The World Bank Pakistan Development Update (PDU) provides an update on the Pakistani economy, its economic outlook, together with the development challenges it faces and the structural reforms that should be considered. The report begins with a chapter on recent economic developments, with sections on the real sector and economic growth, monetary and financial sector developments, the external sector, and fiscal policy and public debt. The second chapter provides the medium-term macroeconomic outlook, describes risks and challenges, and structural reform needs. This is followed by the focus topic section on the impact of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis on the private sector.
In 2020, Nigeria experienced its deepest recession in four decades, but growth resumed in the fourth quarter as pandemic restrictions were eased, oil prices recovered, and the authorities implemented policies to counter the economic shock. As a result, in 2020 the Nigerian economy experienced a smaller contraction (-1.8 percent) than had been projected when the pandemic began (-3.2 percent). As part of its response, the government carried out several long-delayed policy reforms, often against vocal opposition. Notably, the government (1) began to harmonize exchange rates; (2) began to eliminate gasoline subsidies; (3) started adjusting electricity tariffs to more cost-reflective levels; (4) cut nonessential spending and redirected resources to COVID-19 (coronavirus) responses at both the federal and the state levels; and (5) enhanced debt management and increased public-sector transparency, especially for oil and gas operations. By creating additional fiscal space and maximizing the impact of the government's limited resources, these measures were critical in protecting the economy against a much deeper recession and in laying the foundation for earlier recovery. However, several critical reforms are as yet incomplete, which threatens Nigeria's nascent recovery. In the baseline scenario, Nigeria's economy is expected to grow by 1.8 percent in 2021. Despite the current favorable external environment, with oil prices recovering and growth in advanced economies, reform slippages would hinder the renewed economic expansion and undermine progress toward Nigeria's development goals. In a risk scenario, in which the government fails to sustain recent macroeconomic and structural reforms, the pace of economic recovery would slow, and GDP growth couldbe just 1.1 percent in 2021.
The current Education Sector Strategic Plan (ESSP) for 2010-2022 and the first and second National Education and Training Improvement Programs that operationalize the plan, were based on the comprehensive 2010 Education Sector Review (Marope, 2010, MoET, 2010, 2016, 2018b). As the current plan and program come to their end, this education sector analysis (ESA) was undertaken. In addition, complementary studies for the ECDE and TVET sub-sectors will be conducted separately to collect primary data to further help inform the development of the next ESSP. The ESA report examines the recent status of the education system to provide an evidence-based foundation for the Government's preparation of its next ESSP and help guide the country more generally on the priority issues for the education sector looking forward. This executive summary begins with a brief description of the general context for education followed by an overview of recent achievements in education. The main part of the summary sets out the priority issues identified by the ESA report. The final section concludes with a discussion of selected policy options that may be considered looking ahead.
The Kyrgyz Republic economy has been hit hard by the Coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, putting at risk the development progress achieved in recent years. The COVID-19 pandemic has added substantial pressures on the country's fiscal space for investing in human capital. The pandemic has eroded the Kyrgyz Republic's recent gain in human capital development. Education and health are critical factors for improving human capital and sustaining inclusive economic growth and development. The Kyrgyz Republic has continued prioritizing education and social protection as its development priority. This report, phase 2 of the programmatic public expenditure review (PER2), aims to assist the government of the Kyrgyz Republic in identifying key constraints to efficient and effective public spending and policy options for improvements in three areas: education, health, and pensions, which have become more pressing post-COVID-19. Ensuring effective and sustainable pension system may help to safeguard human capital. Hence, ensuring adequacy, effective, and efficient spending in education, health, and pensions are critical to close Kyrgyz's human capital gaps. To this end, PER1 identified critical areas to increase fiscal space for development priorities including investing in human capital including curtailing the growth of public wages while reducing tax expenditures and the large energy subsidies and quasi-fiscal deficits.
The government of Bulgaria requested the World Bank's support in assessing the housing and living conditions of marginalized communities in the Northwestern (NW) region of the country, with an explicit but not exclusive focus on the Roma population. The objective of this assessment was to support the government to develop a program by providing a baseline assessment of housing and living conditions of marginalized communities in three districts. The report presents the synthesized findings from these assessments (combining the various data sources) to identify policy bottlenecks and opportunities for two types of dwellers in the selected neighborhoods: 1) dwellers of marginalized housing units; and 2) dwellers of the government-subsidized social housing units.
