Iraq is at a crossroads. Almost two decades after the 2003 war, the country remains caught in a fragility trap, facing increasing political instability, growing social unrest, and a deepening state-citizen divide. Amid a multitude of crises—including an oil price shock, the COVID-19 pandemic,...

Policy makers in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) often complain that poor fiscal performance in their countries is a result of a high degree of spending rigidity. Despite being a common complaint, the issue has remained largely ignored by the literature because of the lack of adequate...

Adaptive social protection (ASP) helps to build the resilience of poor and vulnerable households to the impacts of large, covariate shocks, such as natural disasters, economic crises, pandemics, conflict, and forced displacement. Through the provision of transfers and services directly to these...

For African cities to grow economically as they have grown in size, they must create productive environments to attract investments, increase economic efficiency, and create livable environments that prevent urban costs from rising with increased population densification. What are the central...

Port Development and Competition in East and Southern Africa analyzes the 15 main ports in East and Southern Africa (ESA) to assess whether their proposed capacity enhancements are justified by current and projected demand; whether the current port management approaches sufficiently address not...

Liberia has been influenced by the Ebola crisis since 2014, but the economy is now recovering quickly. Still, significant challenges lie ahead. Agriculture, an important sector that employs approximately half of the labor force, still has a weak growth trajectory. Many rural people are not well...

This book presents key activities, promising practices, and lessons learned to date from the World Bank’s Tuberculosis (TB) in the Mining Sector Initiative--an innovative multisectoral, multicountry, public-private regional initiative. It examines how a collaborative platform was established...

Despite multiple past efforts, fragile Sub-Saharan African economies such as those of Mali, Chad, Niger, and Guinea still rank among the least diversified worldwide, with natural resources constituting a high share of their gross domestic product or exports. Large-scale production of gold for...

Unemployment and underemployment are global development challenges. The situation in Ghana is no different. In 2016, it was projected that, given the country’s growing youth population, 300,000 new jobs would need to be created each year to absorb the increasing numbers of unemployed young...

This study assesses the impact of the crisis on economic and social outcomes in Cameroon's Northwest and Southwest regions as of 2019. Conflicts destroy tangible and intangible assets and strain surrounding areas, and subnational conflicts leave deep scars on a country's social fabric, culture,...