The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Sub-Saharan Africa has been severe; however, countries are weathering the storm so far. Real GDP is estimated to contract by 2.0 percent in 2020-close to the lower bound of the forecast range in April 2020, and less than the contraction in advanced...

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...

The unprecedented growth of data and its ubiquity in our daily lives signal that the digital revolution is transforming the world. But despite this growth, much of the value of data remains untapped, waiting to be realized. Data collected for one particular purpose has the potential to generate...

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...