Working Toward Development Goals amid Crisis

Achieving food security in a changing world

Over the past year, billions of people struggled to access safe, nutritious, and sufficient food. Reasons include continuing impacts from COVID-19; rising costs for food, transport, and fertilizer; regional conflicts; trade disruptions; and weather extremes made more frequent by climate change. The war in Ukraine has amplified rising prices for food, energy, and fertilizer, with ramifications for global food security and for nutrition, especially among the poor. We are helping countries respond to these challenges while strengthening food systems’ resilience for the long term, drawing from experience including the 2008 food price crisis. In May 2022, we announced the Bank Group’s support for a comprehensive global response on food security, with up to $30 billion in existing and new projects through June 2023 in agriculture, nutrition, social protection, water, and irrigation. The data and analysis, policy advice, and financing will address food and fertilizer production, enhance food systems, facilitate greater trade, and support vulnerable households and producers. This work is strengthened by our engagement with partners and participation in global initiatives to address food security, including the Global Alliance for Food Security; the Food Workstream Working Group of the UN Global Crisis Response Group on Food, Energy, and Finance; the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program; and the International Financial Institution Action Plan to Address Food Insecurity.

In November 2021, we launched a $570 million food systems resilience program in West Africa to support food security and nutrition. It will reach 4 million people and improve resilience, promote intraregional value chains, and build regional capacity to manage agricultural risks. In Haiti, we helped mobilize emergency funding to help farmers access seeds and fertilizer, while promoting more resilient practices for agriculture and landscape management.

We are playing a leading role in rethinking food systems to support the health of people, economies, and the planet. At the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit, we partnered with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the Food and Land Use Coalition to propose five ways to fix financial incentives that govern food. In January 2022, we issued a joint report with IFPRI that found that repurposing agricultural policies could increase productivity and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Our Food Systems 2030 trust fund aims to help countries along that path.

COVID-19 has reminded us of the importance of the One Health approach: maintaining a healthy interaction between humans, animals, and the environment. Through Food Systems 2030, we provided grants to help countries in five regions lay the foundations for this approach, such as coordination across sectors, institutional arrangements, regional strategies, and surveillance for diseases in humans and animals.

With more countries facing fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV), the Bank is stepping up work on food systems in FCV settings. As part of our Future of Food series, we published a study to help countries strengthen these systems, which can be crucial to maintaining and restoring peace while reducing poverty. Climate change is a long-standing driver of hunger, and as impacts become more severe, we need to invest in climate-smart innovations. Our December 2021 study on hydroponics and insect farming in Africa laid out a promising path to diversify sources of fresh food, animal feed, and fertilizer, including in resource-constrained and FCV settings. At a time of growing uncertainty and fragility, such ideas provide hope for a more food-secure and sustainable future.

Supporting countries affected by fragility, conflict, and violence

By 2030, up to two-thirds of the world’s extreme poor will live in fragile and conflict-affected situations. The factors driving FCV interact with and are compounded by other risks, such as climate change, natural hazards, pandemics, and food insecurity. The situation has been further exacerbated by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially for the poorest and most marginalized people, including women and girls.

The Bank Group is helping countries respond to these challenges under the guidance of our FCV Strategy, released in February 2020, which outlines our commitment to preventing conflict, remaining engaged during conflict and crisis, helping countries transition out of fragility, and mitigating spillover effects. It informs our other strategies, initiatives, and commitments, with innovative approaches to financing, operations, and analytics being developed and rolled out across the Bank Group. This includes our risk and resilience assessments, which identify drivers of FCV and sources of resilience to inform our engagement with countries. Since the FCV Strategy was launched, the Bank Group has delivered 22 national assessments, three regional assessments, and one subnational assessment.

Bank Group financing for countries affected by fragility, conflict, and violence stands at an all-time high. The Bank tripled the share of IDA financing for these countries between IDA16 (fiscal 2012 through 2014) and IDA19 (fiscal 2021 through 2022), with $30.3 billion going to these countries under IDA19. In fiscal 2022, the Bank approved $16.3 billion in IDA19 commitments for countries affected by FCV. This includes usage from the FCV envelope, as well as IDA windows to support refugees and host communities, crisis response (including for food security), and specific regions. The IDA Private Sector Window combines with IFC investments or MIGA guarantees to support investments in the poorest countries and FCV situations.

Most of the world’s nearly 27 million refugees are hosted by developing countries, and three-quarters of them remain displaced after five years. In fiscal 2022, IDA19 committed $1.4 billion for host communities and refugees, from which the Bank committed $642 million for 14 projects in Burundi, Chad, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Niger, South Sudan, and Uganda. We are applying regional approaches in areas acutely affected by forced displacement, including the Sahel, the Lake Chad region, and the Horn of Africa.

IDA19 also created allocations to better support poorer countries that face FCV challenges. This includes $3.1 billion to help governments prevent escalation in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Mozambique, and Niger; $1.7 billion to support potential reengagement in the Central African Republic, the Gambia, Somalia, and Sudan; and $351 million to remain effectively engaged in high-intensity conflict settings in South Sudan and Yemen.

