Commodity Prices to Stabilize after Early 2021 Gains, Supported by Global Economic Recovery

The global COVID-19 vaccination campaign will be the largest in history. The delivery of COVID-19 vaccines presents challenges unprecedented in scale, speed and specificities, especially in low- and middle-income countries. In November 2020, anticipating the availability of safe and effective vaccines for COVID-19, the World Bank together with WHO, UNICEF, the Global Fund, and Gavi rolled out readiness assessments in more than 100 low and middle-income countries. Read More

Data flows not only support trade in goods, making production and distribution more effective and less costly, but such flows are in fact the vehicle for trading digital services across borders. As trade in global digital services has increased dramatically in recent years, so have global data flows. The World Development Report 2021, Data for Better Lives finds that a combination of well-defined domestic personal data protection measures with relative ease of cross-border movements appears to offer the most favorable environment for international trade in data-enabled services.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, 27 economies in all regions and income groups enacted reforms to remove obstacles to women’s economic inclusion across all areas and increased good practices in legislation in 45 cases, according to the Women, Business and the Law 2021. The greatest number of reforms introduced or amended laws affecting pay and parenthood. Read more.

The COVID-19-related global recession and economic policy response have triggered a surge in debt levels in emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs). Coming on top of a surge in global debt since 2010, this creates new risks. Read More.