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Evidence from Brazil
No full textWhat is the environmental impact of exports? Focusing on 2000–20, this paper combines customs, administrative, and census microdata to estimate employment elasticities with respect to exports. The findings show that municipalities that faced increased exports experienced faster growth in formal employment. The elasticities were 0.25 on impact, peaked at 0.4, and remained positive and significant even 10 years after the shock, pointing to a long and protracted labor market adjustment. In the long run, informal employment responds negatively to export shocks. Using a granular taxonomy for economic activities based on their environmental impact, the paper documents that environmentally risky activities have a larger share of employment than environmentally sustainable ones, and that the relationship between these activities and exports is nuanced. Over the short run, environmentally risky employment responds more strongly to exports relative to environmentally sustainable employment. However, over the long run, this pattern reverses, as the impact of exports on environmentally sustainable employment is more persistent
Can Development Programs Counter Insurgencies? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Afghanistan
No full textWe exploit a randomized controlled trial conducted between 2007 and 2011 to identify the effect of Afghanistan's largest local governance and development program on the strength of the insurgency. We find that the program reduced violence, improved economic outcomes, and increased government support in interior regions of the country, but increased violence in villages close to the Pakistani border, where foreign insurgents were more numerous. The results suggest that development programs can be effective in suppressing locally driven insurgencies, but may be counterproductive where insurgents are not reliant on the local population for support
Technical Guidance Note on Standardizing Digital MRV in Carbon Markets: System Evaluation Criteria and Hotspots Assessment
No full textThe "Technical Guidance Note on Standardizing Digital MRV in Carbon Markets: System Evaluation Criteria and Hotspots Assessment" is one of five guidance notes prepared by the Carbon Markets Infrastructure Working Group (CMI WG). This note offers a practical foundation for standardizing and scaling digital Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (dMRV) systems across carbon markets. It presents an evaluation criteria for assessing system performance, identifies key workflow areas where digitization can add value, and provides targeted recommendations to support the effective adoption of dMRV. Developed for use by standard-setting bodies, VVBs, governments, and digital solution providers, the note contributes to the design of robust, interoperable systems aligned with evolving global standards. When effectively implemented, dMRV can lower transaction costs, improve data accuracy, and enable faster, more credible climate action at scale
Interconnections for Policy and Practice
No full textIndigenous Peoples and local communities (IPLCs) are often depicted as highly vulnerable to the environmental and human impacts of anthropogenic climate change. At the same time, they are increasingly recognized as prominent contributors toward global efforts to combat climate change. In particular, their intergenerational, place-based knowledge systems contain much valuable information about climate variability and local environments, and collectively their trove of knowledge and know-how constitutes a strategic resource for developing more effective climate assessment, mitigation, and adaptation capabilities. This report examines the interconnections between indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) and climate change for policy and practice purposes. It looks at how ILK can contribute to strategies for dealing with anthropogenic climate change and its impacts, and how such changes may exert influences on the utility and vitality of ILK systems moving forward
Methodology Handbook
No full textWomen, Business and the Law has the objective to inform research, policy discussions, and development operations on women's economic opportunities by producing primary data on laws, regulations, and policies and the extent of their enforcement. The project aims to provide measurable benchmarks for global progress toward gender equality through regular data updates, reports, and associated research covering 190 economies and 10 topics relevant to women’s economic participation
Diagnostic de l'économie numérique de la Mauritanie
No full textThis assessment of Mauritania’s digital economy is part of the World Bank Group (WBG) Digital
Economy for Africa (DE4A) initiative, which supports the operationalization of the African
Union Digital Transformation Strategy for Africa 2020–2030. The strategy, developed by the African Union with WBG support and adopted in February 2020, seeks to harness digital technologies and innovation to transform Africa’s societies and economies. The initiative has set an ambitious vision, underpinned by measurable goals and indicators, to ensure that every African individual, business, and government is digitally enabled by 2030. The initiative is rooted in the five core principles of being comprehensive, transformative, inclusive, homegrown, and collaborative. It also seeks to ensure that the digital economy addresses emerging risks, such as cybersecurity and the growing market concentration associated with a platform-based economy.Cette évaluation de l’économie numérique de la Mauritanie s’inscrit dans le cadre du rapport du Groupe de la Banque mondiale (GBM) Economie pour l’Afrique (DE4A), qui soutient l’opérationnalisation de l’initiative Stratégie de l’Union pour la transformation numérique de l’Afrique 2020-2030. La stratégie, élaborée par l’Union africaine avec le soutien du Groupe de la Banque mondiale et adoptée en février 2020, vise à exploiter les technologies numériques et l’innovation pour transformer les sociétés et les économies africaines. L’initiative a défini une vision ambitieuse, étayée par des objectifs et des indicateurs mesurables, pour faire en sorte que chaque individu, entreprise et gouvernement africain soit équipé du numérique d’ici 2030. L’initiative est ancrée dans les cinq principes fondamentaux suivants : être globale, transformatrice, inclusive, locale et collaborative. Il vise également à faire en sorte que l’économie numérique s’attaque aux risques émergents, tels que la cybersécurité et la concentration croissante du marché associée à une économie fondée sur les plateformes