The IDA20 replenishment builds on this support, allocating over $30 billion for FCV settings between July 2022 and June 2025. The share of the IBRD portfolio under implementation in FCV-affected countries also more than doubled since fiscal 2016, standing at $6.4 billion in fiscal 2022.

The Global Concessional Financing Facility (GCFF) provides assistance to middle-income countries that host large numbers of refugees. Since 2016, it has provided more than $795 million in grants that have unlocked almost $5.8 billion in concessional financing to improve the lives of refugees and host communities. It is helping Jordan and Lebanon address the impact of hosting Syrian refugees, as well as helping Colombia and Ecuador meet the needs of more than 1 million displaced Venezuelans and their host communities. In 2022, Moldova joined the GCFF, which will provide a $9 million grant to unlock $43 million in concessional financing to support Ukrainian refugees and host communities. It also supports coordination among multilateral development banks, the UN, and participating countries.

The Bank Group is deepening cooperation with humanitarian, development, peacebuilding, security, and private sector organizations to leverage our complementary mandates and strengthen our impact on the ground. The Bank partners with UN agencies in more than 40 crisis-affected situations, allowing us to stay engaged in the most difficult environments. In Yemen, we work closely with UNICEF, the FAO, the WHO, and the WFP, as well as international nongovernmental organizations. UNHCR is a critical partner in addressing the needs of the forcibly displaced and their host communities and in delivering operations financed by IDA and the GCFF. And by partnering with organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross, we are able to implement projects in conflict-affected countries and deliver critical services to vulnerable people in areas that are inaccessible to the Bank, such as South Sudan.

Tackling the challenges of debt sustainability

The Bank was one of the first global institutions to highlight the danger of surging debt in developing economies, warning more than a year before COVID-19 that debt levels were becoming unsustainable. These concerns proved well founded: the pandemic drove total debt levels to a 50-year high, depleting fiscal resources and putting countries at greater risk of debt distress. In fiscal 2021, nearly 60 percent of IDA countries were in debt distress or at high risk of it. As interest rates rose around the world, some middle-income countries also began facing difficulty.

The Bank stepped up our leadership on debt sustainability by helping countries improve transparency and debt management, producing analysis to guide policy reforms, and pressing for coordinated reforms at the global level. We also helped countries bolster their fiscal positions by improving tax compliance, the effectiveness of public expenditures, and domestic resource mobilization.

The G20’s Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI)—introduced in May 2020 at the urging of the Bank and the IMF—expired at the end of December 2021, having delivered nearly $13 billion in debt suspension to nearly 50 poor countries. But progress stalled on the G20 Common Framework for Debt Treatment Beyond the DSSI, with just three countries applying for relief and none receiving it within a year. To speed the process, we proposed improvements to the framework, including bringing commercial creditors into parallel restructuring negotiations from the beginning and ensuring equal burden-sharing by all creditors. Alongside the IMF, we also proposed that countries applying for relief under the framework should be granted a suspension on debt service during negotiations. Our two institutions also proposed expanding eligibility requirements so that more countries can apply for relief.

In November 2021, we published the first comprehensive analysis of the challenges of debt transparency that developing economies face. It showed that nearly 40 percent of low-income countries had published nothing about government debt in the previous two years. That share has since fallen to 23 percent, partly as a result of the new Sustainable Development Financing Policy for IDA countries, which requires them to improve transparency and strengthen debt management as a condition of financing.

International Debt Statistics

International Debt Statistics supports policy makers and analysts by monitoring aggregate and country-specific trends in external debt in developing countries. It provides a comprehensive picture of external borrowing and sources of lending by type of borrower and creditor, with information on data availability and comparability. The 2022 edition highlighted the need for a comprehensive approach to managing debt to help developing countries assess and curtail risks and achieve sustainable debt levels.

Greater debt transparency is critical in addressing the risks posed by rising debt in many developing countries. To facilitate transparency, International Debt Statistics 2022 provides more detailed and disaggregated data on external debt than ever before. It gives the breakdown of a borrowing country’s external debt stock to show the amount owed to each official and private creditor, the currency composition of this debt, and the terms on which loans were extended.

Creating more and better jobs to reduce poverty

In recent years, rising labor incomes have accounted for about 40 percent of poverty reduction worldwide. However, over 90 percent of workers in low-income countries remain in low-quality and low-productivity jobs. COVID-19 has exacerbated the challenges, disrupting jobs, labor markets, and livelihoods. Developing countries need to create better jobs that boost productivity and earnings, as well as improve access to jobs for disadvantaged people. Governments can play an effective role in fostering private labor demand—especially to create better quality jobs—through more conducive regulations. This is highlighted in our 2022 report Jobs Undone, which looks at these challenges for the Middle East and North Africa region.

