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Experimental Evidence on Life Outcomes and Social Integration in Jordan
No full textRefugees require assistance for basic
needs like housing but local host communities may feel
excluded from that assistance, potentially affecting
community relations. This study experimentally evaluates the
effect of a housing assistance program for Syrian refugees
in Jordan on both the recipients and their neighbors. The
program offered full rental subsidies and landlord
incentives for housing improvements, but saw only moderate
uptake, in part due to landlord reluctance. The program
improved short-run housing quality and lowered housing
expenditures, but did not yield sustained economic benefits,
partly due to redistribution of aid. The program
unexpectedly led to a deterioration in child socio-emotional
well-being, and also strained relations between Jordanian
neighbors and refugees. In all, housing subsidies had
limited measurable benefits for refugee well-being while
worsening social cohesion, highlighting the possible need
for alternative forms of aid
Global Expansion of Marine Protected Areas and the Redistribution of Fishing Effort
No full textThe expansion of marine protected
areas (MPAs) is a core focus of global conservation efforts,
with the “30x30” initiative to protect 30% of the ocean by
2030 serving as a prominent example of this trend. This
paper examines a series of proposed MPA network expansions
of various sizes and forecasts the impact that increased
protection could have on global patterns of fishing effort.
This is accomplished using a predictive machine learning
model trained on a global dataset of satellite-based fishing
vessel monitoring data, current MPA locations, and
spatiotemporal environmental, geographic, political, and
economic features. The model predicts future fishing effort
under various MPA expansion scenarios, compared to a
business-as-usual counterfactual scenario that includes no
new MPAs. The difference between these scenarios represents
the predicted change in fishing effort resulting from MPA
expansion. The results show that, regardless of the MPA
network's objective or size, fishing effort would
decrease inside the MPAs, though by much less than 100%.
Moreover, this reduction in fishing effort within MPAs does
not simply shift outside—fishing effort outside MPAs also
declines. The overall magnitude of the predicted decrease in
global fishing effort principally depends on where networks
are placed in relation to existing fishing effort. MPA
expansion will lead to a global redistribution of fishing
effort, which should be considered in network design,
implementation, and impact evaluation
The State of Social Protection Report 2025 Background Paper #1
No full textMind the gap evaluates the progress in strengthening social protection and labor systems in emerging and developing economies (EDEs) in three areas: coverage, adequacy of benefits for the poor, and level of financing. The paper explores policy options to reduce the coverage and income gap for the world’s poorest. Over the past decade, social protection coverage in the average EDEs has increased by 10 percentage points, from 41 percent around 2010 to approximately 51 percent in 2022. In absolute terms, as of 2022, 4.7 billion out of 6.3 billion people in low- and middle-income countries were covered by social protection, while 1.6 billion were not covered at all. Moreover, about 0.4 billion people from the poorest quintile received insufficient social protection support. Overall, 2 billion people in low- and middle-income countries remain uncovered, or inadequately covered while poor, by social protection. Apart from coverage, Mind the gap also evaluates the extent to which EDEs are progressing toward universal social protection across various policy dimensions: benefit adequacy, financing levels, and targeting accuracy of social assistance programs. The findings indicate variable adequacy in benefit levels, significant government spending but persistent financing gaps, and generally modest pro-poor targeting with potential for improvement. These challenges are more pronounced in low-income countries. The paper also assesses the impact of social assistance programs on reducing extreme and relative poverty gaps, quantifies the annual costs needed to address these income shortfalls in EDEs, and explores options for closing these gaps, such as enhancing the efficiency of social assistance transfers and expanding fiscal space
Perishable Peace Dividends
No full textThis paper explores the effect of road rehabilitation on violent conflict using a novel, rich dataset of road rehabilitation projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The country received massive external investments in transport infrastructure rehabilitation under conditions of endemic conflict, often with the explicit objective of supporting peacebuilding objectives. The paper finds that investments in road rehabilitation deter violence, which decreases significantly by around 5 to 10 percentage points after the completion of road rehabilitation. However, another significant finding, based on large-scale machine learning analysis of remote sensing data of road quality over time, is that the peace dividend of infrastructure investments is perishable: violence increases again as roads progressively deteriorate. Improved durability and systematic maintenance of roads are thus necessary to extend the “peace dividend” of road investments
Policies for a Competitive, Green, and Inclusive Agrifood Sector
No full textThe agrifood sector in Brazil contributes significantly to the country’s economy. Despite its crucial role in the Brazilian economy, the agrifood sector faces significant challenges. This report analyzes agrifood public support policies in Brazil, considering the sector’s potential and the challenges that need to be addressed to make it more inclusive, sustainable, resilient, and competitive. The report examines the impact of agrifood public support on food prices, long-term productivity, climate change adaptation and mitigation, infrastructure, and rural development in Brazil. This report also analyses agrifood public support policies at the subnational level for three Brazilian States, Bahia, Santa Catarina and São Paulo, to capture diverse productive and socioeconomic contexts
The Global Landscape of Building Energy Regulations and Their Enforcement
