The Country Opinion Survey in Comoros assists the World Bank Group (WBG) in better understanding how stakeholders in Comoros perceive the WBG. It provides the WBG with systematic feedback from national and local governments, multilateral/bilateral agencies, media, academia, the private sector,...

Following the January 14 presidential election, President Azali announced a new cabinet in July, introducing several new and youthful faces into the political scene. Amid this political transition, Comoros' economy is showing signs of softening coupled with inflationary pressures driven by...

Economic conditions have improved since the beginning of the ECF-supported program. Real GDP growth is expected to remain on an upward trajectory peaking at around 4½ percent under the program. Inflation is projected to decline further in 2024 although at a much slower pace than observed in...

This Selected Issues paper focuses on the costing and financing of social development goals (SDG) in Comoros. Comoros is committed to achieve SDGs, but progress has been limited. This paper uses two models-a costing model and a financing model-to illustrate the large costs of reaching some of...

This paper highlights Union of the Comoros' 2023 Article IV Consultation, First Review under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) Arrangement, Requests for Waivers of Nonobservance of Performance Criteria, and Modifications of Performance Criteria. Performance under Comoros's economic reform...

Revealing the harsh reality of trafficking in persons and forced labour within the Southern Africa and Indian Ocean Region, the Regional Baseline Assessment sheds light on prevalent challenges and critical gaps in addressing these criminal activities. Despite efforts to combat trafficking,...

This paper presents Union of Comoros' request for a 4-year arrangement under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF). The ECF-supported program will help preserve Comoros' macroeconomic stability and implement the authorities' plans for fiscal consolidation, financial sector stabilization, and...

This paper discusses Union of The Comoros' Second Review under the Staff-Monitored Program (SMP). The implementation of the SMP, which supported the government's reform program during 2021-2022, was broadly satisfactory, with most quantitative targets and structural benchmarks being met on time....

Comoros is at the crossroads to redefine its future and become an upper-middle income country by 2050, but this would require implementing an ambitious reform agenda that focuses on increasing productivity and private investment. The current business-as-usual policy framework has delivered low...

Comoros is at the crossroads to redefine its future and become an upper-middle income country by 2050, but this would require implementing an ambitious reform agenda that focuses on increasing productivity and private investment. The current business-as-usual policy framework has delivered low...

Southern China (SC) suffered a series of unprecedented extreme heat waves (EHWs) in early summer (June-July) 2020, which broke the historical record of EHW frequency since 1979. Observational analysis shows that prolonged EHWs were primarily induced by anomalous tropospheric circulation over SC...

This paper investigates the causal impact of a Covid-19 lockdown policy on the Comoros's household welfare, poverty, and labor market outcomes. The identification strategy uses the national government lockdown policy implemented to curtail the unexpected outbreak of Covid-19. The lockdown policy...

Comoros is a small, fragile island state (population: 850,000) with persistently low and shock-prone growth and a high risk of external debt distress. Officially recorded COVID-related casualties have remained low (4,569 infections and 151 deaths so far). Growth projections remain at 1.6 percent...

The relevance of the IOR is fourfold, First historical relevance. The Indian Ocean has been a zone of human interaction for several millennia, boasting a 1,500 years history of active high seas trade -much before the arrival of Europeans in 1498. Adequate proofs exist to establish that the...

Comoros has potential for economic growth in various sectors, such as agriculture and tourism, but growth has been relatively modest. The Comorian national markets are highly fragmented because of poor transport connectivity between and within the islands. There is substantial need for road...

Comoros is a small, fragile island state (population: 850,000) with persistently low and shock-prone growth. The last Article IV Consultation (completed in early 2020) assessed Comoros' fragility as arising from two vicious circles: economic fragility manifests in low fiscal revenue,...

We estimate the causal effect of the Indian Ocean tsunami in Sri Lanka on household income and consumption eight years after the event, using a quasi-experimental method. A strong association between area-wide tsunami disaster shock and increases in household income and consumption in the...