The Bank invests in better jobs outcomes, conducts jobs diagnostics, and supports global knowledge sharing and research. In fiscal 2022, we supported 510 jobs-related projects, with investments of about $74 billion. In Zambia, the Agribusiness and Trade Project helped emerging farmers and small and medium agribusinesses better link to larger markets by participating in high potential, sustainable value chains. The project mobilized around $5 million in private capital; average sales increased by 27 percent for nearly 33,000 farmers and by 73 percent for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Under IDA20, we will continue to support job creation and economic transformation, with the aim of addressing market failures and constraints to help unlock opportunities for private sector–led investments and create better jobs in 20 IDA countries, including five affected by FCV.

To help businesses survive and retain jobs during the pandemic, we are providing support to SMEs in Egypt, Ethiopia, Georgia, and Mongolia, as well as those in the hardest-hit sectors, such as tourism in Indonesia and Uganda. We are also assisting viable firms, strengthening insolvency regimes, and building financial sector resilience in Indonesia, Mexico, Paraguay, and Uruguay. In the Philippines and Uganda, we are expanding financial technology, liquidity, and access to credit, particularly for SMEs and women. And in the Maldives, the COVID-19 Emergency Income Support Project provided temporary income support for workers who lost a job or income as a result of the pandemic; the project also helped strengthen the country’s social protection system to prepare for future crises. Close to 23,000 workers received financial support, including nearly 9,000 women, more than two-thirds of them self-employed.

Several partnerships housed at the Bank are promoting better jobs outcomes and informing policies related to migrant workers. This includes Solutions for Youth Employment, an alliance with strong private sector participation, and the Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development (KNOMAD), which monitors migration and remittance flows. Under the new KNOMAD-Migration Umbrella Multidonor Trust Fund, we are laying the foundation for more operations on migration and forced displacement, with an initial focus on Colombia. The March 2022 KNOMAD policy brief projects that remittances to Ukraine will increase significantly in 2022, while remittances from Russia to Central Asia will decline. We continue to work with partners and countries to keep remittances flowing despite the pandemic and other crises.

Addressing the global learning crisis

Even prior to COVID-19, the world was facing a global learning crisis. The pandemic—which at the peak of school closures in April 2020 saw 94 percent of students out of school—has compounded it. In low- and middle-income countries, the global learning poverty rate, which measures the share of 10-year-old children who cannot read and understand a simple text, may be reaching 70 percent. Globally, children affected by learning losses stand to lose $21 trillion in earnings across their lifetimes; in low- and middle-income countries, the loss is $11 trillion.

While almost all countries provided some form of remote learning during school closures, children from disadvantaged households were less likely to benefit. At least a third of the world’s schoolchildren—463 million—were unable to access remote learning. Girls, students with disabilities, and the youngest children also faced significant barriers to remote learning and are less likely to return to school after the pandemic.

Our support to countries covers the entire learning cycle to promote resilient, equitable, and inclusive education systems that ensure learning happens for everyone. We are the largest source of external financing for education in developing countries; our portfolio of about $23 billion aims to improve learning and provide everyone with access to the education they need to succeed. Over the past three years, our lending for education has doubled compared to the preceding 10 years. Our projects are reaching at least 432 million students and 18 million teachers—a third of students and nearly a quarter of teachers in client countries. We are also the largest implementing agency of the Global Partnership for Education’s grants for low-income countries, managing $3.6 billion in these grants or 57 percent of its grant portfolio.

Through our data, analytical work, policy advice, financing, and technical assistance, we are helping governments implement ambitious learning recovery programs to get children back to school, recover lost learning, ensure student and teacher well-being, support marginalized children, and accelerate progress. In Brazil, we are supporting learning recovery by providing targeted instruction for students with learning difficulties and structured exercises to develop socioemotional skills in schools. In India, we helped strengthen the state of Gujarat’s classroom-based assessment system to better inform new remedial methodologies; we also invested in teachers’ professional development. In Mozambique, we are strengthening learning readiness and early-grade literacy through scripted lesson plans, teacher training and coaching, and frequent assessment. We are also helping the country improve girls’ access and retention in higher grades by improving school safety, providing gender-friendly sanitation facilities, and instituting a mentorship program.

We work with many partners to advance these goals, including UNHCR, the WFP, OECD, and Harvard, Oxford, and Johns Hopkins universities. Launched in 2020 with UNICEF and in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the U.K. government, UNESCO, and USAID, the Accelerator Program continues to help participating countries improve foundational skills. The State of Global Education Crisis report, published with UNICEF and UNESCO, takes stock of the impacts of COVID-19 on learning and outlines policy responses to mitigate the effects of school closures. And the 2022 update to the State of Global Learning Poverty—a joint publication of the U.K. government, the Gates Foundation, UNESCO, UNICEF, USAID, and the Bank—emphasizes that recovery must start with political commitment at the national level.

Given the scale of the challenges and the competition for funding, countries need to concentrate their efforts on the most pressing priorities and cost-effective approaches to address learning poverty. Our joint report with UNICEF and UNESCO, Where Are We on Education Recovery?, provides an approach to ensure that all children and youth are in school and building the foundational skills they need for success in school and beyond. This RAPID approach encompasses policies that are critical for learning recovery. It seeks to reach every child and keep them in school; assess learning levels regularly; prioritize the teaching of fundamentals; increase the efficiency of instruction, including through catch-up learning; and develop psychosocial health and well-being.

