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Botswana 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.Botswana stands at a critical juncture where climate action and sustainable development must be pursued together to secure long-term prosperity and resilience. Until relatively recently, Botswana was hailed as an economic growth success story, buttressed by low levels of corruption, solid institutions, and sound natural resource wealth management. Using mineral revenues to invest in infrastructure, human capital, social welfare, and strengthening “institutions of private property,” Botswana avoided the worst effects of the “resource curse” and attained rapid development gains, a remarkable achievement considering its challenging initial conditions and unfavorable geography
Process Legitimacy and Development: Analytical Framings, Implications, and Applications
Get PDFHow social change is sought is central to ensuring not only that change happens but that it does so in ways perceived by those most affected by it to be legitimate (especially those who “lose”). This paper expands on the prior concept of “process legitimacy” to provide an analytical framework identifying its key constituent elements and the mechanisms by which it is established, consolidated, challenged, and altered as part of the development process. The paper first outlines the drivers of process legitimacy, before developing a typology highlighting four levels at which legitimacy contests occur: between societal groups, between elite factions, between national and local authorities, and between national and global actors. This framework helps identify the risks development interventions face when they fail to navigate these contests effectively. The paper concludes by examining how development interventions can help societies overcome legitimacy contests by fostering constructive spaces for negotiation and facilitating the gradual emergence of shared understanding around legitimate goals and processes
Reserve Management Survey Report 2025: Insights into Public Asset Management, the Fifth Edition
Get PDFThe World Bank Treasury’s Reserve Advisory and Management Partnership (RAMP) team
conducted its fifth survey on reserve management practices in 2025. This report presents
findings from 136 central banks, representing the highest response rate to date. The survey captures
evolving reserve management practices amid concerns about global inflation, monetary policies, and
geopolitical tensions, all leading to macroeconomic uncertainty. The data was collected in the first
quarter of 2025 and provided by the participants as of December 2024.
Respondents identified key concerns, including managing geopolitical risks, navigating macroeconomic
policy shifts, and balancing liquidity with returns. The report also highlights the growing importance
of sustainability in reserve management, though some institutions noted challenges in aligning
these goals with such traditional objectives as safety, liquidity, and return. Operational capacity,
particularly in terms of talent development and modernizing IT systems, emerged as a recurring
theme. This edition of the survey aims to capture how these shifting dynamics are influencing reserve
management decisions and institutional priorities
Nowcasting Disruptions to Human Capital Formation: Evidence from High-Frequency Household and Geospatial Data in Rural Malawi
Get PDFExposure to extreme weather events and other adverse shocks has led to an increasing number of humanitarian crises in developing countries in recent years. These events cause acute suffering and compromise future welfare by adversely impacting human capital formation among vulnerable populations. Early and accurate detection of ad- verse shocks to food security, health, and schooling is critical to facilitating timely and well-targeted humanitarian interventions to minimize these detrimental effects. Yet monitoring data are rarely available with the frequency and spatial granularity needed. This paper uses high-frequency household survey data from the Rapid Feedback Monitoring System, collected in 2020–23 in southern Malawi, to explore whether combining monthly data with publicly available remote-sensing features improves the accuracy of machine learning extrapolations across time and space, thereby enhancing monitoring efforts. In the sample, illnesses and schooling disruptions are not reliably predicted. However, when both lagged outcome data and geospatial features are available, intertemporal and spatiotemporal prediction of food insecurity indicators is promising
Shared Metrics, Shared Progress: Insights from Harmonized Data on Poverty and Inequality In Caribbean Countries
Get PDFThis brief focuses on the Caribbean countries of Barbados, Belize, Grenada, Suriname, Jamaica, and Saint Lucia. Other than Jamaica, which has a population of approximately 2.8 million, these countries are small in both population (ranging from 117,000 in Grenada to 634,000 in Suriname) and geographic size (ranging from 344 square kilometers in Grenada to 163,820 square kilometers in Suriname). Despite relatively high per capita incomes, above the average for Latin America and the Caribbean, and steady economic growth in recent years, they face shared development challenges. All are highly vulnerable to external economic shocks and natural hazards, which frequently undermine development gains and fiscal stability. Limited economic diversification remains a significant constraint, with most of these countries heavily relying on tourism or commodity exports. While access to basic education has improved, high youth unemployment persists. This brief draws on newly harmonized household survey data for these six Caribbean countries to present core poverty and inequality statistics. Box 1 provides details on the data and harmonization process. Section 2 presents an overview of poverty, vulnerability, and inequality across these Caribbean countries, comparing them with relevant regional and global benchmarks. Section 3 examines the characteristics of poor households, focusing on individual and household demographics, the attributes of the household head, dwelling conditions, and digital connectivity. Section 4 concludes and discusses implications for policy
It’s Not (Just) the Tariffs: Rethinking Non-Tariff Measures in a Fragmented Global Economy
Get PDFTariff protection has declined substantially over recent
decades, even though tariffs increased in some countries
in 2025. Trade restrictions have not disappeared; they have
changed form. Non-tariff measures (NTMs) have become
central instruments of trade policy, particularly in high-income
countries and in highly regulated sectors. Many NTMs
pursue legitimate objectives such as food safety, environmental
protection, and consumer protection. Yet they also
shape market access in less visible ways. Because compliance
costs vary widely, NTMs can act as capability-based
filters that sort exporters according to regulatory capacity,
technological sophistication, and export structure. Drawing
on recent advances in estimating ad valorem equivalents
(AVEs), this paper examines how the growing importance
of NTMs relative to tariffs alters effective protection. Three
patterns emerge. Higher-income countries rely relatively
more on NTMs than on tariffs; exporters from low- and
middle-income countries face higher effective protection in
advanced markets; and NTMs disproportionately burden
smaller firms, increasing the likelihood of export exit and
potentially contributing to greater market concentration.