No full textThis report, developed by the World Bank’s Global Indicators Group, provides a comprehensive analysis of building energy codes (BECs) across 88 countries, highlighting their critical role in driving energy efficiency and sustainable development. With buildings accounting for 37 percent of global CO2 emissions, the adoption and enforcement of BECs are essential to achieving climate goals under the Paris Agreement. The study examines the evolution of BECs from simple prescriptive requirements to sophisticated performance-based standards, emphasizing their potential to reduce energy consumption, improve resilience, and generate economic benefits. Key findings reveal significant disparities in BEC adoption and enforcement, with high-income countries demonstrating near-universal implementation while rapidly urbanizing regions in Africa and South Asia lag behind. The report underscores the importance of passive design strategies, such as thermal transmittance standards for building envelopes, and highlights critical gaps in retrofitting existing buildings and phasing out fossil fuel heating systems. Recommendations focus on tailored implementation strategies, enhanced enforcement mechanisms, and leveraging financial incentives to bridge the gap between policy and practice. By providing actionable insights, this report aims to catalyze global efforts toward energy-efficient and climate-resilient buildings, ensuring that construction decisions made today contribute to long-term sustainability
Country Program Evaluation
No full textIn 2012, Somalia was considered a failed state characterized by multiple, protracted, and deeply rooted fragility and development challenges. Today, Somalia remains one of the poorest and most fragile countries in the world. The country continues to be affected by ongoing civil conflict, a still-evolving political-constitutional structure, extreme poverty, and susceptibility to climate change and natural disasters. This evaluation assesses the evolution and performance of the World Bank Group’s support during fiscal years 2013 to 20–23, spanning two country strategies. This includes the evolution and relevance of its strategy and engagement, contributions to statebuilding, and adaptations of support to Somalia’s fragility context. The World Bank’s support has contributed to many achievements in building and strengthening state capacity and institutions, but enormous challenges remain. This evaluation offers four lessons: (i) Selectivity in statebuilding support. (ii) Calibrating lending with absorptive capacity. (iii) Strategically engaging with different government entities. (iv) Maintaining partnerships and coordination
Gender Assessment of São Tomé and Príncipe Tourism Sector
No full textThe assessment presents findings from
comprehensive desk research, semi-structured interviews, and
key informant interviews conducted in-person in São Tomé and
Príncipe in September 2023. The report is structured as
follows: Section 2 presents the methodology, including the
assessment framework, data collection method and key
stakeholders. Section 3 provides background on the country
context and the status of gender equality in São Tomé and
Príncipe. Section 4 presents a gender gap analysis in
women’s employment, entrepreneurship, and leadership.
Section 5 dives into the ecosystem and stakeholder
assessment. Finally, Section 6 lists priority areas for
women in tourism and provides recommendations to be
considered in the context of the upcoming World Bank projects
Concept Note
No full textThe World Bank Group’s Women, Business and the Law (WBL) is a global benchmarking project that provides comprehensive and comparable data on how laws, regulations, and policies affect women’s economic opportunities and private sector development in 190 economies. It is housed in the World Bank’s Development Economics Global Indicators Group (DECIG). Women, Business, and the Law (WBL) data and research findings have been instrumental in informing policy dialogue on legal reform to drive global growth and productivity for more than 15 years. Introduced in 2010, the project has amassed a rigorous worldwide database. It has produced ten reports, with more than 50 years of data, highlighting legal reforms affecting women’s economic participation from 1970 to the present. Initially focused on analyzing laws de jure on the books, the WBL Report 2024 expanded its scope to assess the de facto implementation of these laws in practice. It aims to do so by examining economies’ diverse policy and institutional frameworks in support of legal implementation and gauging experts’ perceptions on the extent of enforcement of laws. This evolution marks a significant step in understanding the existence of laws and their practical impact on women's access to jobs and markets. The WBL Concept Note establishes the project's objectives, scope, and approach. To provide a clear and concise overview, this Concept Note is divided into three sections: objective and principles; topics, motivation, and corresponding indicators; and implementation
Using Digital Health to Overcome Health System Challenges
No full textHealthcare access and service
delivery quality have been a persistent challenge in
Lesotho. The COVID-19 pandemic has added new challenges and
opportunities for change. Among those changes is the need to
include digital health solutions and think about how new
digital health interventions can enhance efficiency and
transform the way primary healthcare is being provided or
delivered in the country. This report, prepared by the World
Bank for Lesotho’s Ministry of Health, documents the outcome
of an assessment of Lesotho’s digital health system using a
unique digital health assessment toolkit produced by the
World Bank. The agreed objectives of the assessment were to
1) clarify the current digital health landscape in Lesotho,
2) develop a maturity score for Lesotho’s digital health
system, 3) define the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities,
and threats (SWOT) facing digital health in Lesotho and 4)
Using the results of the assessment, provide recommendations
and a phased roadmap of action to define the key strategic
actions to move Lesotho’s digital health ecosystem to the
next phase of its evolution. Based on the assessment
results, 16 strategic recommendations have been made on
foundational, functional, and frontier investments to
advance the digital health agenda and improve service
delivery. The prioritization of the actions has been based
on this set of criteria: the most urgent to support PHC
transformation, the incomplete actions from the current
draft of the e-Health Strategy (2019-2023), and those with
the most important long-term impact. This report is a call
to action to upgrade the current eHealth strategy to a
comprehensive digital health strategy with priority
interventions, a costed implementation plan, and provisions
for future impact assessment geared toward delivering better
health in a digital world