In situations affected by FCV, our engagement stands at $5.2 billion; it has grown rapidly to reach the many children living amid conflict and violence. These projects now account for almost a quarter of our education portfolio. In line with the Bank Group’s FCV strategy, our approach recognizes that education is crucial to minimize the impacts of fragility and displacement on children and youth and to prevent violent conflict over the long term.

Addressing human capital gaps for an equitable recovery

As countries deal with multiple global crises, it is critical that they target investments to address gaps in human capital—the knowledge, skills, health, and nutrition that people need to achieve their potential. The World Bank’s Human Capital Project supports these efforts with a combination of research, data, analytics, and country and global engagement.

In 2022, human capital became a special theme in the IDA20 policy package, ensuring a focus on addressing gaps and leveraging investments in people in the poorest countries.

We have over 20 ongoing Human Capital Reviews that help governments identify constraints that affect human capital outcomes. We are also helping countries improve human capital financing and expenditure efficiency for better outcomes. And we are implementing regional human capital plans for Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia.

This year, we issued a policy note on how to address the caregiving and orphanhood crisis associated with COVID-19; this was published jointly with the WHO, the U.S. government, and several universities. Another just-in-time policy note looks at human capital losses from armed conflicts, across the life cycle as well as over generations; this informs the Bank Group’s response to the global impacts of the war in Ukraine. In December 2021, we published The Quality of Health and Education Systems Across Africa report, which shows how health and education service delivery data have helped shape public debate and supported countries’ action on policies. Our work is informed by ongoing analytical work on the impact of the pandemic on human capital losses.

Partnerships are a key component of the Human Capital Project. At biannual Ministerial Conclaves, we engage ministers of finance and planning and other partners on investing in people to improve health and education and support economic growth. This year’s events focused on reimagining service delivery in the digital age, as well as reversing learning and job losses from COVID-19. The efforts are complemented by a series of events with country focal points from ministries of finance.

The Human Capital Umbrella Program helps countries design and implement strategies to build, protect, and deploy human capital. With funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Canadian government, it has provided 16 countries in Africa and South Asia with analytics and technical assistance to address human capital challenges, with an emphasis on women’s economic empowerment.

Empowering women for sustainable growth and resilience

We work with countries to empower and invest in women and girls. Over the past 10 years, there has been progress across several key areas, including lower rates of maternal mortality, increases in girls’ education, and stronger legal protections for women. Between 2012 and 2022, countries’ average index score in our flagship Women, Business, and the Law report increased by 6.4 points, reflecting gains for women in economic rights and representation; there are more women than ever before in national parliaments.

Yet critical challenges remain. Countries are facing myriad crises—all of which affect boys, girls, men, and women differently. These are often further compounded by discriminatory laws and policies, as well as by social norms around economic roles and responsibilities and by gender-based violence (GBV). The pandemic continues to exacerbate gender gaps, threatening a reversal of gains for women and girls in areas like human capital, economic empowerment, and voice and agency.

To improve development outcomes, countries need to accelerate progress on women’s empowerment and entrepreneurship, girls’ education and skills for future jobs, and access to essential services, such as child care and sexual and reproductive health services. They also need to prevent and respond to GBV and its causes, particularly in countries affected by fragility and conflict. The Bank Group helps countries work toward these goals and make their economies more inclusive and resilient. This work is guided by our Gender Equality Strategy for 2016–23, which seeks to close gaps between men and women across four key pillars: human endowments (health, education, and social protection); jobs; assets; and voice and agency. And in January 2022, we launched a year-long #AccelerateEquality initiative to reflect on the progress made and lessons learned over the past 10 years.

We support the Umbrella Facility for Gender Equality, a multidonor trust fund that seeks to close gender gaps and empower women, men, girls, and boys. It finances global public goods to promote innovation and generate evidence for solutions that can be adapted by governments, development partners, and the private sector.

We help women participate in economic activity, including through measures to promote productive economic inclusion, such as training, coaching, and psychosocial interventions. We also support cash-for-work programs, greater child care support, agricultural extension services, and better access to financial and digital services, including credit and liquidity for women-led firms. In Serbia, we are supporting a project to boost growth and competitiveness by improving scientific research, entrepreneurship, and access to finance; more than half of the $1.3 million in grants that the project has awarded have gone to women. In Angola, we are helping address a large, rapidly growing population of out-of-school children and youth—particularly adolescent girls—by supporting a scholarship program for 900,000 youth, access to education for those who have dropped out, safer classrooms, and targeted health services. And our support for the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative unlocks financing and support systems for women-led and -owned businesses in developing countries.

