Economies in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) remain in crisis. The World Bank estimates the regional output to have contracted 3.8 percent in 2020 and expects it to rebound by only 2.2 percent in 2021. The regional output is expected to be 7.2% below where it would be in 2021 without the...

Tonnoma is the protagonist of her own story of development. 26 years old, illiterate, and married to a man 15 years her senior, Tonnoma lives in a rural area of Burkina Faso. Before finding employment with the Youth Employment and Skills Development Project, she performed household chores and...

Government-led economic reform programs have been an important vehicle to improve the lives of Egyptian citizens. This case study describes one of these programs, which reduced energy subsidies to enable the government to channel more investment into the human capital sectors, health, education,...

The Niger Urbanization Review aims to improve our understanding of urbanization and local governance in Niger by analyzing the current and potential contribution of urbanization to the country’s long-term national development and the institutional and financial capacity of local governments to...

Jobs are vital for individuals to work their way out of poverty and for promoting shared prosperity. Somalia has few formal social safety nets, and the country is steadily consolidating peace and rebuilding state institutions following decades of conflict. Putting in place a jobs strategy as...

This report sheds light on major labor market issues and challenges that Morocco faces. It is the first phase of the programmatic jobs program jointly undertaken with the government of Morocco. The report is a jobs diagnostic that analyzes microdata mainly from Labor Force Surveys and employs...

The global economy has experienced four waves of rapid debt accumulation over the past 50 years. The first three debt waves ended with financial crises in many emerging market and developing economies. During the current wave, which started in 2010, the increase in debt in these economies has...

Digital technology allows businesses to operate in a country without a physical presence, which poses challenges for traditional taxation. The digital debate focuses on direct taxation and the creation of new taxing rights arising from the tax claims of market jurisdictions on income obtained by...

Major Ghanaian cities are at a critical point that will determine whether they become an engine of or a burden on the country'sdevelopment. Ghana's urban areas contribute to more than two-thirdsof the country's gross national product, and cities will continue to growrapidly, especially those...

This book explores the economic and broader societal rationale for using unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or "drone” technologies as acomplement to the current transport and logistics systems in several use cases in East Africa. The specific use cases examined include medical goods deliveries,...