Key Takeaways from a Meta-Analysis
No full textThis paper conducts a meta-analysis of 24 studies evaluating the impact of formal loans on small and medium-sized enterprise performance. Using a Bayesian hierarchical model, the paper estimates that formal loans increase small and medium-sized enterprise employment by 12 percent, sales by 18.3 percent, and profits by 17.6 percent. Subgroup analyses show that the effects of credit on employment are larger when loans are issued by public rather than private banks, and the effects are broadly similar across firm size, country income levels, and guarantee structures. The larger impact of public bank loans suggests that private lenders’ profit-maximizing incentives may not always align with providing funds to the most credit-constrained firms that have the highest returns to capital
Innovative Financial Instruments and Their Role in the Development of Jurisdictional REDD+
Get PDFAchieving global net zero carbon emissions requires stopping deforestation and making full use of tropical forests as carbon sinks. Market instruments for the sale and purchase of emission outcomes coming from Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation framework programs could play a very significant role in achieving this goal. The development of these markets has been insufficient so far: their scale as of today is much lower than what would be required to generate meaningful resources for the countries that host tropical forests, and the quality of existing instruments is generally insufficient to allow a scaling up in demand. However, efforts to improve the transparency and integrity of these instruments are accelerating, particularly around jurisdictional Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation framework programs. In parallel with these efforts, innovations in financial instruments suited for the framework’s carbon markets are also taking place, but their scale is limited so far. This paper looks beyond the current state of the framework’s carbon markets to consider a set of innovative financial instruments that would allow completing the infrastructure of emissions trading, enhancing its utility for both issuers and buyers of carbon credits in the framework’s jurisdictional programs. The paper shows how a combination of forest carbon bonds, where countries sell forward (or commit) their emission reduction outcomes, as well as call and put options can be used to de-risk and encourage early investment in jurisdictional Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation framework programs. To quantify the value of these innovations, the paper evaluates the potential scale of these instruments for the case of Brazil. The estimates suggest that the amounts that could be mobilized would represent a critical contribution to effective forest conservation. The proposed instruments and methods can be used by other tropical nations that are prepared to implement a large-scale jurisdictional program. Although the paper acknowledges that the current state of carbon markets would still not allow their deployment in the short term, the conclusion is that these instruments have significant potential, and their future development could be an important contribution to the establishment of successful markets for the conservation of tropical forests
Their Insights and Experience in the Aftermath of the 2019–2022 Drought
Get PDFBetween 2019 and 2022, Madagascar experienced an acute drought that triggered a chronic food security crisis, drawing justified attention to its nutritional and poverty-related impacts. However, local communities also perceived this period as one of social upheaval, where risks particularly for women and girls were heightened. In response, the World Bank initiated monitoring efforts to track perceived social changes during the drought, which revealed a noticeable spike in women’s and girls’ perceptions of increased gender-based violence (GBV) between 2020 and 2021, followed by a decline after the drought. This study provides a platform for the reflections of local communities in Southern Madagascar on the social position of women, the dynamics of GBV, and how the drought intensified these risks. It aims to capture local understanding, offer qualitative insights into why GBV was perceived to rise during this period, and explore the subjective factors behind this trend, while also contributing to existing knowledge gaps on the topic
Breaking Barriers: Understanding and Addressing Social Norm Constraints to Women’s Work in the Middle East and North Africa
Get PDFThis policy brief uses data from those efforts to document the role social norms play to support (or hinder) female labor force participation in a sample of MENA countries. Data was collected in Egypt, the Republic of Iraq, Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), Jordan, Morocco, and Tunisia between 2018 and 2024 covering beliefs and social expectations of men and women across a range of FLFP-related norms. Results discuss which social norms are more or less supportive of FLFP and how strongly they predict women’s labor market outcomes, where misperceived norms may be influencing behavior, and how these beliefs and expectations vary across different demographic groups, including at the intrahousehold level