We collect and curate data through the Gender Data Portal, which provides open access to sex-disaggregated data for over 900 indicators covering demography, education, health, economic activities, assets, leadership, GBV, and more. Our Gender Innovation Labs generate knowledge and evidence to promote gender equality, identifying gaps and testing solutions. In February 2022, we published research that looks at how forced displacement impacts the lives of women and men differently, increasing women’s risk of intimate partner violence and placing greater limits on their access to livelihood opportunities.

We launched the Breaking Barriers report, which focuses on ways to help women cross into more profitable sectors and improve their business performance. In East Asia and Pacific, we looked at child care interventions that maximize gains in women’s employment outcomes. In the Middle East and North Africa, we explored the constraints behind low female participation in Egypt’s labor force to inform policies that accelerate economic opportunities for the region’s women. And in South Asia, our Reshaping Norms report looks at how the region could redesign tax systems, increase competition, and challenge gender norms.

We work to prevent and respond to GBV with operations that support remote counseling services, educate parents on healthy relationships, address sexual harassment on public transport, train health workers to identify and refer cases, and strengthen data collection and referral mechanisms. In Tanzania, we are helping school management and teachers build their capacity to prevent and address GBV.

Women, Business, and the Law 2022

This edition builds evidence of the links between legal gender equality and women’s economic inclusion, identifies barriers to women’s economic participation, and encourages reform of discriminatory laws. It includes a new 95-country pilot survey of laws governing child care, a critical form of support needed for women to succeed in paid employment. For the first time, it also explores not just laws and regulations on paper, but how the law is being implemented in 25 economies. This highlights that laws alone are often not enough to improve gender equality. Important factors include their implementation and enforcement, as well as social, cultural, and religious norms.

Promoting fiscal and financial reforms

Developing countries face a growing number of complex and interlinked challenges, including the fiscal impact of COVID-19, the war in Ukraine, rising inflation, and climate change. A comprehensive policy framework is needed to help governments choose the right actions at the right time and resolve trade-offs. In fiscal 2022, with the support of a EUR 60 million contribution from Germany, we launched a comprehensive program to help countries tackle climate change amid the fiscal and financial challenges they face. This will help ministries of finance, economy, and trade to factor climate considerations into policies as well as help central banks and financial regulators strengthen their engagement. It will also strengthen government institutions so they can support more efficient resource allocation toward less-polluting production and consumption.

Helping countries find smart ways to boost domestic resource mobilization was also a focus of our analytical work in fiscal 2022. The pandemic depleted the fiscal buffers of many developing countries, leaving them with fewer resources to tackle emerging challenges. Our Innovations in Tax Compliance report outlines a novel, integrated framework to improve tax systems, focusing on enforcement, facilitation, and trust. The report notes that strategies to increase trust between taxpayers and tax administrations can lead to higher rates of compliance and build public support for more effective taxation.

World Development Report 2022: Finance for an Equitable Recovery

The report looks at the consequences of the crisis that are most likely to affect developing economies and advocates for policies and measures to mitigate the interconnected economic risks stemming from the pandemic—risks that may become more acute as stimulus measures are withdrawn at the domestic and global levels. These policies include the efficient and transparent management of nonperforming loans to address threats to financial stability, insolvency reforms to help reduce unsustainable debts, innovations in risk management and lending models to maintain access to credit for households and businesses, and better sovereign debt management to support an equitable recovery.

Strengthening public institutions and improving governance

We help countries build capable, efficient, inclusive, and accountable institutions. Our work enables countries to boost public sector productivity, mobilize technology to deliver public services, reduce corruption, and better manage climate-related disasters and other shocks.

COVID-19 underscored the crucial role that governments play in protecting citizens and shaping a better future for them. Our Future of Government initiative helps governments identify ways to shift from crisis toward green, resilient, and inclusive development. We also produced a comprehensive global report showing how sound public procurement could free up to $1 trillion in savings each year.

We developed several tools to support the effective design and implementation of policy reforms. We launched the Supreme Audit Institutions Independence Index, which provides insights into the legal and operational independence of these crucial institutions in more than 100 countries. We also launched the GovTech Maturity Index, which assesses how governments in 198 economies are using technology to improve public service delivery and strengthen citizen engagement. And our Worldwide Bureaucracy Indicators constitutes the most comprehensive dataset on public sector employment and wages, with 192 indicators from 200 countries.

Corruption harms the poor most—it can cost lives, reduce access to basic services, and exacerbate inequality. Our Anticorruption Action Plan is strengthening our approach to helping countries tackle this challenge by improving their ability to detect and deter corruption as early as possible.

Boosting financial sector resilience

Businesses and workers continue to be deeply affected by the pandemic. Stimulus measures provided a lifeline for troubled firms, but financial risks have risen as businesses borrowed to make up for shortfalls in liquidity. Our Business Pulse Survey showed that sales in 2021 remained, on average, 28 percentage points below 2019. Declines in earnings could make it harder for firms to service their debts.

