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Stabilizing Growth and Boosting Productivity
No full textLibya’s economic outlook relies
heavily on the oil and gas sector, which constitutes a
significant portion of its GDP, government revenue, and
exports. With oil production expected to average 1.1 mbpd in
2024, GDP is anticipated to shrink by 2.7 percent this year.
As oil output recovers in 2025 and 2026, reaching 1.2 and
1.3 mbpd, respectively; GDP growth is expected to rebound to
9.6 percent and 8.4 percent in 2026. Meanwhile, non-oil GDP
growth is estimated to grow by 1.8 percent in 2024 supported
by private and public consumption, and average around 9
percent during 2025–2026 to reflect strong recovery in oil
exports. Despite the fall in oil revenues in 2024, both the
fiscal and external balances surpluses are expected to widen
to 1.7 and 4.1 percent of GDP, respectively, due to
contractionary public and capital spending and falling
imports. The outlook is subject to significant downside, as
well as upside risks. The recent CBL crisis highlights the
fragility of the political situation which had a direct
short-term impact on the economy. Prospects for political
stability and consensus would be a major upside for the
Libyan economy and citizens. In the medium term, the main
challenge remains economic diversification and reducing
dependence on hydrocarbons. Lower oil prices not only reduce
government revenues but would also add fiscal burden through
higher cost of subsidies. Intensification of regional
conflicts in the Middle East may disrupt trade, FDI, and
financial flows but may also create revenue windfalls for
Libya through higher oil prices. Extreme climate events may
cause loss of human lives, severe damage to infrastructure,
lower growth, and financial instability. The Special Focus
Section “Stabilizing Growth and Boosting Productivity”
provides an overview of Libya’s past drivers of economic
growth and productivity trends. For over a decade now, the
conflictual transition has had a devastating impact on the
Libyan economy, estimated at US7,570 (2023), Libya is classified as an
upper-middle-income country, however, it falls behind its
peers on most development indicators. With the global
transition to cleaner and greener energy, Libya’s growth
strategy should focus on promoting non-oil sectors with high
value-added job opportunities to maintain its
upper-middle-income status. This could be achieved by
promoting private sector-led growth
Constraints and Research Priorities
No full textSub-Saharan Africa is highly vulnerable to climate change, with rural women dis- proportionately affected due to pre-existing gender inequalities that both increase their need for adaptation and constrain their ability to adopt strategies. This paper reviews empirical evidence on key barriers to women’s climate adaptation, identifies critical knowledge gaps, and outlines a gender-informed policy and research agenda. Focusing on on-farm and off-farm adaptation strategies‒including climate-smart agriculture, weather insurance, income diversification, and migration‒the paper highlights key constraints limiting women’s adaptive capacity: financial limitations, restricted asset control and ownership, gender norms positioning women as primary caregivers and shock absorbers, lower human and social capital, and limited access to climate and technology information. Substantial gaps remain in understanding how women’s financial literacy, institutional trust, risk and climate perception, and social networks affect their adaptation. Evidence-supported interventions include information provision on climate-smart agricultural technologies and social protection, while emerging but less established interventions include socio-emotional skills programs, childcare, and land titling. Underexplored yet promising interventions involve expanding women’s access to digital climate services, strengthening social networks, and engaging men in shifting intra-household roles. Significant knowledge gaps persist regarding the main constraints women face in adopting migration as an adaptation strategy
Informality and the Life Cycle of Plants
Get PDFThis paper documents the life cycle
of formal and informal plants using five waves of the
Mexican establishment census. Formal plants begin operations
with three times more workers than informal plants and
exhibit faster growth rates. Throughout their life cycle,
formal establishments more than double their size, while
informal plants increase their size by only 77%. A general
equilibrium model is developed to quantify the aggregate
economic losses stemming from these growth rate disparities.
In the model, plants grow through productivity investments,
and informality emerges from incomplete enforcement. In
equilibrium, informal plants exhibit flatter life cycle
profiles to avoid detection and taxation. Model parameters
are calibrated to match key properties of plant size
distribution and the life cycle of plants in Mexico.
Quantitative results indicate that a revenue-neutral full
enforcement increases aggregate output and the overall
growth rate by sixteen and twenty-five percent relative to
the benchmark, respectively
Green Technologies: Decarbonizing Development in East Asia and Pacific
Get PDFThe East Asia and Pacific region is helping the world decarbonize and is encouraging the domestic adoption of renewables. But there is an imbalance: while the region’s innovation and investment improve global access to green technologies, its own emissions continue to grow because of the reluctance to penalize carbon-intensive practices. The disparity between domestic supply and demand spills over into international trade, provoking measures by other countries that limit access to markets and technologies.
"Green Technologies: Decarbonizing Development in East Asia and Pacific" argues that deeper reform of the region’s own policies will encourage the domestic diffusion of cleaner technologies and may also foster greater international cooperation—on climate as well as on innovation and trade in green goods. The book proposes a framework to guide policy on green technology development and diffusion. It will be of interest to policy makers, businesses, and researchers working at the intersection of economics and environmental policy
Experimental Evidence on Occupational Downgrading in Migration from Myanmar
Get PDFThis paper examines the relationship
between violent conflict and the willingness of potential
migrants to accept lower skilled work (occupational
downgrading). The paper develops a theoretical model of
migration decisions and tests it using an innovative survey
module administered to high-skilled youth in Myanmar.