In recent months, there has been a steep increase in the number of daily new cases and, more disturbingly, in the number of deaths. While it took almost one year for Malaysia to record its first 100,000 cases, the increase in the number of new cases between April to May 2021 alone amounted to more than 100,000. Similarly, while it took about one year for cumulative deaths to reach 500, the cumulative number of deaths in the first two weeks of June alone was more than 500. Even more worryingly, the number of brought-in dead (BID) cases also rose sharply; in May 2021, BID cases accounted for nearly one-third of total deaths. The severity of the current wave has raised concerns regarding the overall capacity of the health system. With the number of new cases and death rates continuing to climb at a rapid rate, the health system has been operating at close to its maximum capacity, with most intensive care units (ICUs) running at nearly 100 percent capacity. At the same time, key containment measures, including mass testing and contact tracing, have not been fully or effectively implemented. In addition, the rollout of the country's vaccination program is being affected by delayed vaccine supply and high vaccine hesitancy, although there are some signs that the pace has picked up recently. To curb the spread of the pandemic and to ease the burden on the health system, the government has reimposed the movement control order (MCO). Initially, the terms of the MCO allowed for most economic sectors to continue to operate. However, with the number of cases remaining high and with no signs of abatement, the government subsequently announced a full lockdown, with only key essential services allowed to operate. The Ministry of Health has indicated that it may take between 3-4 months to flatten the curve of the pandemic.
The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic brought global tourism and travel to a standstill. Thus, although the health impact of the pandemic has been fairly contained in Maldives, its economic consequences have been devastating. To contain the spread of the virus, the country closed its borders for the first time in history, between March 27 and July 15, 2020, leading to a sudden stop in tourism, the main driver of growth, jobs, and revenues. The special focus article of the April 2021 Maldives Development Update explores how Maldives can leverage digital technologies to build back better for green, resilient, and inclusive development in the post-COVID world. It identifies the main bottlenecks to greater digital adoption and provides preliminary recommendations on how the government can address them.
Amid the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Sri Lanka's economy contracted by 3.6 percent in 2020, the worst growth performance on record, as is the case in many countries fighting the pandemic. Swift measures enacted by the government in the second quarter helped contain the first wave of Coronavirus (COVID-19) successfully, but these measures hit sectors like tourism, construction, and transport especially hard, while collapsing global demand impacted the textile industry. Job and earning losses disrupted private consumption and uncertainty impeded investment. As a result, the economy contracted by 16.4 percent (y-o-y) in the second quarter. The economy began to recover in the third quarter as the first wave was brought under control and containment measures were relaxed. The momentum continued in the fourth quarter as the economy was broadly kept open despite a second wave of Coronavirus (COVID-19) infections. The special focus section of this edition discusses the impact of Coronavirus (COVID-19) on poverty in Sri Lanka as of 2021.
Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) reported over 30 million Coronavirus (COVID-19) cases and around 960,000 deaths as of May 2021. Official tracking data shows that Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina have the highest number of reported cases throughout LAC, which in turn is the region with among the highest numbers across all developing regions. Moreover, Brazil is the third-worst affected country worldwide, after the United States and India, with approximately 15.4 million infections. Dramatic declines in economic activity are expected throughout the LAC region due to the global pandemic. Unfortunately, many LAC countries entered the crisis with low potential economic growth and high levels of inequality, following the region's recent period of stagnant growth. The 2020 COVID-19 crisis will likely reverse in a short time frame many of the social gains that took decades to materialize in Latin America and the Caribbean. In the past two decades, the region has seen a reduction in the number of people living in poverty by nearly half and an increase in the size of its middle class. Income inequality also decreased, as income growth has been primarily pro-poor in recent years. Despite variations across countries, most have experienced positive welfare gains since the early 2000s. However, the growth deceleration of 2014–2019 coupled with the dramatic fall in activity caused by the COVID-19 crisis will negatively impact living standards and well-being across the region. Poverty projections for 2020 suggest that the number of the poor increased in most LAC countries. Brazil, however, implemented a generous emergency transfer program that benefited almost 67 million people and lifted millions out of poverty. As a result, poverty in the LAC region is expected to decline marginally from 22 percent in 2019 to 21.8 percent in 2020. Had no mitigation measures been implemented, the region may instead have seen 28 million new poor in 2020.
This note presents main findings of the GovTech Snapshot Assessment for Georgia, forming part of a larger World Bank global engagement on GovTech and Advisory Services and Analytics (ASA) in the South Caucasus on Transforming Government Services through Digital Innovations. The objective of the note is to conduct an initial GovTech stock-taking, using the GovTech conceptual framework within the broader Digital Economy context. Starting with a first analytical phase in 2021 and to be continued through a second phase of implementation support in 2022, the assessment focuses on key thematic areas in line with client interest to help identify entry-points and reform options. It applies a simplified and customized version of the Digital Government Readiness Assessment Methodology (DGRA), assessing key thematic dimensions and developing a menu of reform options in line with client priorities.
This note presents main findings of the GovTech snapshot assessment for Armenia forming part of a larger World Bank global engagement on GovTech and Advisory Services and Analytics (ASA) in the South Caucasus on transforming government services through digital innovations. The objective of the note is to conduct an initial GovTech stock-taking using the GovTech conceptual framework within the broader digital economy context. Starting with a first analytic phase in 2021 and to be continued through a second phase of implementation support in 2022, the assessment focuses on key thematic areas in line with client's interest to help identify entry-points and reform options. It applies a simplified and customized version of the Digital Government Readiness Assessment Methodology (DGRA), assessing key thematic dimensions and developing a menu of reform options in line with client priorities. The note is structured in four sections. The first section presents the GovTech and Digital Economy conceptual framework. Section two includes key findings of the snapshot assessment for all nine dimensions of the DGRA. Section three propose potential reform opportunities based on entry-points identified in the assessment and customized to client priorities. These are presented below as a preliminary menu of reform options and as a basis for further discussion with Armenian counterparts. Finally, Section 4 presents different GovTech engagement options to deepen collaboration between the government of Armenia and the World Bank.