We produced several analytical assessments to help firms that face high levels of uncertainty. Our updated Toolkit for Corporate Workouts spells out ways to facilitate fast, flexible, and cost-effective solutions to address firms’ financial problems without overburdening court systems. Our Addressing the Corporate Debt Overhang report offers solutions drawing on our expertise in corporate restructuring, financial stability, and capital markets. We also convened policy makers, regulators, practitioners, and the judiciary to discuss developments in insolvency law and practice at the Forum on Asian Insolvency Reform, the Africa Round Table, and the inaugural Caribbean Round Table.

Boosting private investment—particularly in infrastructure and housing—has been a focus for many countries. In Kenya, we supported the issuance of the country’s first mortgage refinance bond, which was six times oversubscribed. In Pakistan, our Housing Finance Project is expected to crowd in $750 million of private capital.

Today, digital financial services are reshaping business activity, shrinking the role of cash, and spurring new digital forms of money. A new Bank and IFC report, Fintech and the Future of Finance, explores the digital transformation in financial services, the fundamental changes that it will trigger, and the implications for market outcomes, regulation, and supervision. The Bank also helps countries leverage technology to bring financial services to nearly 2 billion people who still lack a basic bank account.

We are working with more than 50 countries on greening their financial sectors. In Egypt, we supported the creation of a new fund to mobilize $2 billion in private investment in emerging market sustainable bonds to support COVID-19 relief efforts and contribute to a green, resilient, and inclusive recovery.

Global Financial Inclusion Index

Building stronger social protection systems

Effective social protection systems are central to reducing poverty, boosting human capital, and laying the foundation for inclusive, equitable, and resilient societies. Yet major gaps in coverage remain in much of the world, especially developing countries. COVID-19 has highlighted these gaps and underscored the need to build and strengthen adaptive, sustainable social protection systems. These are crucial to safeguard the poor and vulnerable against a wide range of shocks.

In fiscal 2022, our social protection operations provided $1.6 billion in new financing to 16 countries, including eight affected by FCV, reaching more than 1 billion people worldwide. This support is helping scale up social protection and jobs operations by strengthening countries’ policies and systems and leveraging existing delivery systems—especially cash transfers—to reach more people. In Yemen, a $204 million project is benefiting nearly 9 million people by providing emergency cash transfers and supporting short-term employment and access to basic services. In Indonesia, a national $7 billion cash transfer program is reaching 74,000 villages and 8,000 urban wards with income support, health information, and monitoring for those affected by the pandemic. In Bangladesh, IDA financing is helping nearly 175,000 low-income urban youth affected by COVID-19 through life-skills training, apprenticeship programs, counseling, microfinance, and self-employment support.

The pandemic has also highlighted how pension funds can help respond to short-term needs during shocks, particularly when unemployment insurance is insufficient or nonexistent. This is reviving efforts to develop stronger unemployment insurance mechanisms, with clearer links to pensions or retirement savings. We have assessed more than 130 pension reform measures in 69 countries to help design effective and comprehensive responses to shocks.

We advocate for a decisive shift toward financing models based on general taxation which would protect informal workers, the elderly, and people living with disabilities, in addition to formal workers. And with governments under financial constraints due to the pandemic, we are committed to working toward progressive, universal coverage. This means that all those who need services should receive them. Our new report, Revisiting Targeting in Social Assistance, evaluates the benefits and costs of various targeting methods based on experience in over 130 countries. Countries can also work to reduce transaction costs and stigma, minimize errors of exclusion and inclusion, facilitate rapid crisis response, and improve access to social assistance through robust and transparent systems for identification, service delivery, and redress of grievances.

Investing in sustainable infrastructure

Investing in infrastructure helps connect people with opportunities, promotes economic growth, and improves livelihoods. It also provides a pathway for countries to integrate their climate and development goals by investing in projects that reduce carbon footprints, including renewable energy, green transport, and digital ecosystems. But reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and achieving growth in basic infrastructure investment will require developing countries to spend about 4.5 percent of GDP—$1.5 trillion—annually. This is beyond what governments can fund on their own, especially given growing debt concerns and budgets strained by the pandemic.

The Bank Group is working to enable and mobilize the flow of private capital to meet this funding gap. In fiscal 2022, the Bank provided $14.7 billion to support infrastructure in developing countries, an increase of nearly 50 percent from fiscal 2021. And over the period 2017–20, the Bank Group mobilized $100 billion in private sector funds to developing countries, 42 percent of the total generated by all multilateral development banks.

We work across the Bank Group to deliver projects, and we rely on strong partnerships to bolster this work and leverage the combined resources and comparative advantages of stakeholders. Our successes stem from innovative solutions for financing, enabling, and delivering infrastructure that are transactional and practical; produce measurable financial results and development outcomes; prioritize work based on geographic and sector needs; create efficiencies through scale, leverage, and uniformity; and adhere to internationally recognized financial and sustainability standards and principles.