The Country Opinion Survey in Comoros assists the World Bank Group (WBG) in gaining a better understanding of how stakeholders in Comoros perceive the WBG. It provides the WBG with systematic feedback from national and local governments, multilateral/bilateral agencies, media, academia, the...

From AD 500-1000, the Indian Ocean emerged as a global commercial centre, and by around 750-800 a sophisticated trade network had been established involving the movement of goods from Japan and China in the east, to southern Africa and Spain in the west. However, the Indian Ocean's commercial...

This paper assesses the impact of aid on tax revenue effort in the context of a fragile state, using the case of the Comoros. The paper estimates a fiscal response model within a cointegrated vector autoregressive framework with annual data for the Comoros' post-independence period (1984-2017)....

"The Florentine traveller, merchant, and academician Filippo Sassetti was one of the premier economic thinkers of the late Renaissance. Well known for his ethnographic observations, Sassetti was also a commercial writer of the highest caliber-- at once an original thinker and a remarkable...

Measuring impacts of extreme events on population well-being is complicated if data are not representative of the pre-event at-risk population or a representative sample of the population is not followed post-event. The sources and nature of some important biases are documented using data from...

Cet ouvrage prend pour objet les parcours biographiques de femmes comoriennes installées à Marseille et qui s'adonnent à des activités de commerce de valise. Le commerce transnational est articulé avec un temps de travail salarié. La plupart de ces femmes ont un emploi atypique (comme...

Economic developments over the past two years have been challenging due mainly to adverse impacts of political uncertainty (constitutional referendum in mid-2018 and elections in early 2019) and Cyclone Kenneth (April 2019), notwithstanding the provision of Fund emergency financial support...

This paper presents Union of the Comoros' Request for Disbursement Under the Rapid Credit Facility and Purchase Under the Rapid Financing Instrument. The Comoros' authorities should use fiscal policy to cushion the adverse effects of the coronavirus disease 2019 shock and bring the fiscal...

The Indian Ocean region has seen an exchange of goods and commodities since antiquity. Long before the emergence of modern nation states and the Westphalian concept of sovereignty, Indian territory saw a regular arrival of foreign merchants and commodities. At the same time, there is a long...

Through the development of informed policies and targeted investments, the objective of this Comoros urbanization review is to provide analytical support to improve the living conditions of Comoros’ urban population, especially the poor living in informal settlements and hazard prone areas....

Conventional wisdom in economics holds that traditional credit and insurance networks are inapt for insuring against covariate risks such as natural hazards. We challenge this claim by examining changes in financial allocations in Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (Roscas), a popular...

This paper discusses Union of Comoros' Request for Disbursement Under the Rapid Credit Facility (RCF) and Purchase Under the Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI). Reflecting the large budgetary and external financing gaps arising from emergency assistance and reconstruction needs, the authorities...

The supply of credit may increase or decrease following a natural disaster, depending on the extent to which banks can absorb risk, and the economic prospects and demand for finance by affected firms and households. In this paper, we assess the impact of a natural disaster (Indian Ocean Tsunami...

This paper investigates the causal impact of a Covid-19 lockdown policy on the Comoros's household welfare, poverty, and labor market outcomes. The identification strategy uses the national government lockdown policy implemented to curtail the unexpected outbreak of Covid-19. The lockdown policy...

The objective of this study is to provide a comparative analysis of energy policy, market design and regulatory practices in the Indian Ocean Islands. Based on this analysis, the study aims to identify implications for the transition to a sustainable energy system for the islands, where...

Conventional wisdom in economics holds that traditional credit and insurance networks are inapt for insuring against covariate risks such as natural hazards. We challenge this claim by examining changes in financial allocations in Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (Roscas), a popular...

This 2018 Article IV Consultation highlights that the Comorian economy's performance improved in 2017. Growth is estimated at 2.7 percent for 2017, half a percentage point higher than in the previous year. A combination of factors contributed to this outcome, notably an improved electricity...