Consistent with the predictions of the model, the findings
show that insecurity induced by conflict reduces the
additional wage premium that individuals would typically
demand for taking on lower skilled work, indicating greater
amenability to occupational downgrading. These effects are
particularly pronounced for disadvantaged groups, such as
women, ethnic minorities, and those with weaker labor market
networks or English language skills. The results are driven
by respondents from areas under territorial contestation,
and those interviewed after the sudden activation of a
conscription law during the survey. This further confirms
how security considerations may override the preference for
skill-appropriate job matching, suggesting that conflict may
worsen labor market outcomes and reduce potential gains from
migration, especially for disadvantaged groups
Guidance for Resilient, Inclusive, Green, Healthy, and Teaching and Learning-Conducive (RIGHT) PLEs Effectively Implemented (+)
No full textIn the context of the global learning crisis, climate change, and increasing disasters, Physical Learning Environments (PLEs) can play an important role in increasing education outcomes globally, especially in the most vulnerable populations. For this framework, PLEs comprise the physical elements of the learning environment at three different levels: spaces; the school as a whole; and the network of education facilities. In low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), PLEs face common challenges that result in the exclusion of vulnerable populations, hinder students’ learning outcomes, and threaten students’ and teachers’ health and well-being. The main issues relate to insufficient supply of places in schools, poor physical conditions, and lack of safety. Furthermore, the design of the PLEs is often conceived to support only traditional pedagogical practices, limiting the effectiveness of the teaching-learning process. As a crosscutting challenge, the management of the education infrastructure is critical. The intended use of this framework is not to be a one-fit-all solution that must be fully implemented using a top-bottom approach. Instead, its objective is to provide education practitioners with an organizational scheme to assess the PLE’s situation and propose solutions for rehabilitating existing PLEs or constructing new ones. The proposed six strategies, characteristics, and attributes are intended to be used to interpret PLE needs and guide the appropriate design of interventions. To maximize impact, it emphasizes taking advantage of the entry points and building on existing demands, expanding them to maximize impact, creating synergies among factors, and prioritizing interventions based on context and needs. The flexible framework is a reference for local solutions, allowing communities to diagnose and design their proposals with local solutions. To successfully implement the RIGHT+ framework, task teams must use a comprehensive approach to PLEs that prioritizes the learning process, expands solutions to address the broader context, scales interventions to benefit all education infrastructure, and relies on data-driven decision-making, all complemented with capacity-building processes. By adopting this approach, task teams can promote PLEs that genuinely support learning and development for all, with the potential to impact the education sector
Kosovo: Education Digital Readiness Assessment 2024
No full textThis report aims to identify
barriers, needs, and potential opportunities for Kosovo to
digitally transform its basic education system to strengthen
efficiency and improve student performance in foundational
skills (including digital skills). The rest of the report is
structured as follows. Chapter 1 offers a brief
introduction, and Chapter 2 delves in greater detail into
the essential education context, including recent reforms,
learning outcomes, and overall governance. Chapter 3
presents the country and sector vision for a digital
strategy. Chapter 4 details the methodological approach for
this study, which unfolds over the two following chapters.
Chapter 5 presents the DISA (Digital Skills Analysis Deep
Dive), and Chapter 6 presents the EDRA (Education Digital
Readiness Assessment), followed by a synthesis of key
recommendations and actions in Chapter 7 and complemented by
a series of relevant annexes. The annexes include a detailed
summary of recommendations (Annex A), a short background on
the basic education system in the country (Annex B), the
education strategy for 2022-2026 (Annex C), detailed EDRA
methodology and framework (Annex D), and the stakeholder
mapping (Annex D), as well as a glossary of key terms (Annex
E). For technical audiences, reviewing the detailed
methodology described in Annex D as a prerequisite to
reviewing the EDRA analysis in Chapter 6 may be helpful
Emergency Preparedness and Response Systems
Get PDFAs disasters caused by natural hazards, health emergencies, and other crises become
more frequent and complex, the demand for effective crisis preparedness and
response tools has never been greater. In response to these evolving challenges, the
World Bank (WB) has continuously adapted its crisis preparedness and response toolkit
(CPRT) of financial instruments to help governments and partners strengthen
resilience and improve their crisis management capacities
How Do Migrants Fare in Africa’s Urban Labor Markets?
No full textAfrica’s urban population is on the
rise, and it is often feared that migrants are a direct
source of urban underdevelopment under the premise that they
are poorly integrated into urban labor markets. This study
examines the validity of this premise using data from six
African countries. It explores whether destination labor
market and welfare outcomes systematically differ between
migrants and nonmigrants, and whether the results differ
depending on the duration of stay, migrants’ origin (rural
or urban), and destination (town or city). Overall, migrants
prove to integrate swiftly and well. They integrate better
in towns than in cities, and urban migrants tend to
integrate better than rural migrants. The integration of
rural-to-city migrants has been more challenging. They are
able to work more and obtain similar welfare levels as their
urban counterparts, but initially they face an occupational
earnings penalty. Together, the findings do not provide
support for policies hindering internal migration to urban areas
Future Jobs: Robots, Artificial Intelligence, and Digital Platforms in East Asia and Pacific
Get PDFPeople in East Asia and Pacific (EAP) countries have prospered over the last few decades because of the growth in productive jobs. Do industrial robots, artificial intelligence (AI), and digital platforms threaten that development model?
"Future Jobs" presents evidence that new technologies have thus far boosted employment. Increases in productivity and scale have outweighed the labor-displacing effects of automation technologies. However, the benefits have been uneven, favoring skilled workers while some less-skilled workers, in more routine and manual jobs, have been pushed into the informal sector. Digital platforms have generated new opportunities for the hitherto marginalized but also created insecurity for incumbent workers.
Looking ahead, digitization will enhance the tradability of services, and AI will transform the production processes. EAP countries can benefit by equipping their workforce with the necessary skills and opening their long-protected services sectors to trade and investment.
Policy makers, researchers, and businesses will find in this book both insights and questions on how best to harness the potential of new technologies to sustain prosperity in EAP countries