A key pillar of our work is creating robust pipelines of impactful and scaled climate-impact investment opportunities. The Global Infrastructure Facility (GIF), a G20 upstream initiative housed at the Bank, brings to market sustainable, quality infrastructure projects and expands the market for private infrastructure finance in developing countries. Since its inception in 2014, the GIF has approved 138 advisory engagements in 62 countries; in fiscal 2022, it approved 25 new activities totaling $19 million. To date, 16 GIF-supported projects have successfully reached commercial close and nine have reached financial close, mobilizing over $6.9 billion of private capital. The Public-Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF) also supports private participation in green, resilient, and inclusive infrastructure. In fiscal 2022, the facility deployed nearly $12 million in technical assistance for green energy, digital development, transportation transitions, plastic and solid waste management, and sustainable water supply, including development of unconventional water sources. Emphasizing the role of infrastructure and the private sector in mitigating and adapting to climate change, the PPIAF, the GIF, the Bank, and IFC jointly launched the Climate Toolkits for Infrastructure PPPs in April 2022 to help governments address key questions on how to mainstream climate considerations into their plans.

The Bank Group also employs securitization structures to mobilize institutional investments in emerging market and developing economy (EMDE) debt that align with climate goals, as well as assists addressable EMDE state-owned utilities with transactions that optimize sustainable financing. Since 2013, IFC’s Managed Co-Lending Portfolio Program model has successfully raised more than $10 billion for direct lending to private firms in infrastructure and other sectors across more than 50 developing economies. This work aims to create a market of investment grade securities that will provide institutional investors better access to EMDE infrastructure debt, enhance project pipelines, and lower financing costs, while serving the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Supporting greener and more resilient transport

Transport is fundamental to supporting people and economies, but it also contributes 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. As populations, economies, and the need for mobility grow, these emissions could increase by as much as 60 percent by 2050 if left unchecked. The Bank helps countries implement approaches that avoid unnecessary motorized transport, promote cleaner technologies, support high-quality public transport, connect cities, and improve efficiency. We are the largest provider of development financing for transport globally, with a strong focus on climate-smart transport systems. Almost 75 percent of projects in our $31.4 billion transport portfolio now include climate co-benefits: they directly contribute to lowering emissions and enhancing countries’ climate resilience.

Our projects span public transport, logistics, roads, railways, aviation, ports, and waterways. Our work focuses on promoting transport decarbonization, ensuring climate resilience, and improving inclusion. Transport enables crucial access to jobs, education, and health services. We finance urban mobility programs such as metros and bus rapid transit in many large cities, including Abidjan, Bogotá, Dakar, Lima, Quito, and São Paulo.

Improving and modernizing transport systems in developing countries has additional benefits for people’s health, and safer roads and cleaner air save lives. Today, 90 percent of the world’s 1.4 million traffic fatalities per year occur in developing countries. Through the Global Road Safety Facility, we are working to reduce fatalities and injuries by half by 2030. Air pollution also contributes to 4.2 million deaths every year, with 9 out of 10 people living in places with poor air quality. To address these challenges, we created the Global Facility to Decarbonize Transport, a new multidonor trust fund to catalyze innovation and investment for low-carbon mobility in developing countries, with initial support from Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. It will help countries develop tailored solutions by supporting project preparation, research, and capacity building.

Our research and knowledge underpin these efforts. At COP26, we partnered with the World Resources Institute and the Netherlands to launch the Transport Decarbonization Investment Series, which delivers actionable recommendations to accelerate the transition toward green mobility by overcoming investment barriers and developing innovative financial instruments.

Building healthy and sustainable cities

Amid rapid urbanization and the worsening effects of climate change, we are helping countries shore up their urban infrastructure in inclusive and sustainable ways. Published in June 2021, the State of Cities Climate Finance report provides the first formal global analysis of cities’ financial needs to tackle the effects of the climate crisis; it presents solutions to mobilize climate finance for low-carbon, climate-resilient urban development. The City Climate Finance Gap Fund also initiated technical assistance for 33 cities, with a goal of reaching 180 by 2025.

We advocate for nature-based solutions—such as tree-planting and protected green spaces—to help adapt to and mitigate climate change. Through a series of talks with experts, our Global Platform for Sustainable Cities spurred efforts to reverse biodiversity loss while recognizing the need for socioeconomic inclusion and community support. These discussions put land rights issues into sharper focus, including in countries like Lao PDR, where we are helping alleviate people’s insecurity about land and property rights while improving tenure security and land administration services.

As the world population gets older and urban areas expand, we encourage planning for inclusive, healthy, and vibrant cities. Today, there are more people age 65 years or older than children under 5; by 2050, one in six people will be 65 or older. Our Silver Hues report urges policy makers to invest in planning and designing cities for this future.

Preparing against growing disaster risks

Disasters hurt poor and vulnerable people most, especially women and girls, elderly people, and people with disabilities—and in FCV settings, these risks are multiplied. The Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), a partnership housed at the Bank, works to address these gaps. A new GFDRR report looks at more inclusive approaches to disaster risk management, such as ensuring that vulnerable citizens and communities are at the center of disaster-risk planning. GFDRR is also working with partners to design and test a more nuanced and integrated approach to disaster risk management in fragile and conflict-affected countries.

