Online Media Briefing Center (OMBC) news for accredited journalists
The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred financial inclusion – driving a large increase in digital payments amid the global expansion of formal financial services. This expansion created new economic opportunities, narrowing the gender gap in account ownership, and building resilience at the household level to better manage financial shocks, according to the Global Findex 2021 database.
Compounding the damage from COVID-19, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has magnified the slowdown in the global economy, which is entering what could become a protracted period of feeble growth and elevated inflation, according to the latest Global Economic Prospects report.
Global carbon pricing revenue in 2021 increased by almost 60 percent from 2020 levels, to around $84 billion, providing an important source of funds to help support a sustainable economic recovery, finance broader fiscal reforms, or invest in communities as part of the low-carbon transition future, according to the World Bank’s annual “State and Trends of Carbon Pricing” report.
As a result of the worst shock to education and learning in recorded history, learning poverty has increased by a third in low- and middle-income countries, with an estimated 70% of 10-year-olds unable to understand a simple written text, according to a new report published today by the World Bank, UNESCO, UNICEF, UK government Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), USAID, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The World Bank Group approved a $2.3 billion program to help countries in Eastern and Southern Africa increase the resilience of the region’s food systems and ability to tackle growing food insecurity.
The World Bank Group has announced that over the coming weeks it will be discussing with its Governors and Board of Executive Directors a 15-month crisis response financing package of around $170 billion to help countries address multiple overlapping crises.