This note presents main findings of the GovTech Snapshot Assessment for Azerbaijan, forming part of a larger World Bank global engagement on GovTech and Advisory Services and Analytics (ASA) in the South Caucasus focusing on transforming government services through digital innovations. The objective of the note is to conduct an initial GovTech stock-taking, using the GovTech conceptual framework within the broader Digital Economy context. Starting with a first analytical phase in 2021 and to be continued through a second phase of implementation support in 2022, the assessment focuses on key thematic areas in line with client interest to help identify entry-points and reform options. It applies a simplified and customized version of the Digital Government Readiness Assessment Methodology (DGRA), assessing key thematic dimensions and developing a menu of reform options in line with client priorities. The note is structured in four sections. The first section presents the GovTech and Digital Economy conceptual framework. Section two includes key findings of the snapshot assessment for all nine dimensions of the DGRA. Section three propose potential reform opportunities, based on entry-points identified in the assessment and customized to client priorities. Finally, Section 4 presents different engagement options to deepen collaboration between the government of Azerbaijan and the World Bank on GovTech.
This public expenditure review (PER) for the Dominican Republic (DR) is designed to inform the government's fiscal expenditure policies and advance its economic and social development priorities. The PER was requested by the government in December 2019, but its scope has been extensively revised to reflect the rapid evolution of the Coronavirus disease SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) crisis. This PER finds that institutional fragmentation poses a critical challenge to economic policymaking in the DR. Inadequate coordination between public agencies undermines the effectiveness and efficiency of service delivery and reinforces the monopolistic structure of key economic sectors. These findings are consistent with the analysis presented in the previous PER, completed in 2019, which emphasized the importance of efficiency gains in a context of constrained revenue mobilization and limited borrowing space. Institutional fragmentation aggravates the three most pressing economic policy issues facing the DR: (i) an unsustainable debt trajectory, (ii) slow rates of job creation in the formal sector, and (iii) gaps in both the social protection system and the delivery of basic services.
Malawi was affected by a severe second wave of COVID-19 (coronavirus) cases starting in the last weeks of 2020. As a result, the Government declared a second 'State of National Disaster' and announced increased social distancing measures. Case numbers peaked in January and gradually subsided through April, when restrictions were relaxed. Malawi received its first consignment of vaccination doses from COVAX in March, but uptake has been low, with around 400,000 doses administered to about 2 percent of the population as of mid-June. Growth in 2020 was strongly affected by the pandemic, falling to an estimated 0.8 percent, down from pre-pandemic projections of 4.8 percent. The pandemic's impact on the services and industry sectors was partially offset by a strong agricultural harvest. Services and industry slumped amid the ongoing disruptions caused by the pandemic to global value chains and trade and logistics, decreases in tourism and remittances, and dampened demand due to social distancing measures. The accommodation and food services subsectors were the most affected, while information and communication services, and utilities performed well. Agricultural production estimates for 2021 are strong, but the pandemic will still weigh on economic activity. Maize production is expected to increase to 4.5 million tons, a 17 percent increase over 2020's bumper harvest. Business sentiment is showing some improvement in early 2021 but is still below pre-pandemic levels. Some 46 percent of firms surveyed in February 2021 by the Malawi Confederation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (MCCCI) expect a positive performance for the year. This is an improvement from 31 percent in 2020 but remains short of pre-pandemic levels.
The ongoing health and security crisis have partly undermined the benefits from past years of strengthening economic growth. Sustaining an upward trend over the recent years, real growth stood at 5.9 percent in 2019. However, it fell to 3.6 percent in 2020, because of the pandemic and increasingly violent terrorist attacks. Inflation increased to 3.4 percent in 2020, triggered by supply disruptions and speculative behaviors, combined with food shortages. The economy is projected to rebound in 2021, growing at 5.5 percent, with the reopening of the border with Nigeria and the resumption of large investment projects and a normalization of other supply chains. The large import content of these projects will cause the current account deficit to widen further while completion of the main oil pipeline by 2023 should boost revenue and exports over the medium term. However, GDP per capita in 2021 will be only 1 percent higher than in 2019. Addressing inefficient management of a universal fertilizer subsidy program could generate fiscal savings of 0.15 percent of GDP. Until September 2020 fertilizers were sold by Central Agricultural Input and Equipment Supply Agency (CAIMA) and were on average half universally subsidized without targeting specific farmers or crops. The system was characterized by large inefficiencies, including inefficient fertilizer acquisition cost, incapacity to meet the demand and rising operating expenses. After having removed the management of fertilizers from Caima's mandate, it is important that the Government finalize the ongoing work with development partners for a fertilizers reform that allows a better targeting the subsidies and gives a greater role for the private sector in the fertilizers supply and distribution.
