Empowering Women in the Kyrgyz Republic: Mendayim Starts a Business

Empowering women is essential for creating inclusive, resilient growth in the Kyrgyz Republic. The Livelihoods for Youth (L4Y) Community Support Project is supporting young people, like Mendayim Suyunbai Kyzy, to boost their employability and gain entrepreneurial skills.

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Digital Development

Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs

Generating good jobs is essential for the more than 22 million Africans joining the workforce each year. Digital technologies, from computers to apps to machine learning, offer new opportunities for people, businesses, and jobs. Evidence presented in this report demonstrates that internet availability increases jobs and reduced poverty in African countries.

EXPERT ANSWERS

Interview: COVID-19’s Devastating Impact on Human Capital

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a massive collapse in human capital at critical moments in the life cycle, derailing development for millions of children and young people in low- and middle-income countries, according to Collapse and Recovery: How COVID-19 Eroded Human Capital and What to do About It, the first analysis of global data on young people under the age of 25. What were the losses for young people and developing economies, and can they be recovered? To help us learn more, Norbert Schady, Chief Economist for Human Development at the World Bank Group and co-author of this year’s report, joins Expert Answers.

Food Security

Latest Food Security Update

Our latest update from March 9 shows that domestic food price inflation remains high around the world, with inflation levels above 5% in 94.1% of low-income countries, 86% of lower-middle-income countries, and 87.0% of upper-middle-income countries and many experiencing double-digit inflation. The countries affected most are in Africa, North America, Latin America, South Asia, Europe, and Central Asia.

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Food security is defined when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.

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Food Security Update (Mar. 9)
Joint Statement by the Heads of the Food and Agriculture Organization, International Monetary Fund, World Bank Group, World Food Programme and World Trade Organization on the Global Food and Nutrition Security Crisis
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BLOG: How much do countries spend on education, and how do the price levels of education compare? Three charts from the International Comparison Program
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More than half of all reforms captured were implemented in Sub-Saharan Africa region by seven economies

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In 2022, the global average score on the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law index rose just half a point to 77.1—indicating women, on average, enjoy barely 77 percent of the legal rights that men do. At the current pace of reform, in many countries a woman entering the workforce today will retire before she will be able to gain the same rights as men, the report notes. This year, 18 countries enacted 34 reforms, the lowest number of reforms in 20 years. But more than half of all reforms captured were implemented in the Sub-Saharan Africa region by seven economies. Learn More.

Globally, roughly half of working age women participate in the labor force, which is significantly lower than the male labor force participation rate of around 80%. This gap is virtually unchanged from what it was three decades ago. And there are sizeable differences in the level of female labor force participation across regions. Moreover, women tend to face inferior income opportunities and on average earn less than men. Explore more aspects of female labor force participation through this data story.

According to the latest statistics (see below), more than one in five women were first married before the age of 18, with the practice of child marriage being most prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Beyond being a human rights violation, child marriage also greatly undermines women’s and girls’ economic opportunities. It limits child brides’ access to education, reduces their future earnings, jeopardizes their health, and puts them at a heightened risk of domestic violence. Data on the economic impacts of child marriage provide the foundation for advocacy campaigns to end the practice. Learn more.