Growth in Asia and the Pacific outperformed expectations in late 2023, reaching 5.0 percent for the year. Inflation has continued to decline, albeit at varying speeds: some economies are still seeing sustained price pressures, while others are facing deflationary risks.In 2024, growth is projected to slow modestly to 4.5 percent. …
This working paper applies the Social Protection Reform Simulation (SPRS20) costing model to analyze the costs associated with social protection in 30 Asia and Pacific countries against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the SPRS20, the authors seek to estimate the cost of delivering standardized social protection packages through …
This report, the first in a series of three, focuses on the policy landscape needed to enable a transition to net zero emissions, identifying key policies at a sectoral and national level to support investments towards decarbonisation in Argentina, Brazil, and Peru. It also provides a brief description of the …
The Nigeria Development Update (NDU) is a World Bank report series produced twice a year around Spring and Fall. The NDU assesses recent economic and social developments and prospects in Nigeria, and places these in a longer-term and global context. It also provides an in-depth examination of selected economic and …
EnergyNet has published a new report exploring the need for captive power producers to find a way to co-exist with the grid. The Chain Effect: Industrial energy policy in Africa in an era of captive power – a case study of Ghana & Kenya report asks how can nations achieve …
Central African governments introduced several socioeconomic measures after COVID-19 first surfaced. CEMAC countries and the Democratic Republic of Congo enacted stimulus measures equivalent to several percentage points of GDP, combining tax relief and liquidity injections with spending for public health measures and social sectors. These have varied by country depending …
COVID-19 is one of multiple crises to have hit the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in the decade following the Arab Spring. War, oil price declines, economic slowdowns and now a pandemic are tearing at the social fabric of a region characterized by high rates of unemployment, high …
The COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on maritime trade volumes in 2020 was less severe than initially expected but its knock-on effects will be far-reaching and could transform maritime transport, according to UNCTAD’s Review of Maritime Transport 2021. The report shows that maritime trade contracted by 3.8% in 2020, reflecting an initial …
Niger earns its foreign exchange mainly from uranium and gold, which has limited domestic economic linkages. Distant second, livestock export also provide important revenue to the country. Overall, most of the labor force is employed in a low productivity and shock prone rainfed agricultural sector. The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic growth …
After a dramatic year for the global economy, economic activity and international merchandise trade rebounded strongly in 2021. Global merchandise exports and imports are estimated to have surpassed pre-pandemic (2019) levels, with nominal growth of 24.6% and 23.8%, respectively. Likewise, growth in the value of exports and imports in Asia …
Assuming the COVID-19 pandemic ends or that successful vaccination programs are implemented, Southern Africa is projected to grow 3.2 percent in 2021 and 2.4 percent in 2022. But this recovery will be inadequate given the region’s estimated 6.3 percent contraction in 2020. Slow growth in South Africa—the region’s largest economy—has …
Real gross domestic product growth in North Africa was largely negative in 2020, at -1.1% with a -5.1 percentage point drop over 2019, the African Development Bank’s 2021 edition of the North Africa Economic Outlook reports. Released on November 3, the report finds that in 2020, North African economies experienced …
This report reviews the economic performance of the 13 countries under the African Development Bank’s East Africa Regional Development and Business Delivery Office: Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. East Africa is the only region in Africa that avoided a recession …
This publication offers a synthesis of the major factors at play in the global food and agricultural landscape. Statistics are presented in four thematic chapters, covering the economic importance of agricultural activities, inputs, outputs and factors of production, their implications for food security and nutrition and their impacts on the …
This report complements the African Development Bank’s African Economic Outlook 2021, providing more detail on West Africa’s economic situation and growth prospects in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also analyzes public debt in West African countries and explores financing options. Finally, the report provides recommendations for facilitating sovereign …
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in their recent report issued a code red that there is more than a 50% chance that we will reach 1.5°C warming within the next two decades if emissions continue at their current rates. Whilst many countries have strengthened their commitments, it is …
It is now clear that a narrow focus on the growth of gross domestic product (GDP) is insufficient to achieve humanity’s aspirations for sustainable prosperity. Wellfunctioning ecosystems and educated populations are requisites for sustainable wellbeing. These and other too-often-neglected ingredients of national wealth must be addressed if the development path …
This paper examines the extent to which countries have succeeded in decoupling transport emissions from economic growth, and how changes in emissions intensity, economic growth, and population growth have contributed to changes in transportation-related emissions. The paper employs a modified version of the Tapio decoupling model, and demonstrates that over …
Carbon pricing is increasingly used by governments to reduce emissions. The effect of carbon pricing on economic outcomes as well as mitigating factors has been studied extensively since the early 1990s. One mitigating factor that has received less attention is education quality. If technological change that reduces the reliance of …
The COVID-19 pandemic is posing unprecedented challenges, making it difficult for policy makers to design appropriate policies. In this context, real-time information can play a most valuable role for policy makers in developing countries, particularly since official economic indicators, such as the evolution of GDP and unemployment, not only are …
This report examines the region’s economic prospects in 2021, forecasting that the recovery will be both tenuous and uneven as per capita GDP level stays below pre-pandemic levels. COVID-19 was a stress-test for the region’s public health systems, which were already overwhelmed even before the pandemic. Indeed, a decade of …