Together, these mutually reinforcing patterns highlight
the importance of transparency, careful policy design, and
regulatory cooperation to ensure NTMs achieve legitimate
objectives without reinforcing fragmentation or inequality
in global trade
Exploring Feedstock Opportunities to Advance Domestic Circularity in Malaysia’s Plastic Recycling
Get PDFMalaysia's plastic recycling sector has historically relied on imported plastic waste. Imported plastic provides some certainty and scale for feedstocks that are ready and suitable for recycling, making up for Malaysia's low domestic plastic waste collection. To foster a more sustainable future, the country aims to reduce its dependency on imports by prioritizing the development and enhancement of domestic waste management systems, ultimately striving for a circular economy. This report is the second in the Malaysian Plastic Circularity Series, a market assessment conducted in 2023-2024 with the objective of providing comprehensive insights into Malaysia's plastic recycling economy. It covers topics along the value chain, including feedstock collection, infrastructure, policies, and initiatives to address plastic waste challenges, with an in-depth analysis of the electrical and electronics (E&E), automotive, construction, and healthcare sectors
Nepal: Digital Transformation of the Judiciary: Readiness Assessment
Get PDFThe judiciary of Nepal, led by the Supreme Court (SC), has been among the first government organizations to champion and integrate digital technologies into its operations. Since 2004, the use of digital technologies in case management and court administration has been a priority in every strategic plan of Nepal’s judiciary. This readiness assessment comes out of a dialogue between the World Bank Group (WBG) and Nepal’s SC on strengthening the capacity of the judiciary through digital transformation. In accordance with the Terms of Reference agreed with the SC, this analysis is built on findings from court data, published and unpublished reports, as well as key stakeholder interviews. The overarching approach guiding this assessment considers that digital transformations are complex processes, which do not only involve hardware, software, and technological elements. Within this framework, the institutional design of the judiciary is delineated through strategic pillars. Pillar 1 sets up the larger institutional context within which information and communications technology (ICT) will be embedded to bring digital transformation into the judiciary. Pillar 2 delves into the status of human resource arrangements, which are critical for the effective institutional performance of judiciary. Pillar 3 focuses on the technological status of digital transformation within Nepali courts in tandem with areas of innovation
Kingdom of Eswatini Gender Dimensions of Trade Facilitation
Get PDFThis Trade Facilitation and Gender Study is one component
of broader trade facilitation assistance provided to the
government of the Kingdom of Eswatini through the World Bank’s Trade Facilitation Support Program. The Study seeks to identify and quantify
gender gaps in completing cross-border trade processes
and procedures and at the border and beyond. This note
presents key findings from the study based on data collected
from women-led and men-led firms and customs brokers regarding their
experiences with Eswatini’s processes and procedures to import and/or export goods
From Local Practice to National Reform: A Roadmap for Closing Regional Gaps in the European Union Business Environment
Get PDFThe efficiency and quality of the business regulatory environment can vary substantially across different locations within a country. In the context of the European Union (EU), such local disparities may hinder regional economic convergence, one of the long-standing pillars of the European integration process. This brief highlights how identifying and promoting good local practices in regulating the business environment can reduce spatial inequality and create economic opportunities. The analysis is based on data collected using the World Bank’s Doing Business methodology between 2017 and 2022. By taking stock of such data, the brief also provides a benchmark for assessing the contributions of new and upcoming assessments of the EU subnational business environment that are currently being conducted though the World Bank’s Business Ready (B-READY) methodology, which replaced and improved upon Doing Business