Industrialization drives the sustained growth in jobs and productivity that marks the developmental take-off of most developed economies. Yet, academics and policy makers have questioned the role of manufacturing in development for late industrializers, especially in view of rapid advancements...

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a relatively modest toll on human lives in the Republic of Congo according to official data but has exacerbated an already fragile Congolese economy. As of September 28, 2021, the Republic of Congo has had 14,244 confirmed cases and 193 deaths, corresponding to a...

Remote schools in developing countries are costly to supervise, resulting in low teacher accountability and poor education outcomes. This paper reports the results of a randomized evaluation of three treatments that introduced teacher incentives based on community monitoring of teacher effort...

South Sudan faced significant headwinds in FY2020/21, with the pandemic, floods, and violence flareups affecting economic activities. Consequently, the economy is estimated to have contracted by 5.4 percent in FY2020/21. Oil production declined by 5.9 percent as floods affected production and...

This first World Bank report on drought in Angola aims to provide a practical approach and actionable measures to support the government of Angola in its paradigm shift toward drought and climate resilience. To provide a clear picture of the problem and its solutions, the report focuses on...

Global economic growth has picked up in 2021 and has now surpassed its pre-pandemic level. The National Bank of Rwanda (NBR) has maintained an accommodative monetary stance and other measures to support the recovery, taking advantage of low inflation. The government's continued fiscal expansion...

The five countries of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger (the G5) in the Sahel region of Africa are among the least developed countries in the world. The now regular and growing climate shocks are causing large losses in outputs, reducing human capital accumulation, and leading to...

Libya is struggling to cope with a trifecta of crises, including the civil conflict, the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and most recently, the impact of the Russia-Ukraine crisis. Notwithstanding the tempering of conflict intensity since 2021, the Libyan economy has been battered by the...

Irregular migration from West Africa to Europe across the Sahara and Mediterranean is extremely risky for migrants and a key policy concern. A cluster-randomized experiment with 3,641 young men from 391 settlements in The Gambia is used to test three approaches to reducing risky migration:...

For thousands of years, migration has been a source of social and economic well-being for people living on different shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Whether through higher earnings for migrants, access to labor for receiving countries, or remittances for sending communities, migration has been...