivers, the report aims to support better decision making and accelerate the sustainable scale up of e-bus deployment in the region
Lebanon Economic Monitor, Winter 2025: A Fragile Rebound
Full text linkLebanon’s economy recorded positive growth in 2025, marking a modest step
toward a potential path for long-term recovery. The improvement reflects a rebound in tourism, alongside early signs of macroeconomic stabilization and some base-effect-driven gains following years of deep contraction. The election of a president,
the formation of a government, and progress on certain long-delayed reforms, such as the amendment of the Banking Secrecy Law, have contributed to a degree of institutional and political stabilization, albeit a fragile one. Ongoing regional conflict, intermittent security incidents, and persistent political polarization
continue to weigh on tourism, investment, and overall economic activity
Gestion des Déchets dans la Région Moyen-Orient et Afrique du Nord - Apercu
Full text linkThis report provides a high-level overview of the key findings and insights contained
in the report, “Waste Management in the Middle East and North Africa”.
The report draws on new data from the 19 MENA countries and 26 cities, and analyzes the performance of, and challenges in, solid waste management (SWM) systems across the region. It also proposes improvements to avoid the costs associated with poor management while realizing efficiency gains and seizing circular economy opportunities.رفيع المستوى للنتائج والرؤى الرئيسية الواردة
في تقرير "إدارة النفايات في منطقة الشرق الأوسط وشمال أفريقيا".
ويستند التقرير إلى بيانات جديدة من 19 بلدا في منطقة الشرق الأوسط وشمال أفريقيا و26 مدينة، ويحلل أداء أنظمة إدارة النفايات الصلبة والتحديات التي تواجهها في جميع أنحاء المنطقة. كما يقترح إدخال تحسينات لتفادي التكاليف المرتبطة بسوء الإدارة مع تحقيق مكاسب في الكفاءة واستغلال فرص الاقتصاد الدائري.Ce rapport offre un aperçu général des principales conclusions et perspectives contenues dans le rapport « Gestion des déchets au Moyen-Orient et en Afrique du Nord ». Le rapport s’appuie sur de nouvelles données provenant des 19 pays MENA et de 26 villes, et analyse la performance et les défis des systèmes de gestion des déchets solides (SWM) à travers la région. Il propose également des améliorations pour éviter les coûts liés à une mauvaise gestion tout en réalisant des gains d’efficacité et en saisissant les opportunités de l’économie circulaire
Empowering Economic Transformation through Digital Learning : The Case of FutureX in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Full text linkThis case study examines Saudi Arabia’s bold commitment to reimagining education and training through digital transformation, with FutureX as its flagship initiative. Across the globe, countries are working to equip their populations with skills needed for a rapidly changing world shaped by technological advancements, demographic shifts, climate challenges, and evolving labor market demands. Many regions, including Middle East and North Africa (MENA), face pressure from aging populations, climate risks, and quickly evolving labor market demands, requiring new approaches to educating and upskilling their populations. FutureX represents a strategic effort to respond to these challenges, offering a scalable, inclusive, and forward-looking model to equip learners with the skills needed to thrive in a rapidly changing world
Closing the Gender Gap in Entrepreneurship: Overcoming Challenges in Law and Practice for Female Entrepreneurs
Full text linkDespite significant strides toward gender equality, women around the world continue to encounter systemic obstacles that hinder their entrepreneurial success. This paper systematically reviews the literature on the barriers female entrepreneurs face and the solutions proposed to overcome these challenges. It discusses institutional factors, financial factors, human capital factors, and social and cultural factors. The literature overview is complemented by a series of stylized facts that illustrate how overcoming some of these existing barriers is correlated with improved women’s entrepreneurship and female labor force participation, drawing on the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law database as well as the World Bank’s Enterprise Surveys. The findings underscore the need for creating an enabling environment where women can thrive as entrepreneurs
FY 2025 Guatemala Country Opinion Survey Report
Full text linkThe Country Opinion Survey in Guatemala assists the World Bank Group (WBG) in better understanding how stakeholders in Guatemala 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 Guatemala on 1) their views regarding the general environment in Guatemala; 2) their overall attitudes toward the WBG in Guatemala; 3) overall impressions of the WBG’s effectiveness and results, knowledge work and activities, and communication and information sharing in Guatemala; and 4) their perceptions of the WBG’s future role in Guatemal
CLARE: A Causal machine Learning Approach to Resilience Estimation
Full text linkThis paper proposes a new resilience index, CLARE (Causal machine Learning Approach to Resilience Estimation), which is rooted in an impact evaluation framework and causal machine learning algorithms applied to longitudinal household survey data. The indicator is model-agnostic, data-driven, scalable, and normatively anchored to wellbeing thresholds, and can be either shock-specific or a general-purpose resilience metric. The paper provides an empirical demonstration of constructing the CLARE resilience index, leveraging more than 28,000 household observations from 19 nationally representative, longitudinal, multi-topic surveys that were implemented by the national statistical offices in Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda over 2009–20 in partnership with the World Bank Living Standards Measurement Study. Although the paper centers on measuring resilience to drought, the proposed index is applicable to any type of shock. The analysis shows that CLARE outperforms existing resilience metrics and alternative approaches to predict food insecurity out-of-sample—both in the future (dynamic forecasting) and in held-out countries (cross-sectional prediction). The index can be decomposed to causally identify the relative importance of resilience capacities that can insulate populations from shocks. Thus, it can be operationalized in designing, targeting, and monitoring policies and investments that aim to strengthen resilience. CLARE’s deployment—paired with continued investments in national longitudinal survey platforms—can boost the effectiveness of early-warning systems and resilience-building interventions, while allowing the transfer of resilience policy advice from data-rich contexts to data-poor environments that may not immediately provide the requisite longitudinal survey data for index estimation