This paper provides one of the first comprehensive and most updated studies on the effects of firms’ organizational resources, country institutions, and national culture on the survival and growth of private firms around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic. Analyzing World Bank Enterprise...

The period of the COVID-19 pandemic will be marked and remembered. It will certainly be known for the ongoing health crisis that has reverberated across the world, leading to significant social impacts, rising inequality and poverty rates, and the steepest recession in Europe since World War II....

Gender equality is a core development objective, and it is also a smart development policy. Gender equality is also a key pathway to ensure lasting poverty reduction and shared prosperity. Identifying the main gender gaps a country faces across different domains, contributes to better inform...

This report assesses agriculture policy support estimates in Angola. These estimates represent the monetary value assigned to different agriculture support policies and programs using the OECD methodology for the years 2018-2019. The advantages of using the OECD methodology are that: (a) it...

Carbon prices are needed to incorporate climate change costs into economic decision making. Carbon pricing should be included as part of a broader arsenal of tools to achieve domestic climate targets, but it is not a silver bullet: other policy instruments and investments (for example, public...

This Public Expenditure Review is focused on the quality and sustainability of public spending. The key objective of this Public Expenditure Review (PER) is to assess the quality of public spending, by evaluating its efficiency and effectiveness, while also delving into sustainability...

The World Bank has engaged with the government of Sri Lanka in an advisory services and analytics (ASA) work entitled priorities for sustainably managing Sri Lanka's marine fisheries, coastal aquaculture and the ecosystems that support them. The development objective of this ASA is to support...

Sierra Leone is a low-income, small West African country of approximately 7.65 million population. Over the past decade, the country has made gains on several health indicators, but it faces huge challenges. Infectious diseases remain the leading causes of morbidity and mortality, but...

Long COVID: Scars and Opportunity. The title of this report has two meanings. First, that the disease will leave in its wake a durably damaged economy. Second, that the disease is not leaving any time soon and may be here to stay. This duality reflects the two themes of this Update. In the near...

This third edition of the Zimbabwe Economic Update (ZEU) aims to provide both a current and historical background covering the pre-pandemic (2019) and pandemic (2020 to April 2021) period. The 2019-2020 period marked a very difficult time for the country as 2019 was clouded by a prolonged...