In Tonga, we supported a disaster risk financing mechanism that swiftly disbursed $8 million in IDA financing after the volcanic eruption and tsunami in January 2022. Emergency centers were also quickly activated. In Jamaica, the Bank’s technical assistance helped price a catastrophe bond that will allow the country to access up to $185 million against losses from future cyclones. Following a massive earthquake in August 2021, Haiti was able to access a payout of about $40 million within 14 days through the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility, which was developed with the technical leadership of the Bank and in partnership with donor countries.

Promoting more sustainable and inclusive societies

We support countries’ most vulnerable and marginalized people by promoting more inclusive societies, fostering more resilient and cohesive communities, and enhancing accountability and citizen voices in development. These efforts are especially urgent in the face of compounding crises and challenges.

In partnership with UNHCR and the United Kingdom, we released a series of studies that look at how policies and investments can help prevent conflict related to forced displacement, promote the social and economic integration of refugees and displaced persons, and improve development outcomes for host communities and societies. This initiative bolsters our efforts to support displaced persons and host communities, such as in Colombia and Peru, where governments are seeking to better integrate Venezuelan migrants. In the Horn of Africa, we are scaling up emergency assistance to provide 3 million people with health information and water and sanitation services. This support will also expand economic opportunities and enhance environmental management for communities hosting refugees.

Local communities are often at the front lines in our efforts to fight climate change. In Kenya, we are helping communities assess climate risks and identify socially inclusive solutions tailored to their needs and priorities. We are also supporting people with disabilities in Kenya by providing grants and business development training through our partners. We remain committed to citizen engagement, which is key to strengthening transparency and accountability in development. In the Solomon Islands, we are helping ensure that local communities near a renewable energy project see benefits, including better infrastructure for water and electricity, as well as access to training in job skills.

We are deepening our commitment to vulnerable groups, including sexual and gender minorities, persons with disabilities, Indigenous Peoples, and women and girls. Our Equality of Opportunity for Sexual and Gender Minorities report examines laws and regulations that affect the lives of LGBTI people in 16 countries across six indicators. A global survey report by the Inclusive Education Initiative assesses the challenges faced by learners with disabilities—especially girls—and their families in accessing crucial support during pandemic-induced school closures. Across Central America, most of our COVID-19 response operations included policy actions to support inclusion of Indigenous Peoples. And in Nigeria, the Bank is working closely with communities to bolster women’s livelihoods, including by linking women-run businesses to markets and supporting financial inclusion.

Investing in digital development for growth

Digital technologies are essential for economic growth and development. During the pandemic, they have helped businesses and schools continue operating, allowed governments to maintain service delivery, and enabled financial services to reach more people. But countries need to bridge the digital divide: billions of people remain offline, while many lack the skills to use the internet effectively or cannot afford to access it. The Bank helps governments mobilize resources for digital transformation, adopt emerging technologies, and develop better digital regulations and policies. Over 30 Bank operations have significant digital components—with close to $5 billion in commitments in fiscal 2022. Our programs promote digital development across many sectors, including transport, finance, education, health, and agriculture.

Kosovo now has Europe’s greatest number of high-speed internet subscriptions per household, with internet penetration outpacing leading EU countries. We supported the country’s rural broadband program, which leveraged private capital and brought a digital lifeline to remote locations where it was needed most, including schools, health centers, and homes. We also helped Cabo Verde launch its digital health pass, which uses blockchain to safely store health certificates and information, including COVID-19 test results and vaccine documentation, while promoting access to other health services.

At the 2022 Spring Meetings, we issued a Development Committee paper and hosted a flagship event looking at how digital technologies can help countries recover from the pandemic, promote inclusion, and build resilience to future crises, including for climate mitigation and adaptation. The Bank Group also supports regional digital development initiatives around the world, including Digital Economy for Africa, a key component of the African Union’s Digital Transformation Strategy.

The Bank hosts several initiatives and trust funds that aim to support digital transformation, including the Digital Development Partnership, Identification for Development (ID4D), the Government-to-Person Payments initiative, the Cybersecurity Multidonor Trust Fund, and the Korea Digital Development Program.

The Survey on the Implementation of the Cape Town Global Action Plan for Sustainable Development Data was conducted in August–September 2021 by the Bank in partnership with the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs and the Partnership in Statistics for Development in the 21st Century (PARIS21), with participation from national statistics offices (NSOs) in 101 countries. It follows up on the 2017 Cape Town Global Action Plan, which aims to help countries build the statistical capacity necessary to achieve the SDGs by 2030. The survey revealed that despite gradual improvements, transformative change in statistical capacities has yet to be realized, particularly in developing economies. However, NSOs have continued to function despite the pandemic, attesting to their resilience.

The survey will inform the work of the Bank-hosted Global Data Facility and the Bern Network’s Clearinghouse for Financing Development Data to develop statistical capacity around the world. These two mechanisms will provide support for the data agenda, accelerate progress in implementing the Global Action Plan, and help realize a new social contract for data envisioned by the World Development Report 2021: Data for Better Lives as countries work toward the SDGs.