Sustainability and Infrastructure

Lasting poverty reduction requires sustainable natural resource management as well as infrastructure development. This research program encompasses energy, environment, land, agriculture, water, climate change, biodiversity, and urbanization.

Featured Research

Land and Property Research Conference

Conference, April 29-May 1, 2026, Washington, DC
The World Bank’s Research Department invites submission of papers featuring academic research on all aspects of land governance and institutions and their impact on shared economic growth, resilience, private investment, job creation, and poverty reduction. The research conference will be held from April 29 to May 1, 2026 at World Bank Headquarters in Washington, DC, USA.
Submit your paper by November 16, 2025 | 2024 Land Conference Research Track Papers
Advancing Biodiversity Conservation: Data-Driven Insights for Global Sustainability and Resilience
September 2025
Biodiversity conservation is critical for sustainable development, poverty reduction, and climate stability. However, biodiversity is in crisis, with nearly one million species at risk and a 68% decline in global biodiversity since 1970. Limited access to up-to-date data, particularly in developing regions, has hindered conservation efforts. Traditional metrics focus mainly on vertebrates and overlook broader aspects of biodiversity, while emerging threats outpace slow data updates. To address this, the World Bank has developed extensive open-access datasets, covering nearly 600,000 species across terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems. This effort has expanded habitat data by fivefold for plants and tenfold for invertebrates and other phyla, complementing the traditional focus on vertebrates.
Access the Biodiversity Database | Biodiversity Database Blog
Gender Tagging Public Works: A Scalable Strategy to Boost Women’s Labor Participation
Research Highlight, September 2025
Public works programs are a key tool for employment in low-income countries, yet women remain underrepresented. In Haiti, Kenya, and Rwanda, gender-tagged public works — programs that explicitly designate opportunities for women — increased women’s participation by 11 to 27 percentage points among dual-headed households, compared to programs without this feature. While these findings suggest that gender tagging can effectively increase women’s labor market participation, ongoing research by the authors is also examining potential unintended consequences, including shifts in household dynamics and possible backlash as women gain autonomy.
Research Insight Feature (September 2025)
9th Urbanization and Development Conference
Conference, June 11-12, 2025, Cape Town, South Africa
African countries are urbanizing at faster rates than any other region in history. This offers an important opportunity for growth and development. The 9th Urbanization and Development Conference on "Urban Economics in Action: Addressing African Cities' Challenges" will bring together academics, policy makers, and development practitioners to discuss how economics research can help inform urban policy decisions and the allocation of scarce resources to build productive, livable, and sustainable cities in Africa.
Access recordings, papers, and presentations from the event
Strengthening African Wildlife and Fisheries Conservation: How Private Management, Regional Cooperation, and Artisanal Priority Improve Outcomes
Policy Research Talk, June 4, 2025
Wild animals, plants, and other living organisms make Earth habitable, and their existence holds intrinsic value. In this Policy Research Talk, World Bank economist Gabriel Englander presented insights on current and emerging trends in African conservation policies, and challenged pessimism regarding African conservation effectiveness while also identifying opportunities for improvements.
Event Information | Presentation | More research by Gabriel Englander
World Bank Land Conference 2024: Securing Land Tenure and Access for Climate Action - Research Track
Conference, May 13-17, 2024, Washington, DC
For over two decades, the World Bank Land Conference catalyzed the global land community. The Conference is the premier forum for the land sector, bringing together participants from governments, development partners, civil society, academia, and the private sector to showcase research, discuss issues and good practice, and inform policy dialogue.
Event Sessions | Program Book | Land Policies for Resilient and Equitable Growth in Africa
Sea Level Rise
PBS Energy Switch Interview, April 2024
Sea level has been rising since the end of the last Ice Age, when continental ice sheets began to melt. In island nations and low-lying coastal areas sea level rise is contributing, among other things, to high tide flooding, and saltwater encroaching into farmland and freshwater aquifers. This television program discusses what the future could bring and ideas of how communities could adapt to sea level rise.
More research by Susmita Dasgupta
Climate Change as a Major Threat to Sustainable Development: The case of sea-level rise in the Ganges Brahmaputra Delta in Asia
Presentation, December 2023
Families in coastal Bangladesh are already on the “front line” of climate change. Their experience gives a preview of the kinds of future decisions faced by hundreds of millions of families worldwide that will be confronted by similar threats well before 2100. In a presentation delivered at Harvard Graduate School in December 2023, Susmita Dasgupta discussed the multifaceted threats from sea-level rise in the Ganges Delta, as well as policy and adaptation measures to respond to these threats.
Presentation | More research by Susmita Dasgupta
GHG Tracking & Mitigation with Satellite Data
Datasets and Research, January 2024
Reducing greenhouse gases (GHGs) is urgently required to mitigate climate change. Steep emissions reductions will be needed to keep global warming below 1.5°C. While countries around the world have pledged to curb both carbon and methane emissions—two of the most significant GHGs—many nations do not have the infrastructure to adequately track their emissions. To fill this gap, the World Bank has rolled out major new datasets, tools, and research using satellite data to make frequently updated GHG emission data easily accessible to the general public.
Story | Carbon Dioxide Dataset | Methane Dataset | Presentation to NASA (April 2023) | NASA Presentation Participants | World Bank-NASA-NOAA-EfSI Roundtable on Greenhouse Gas Emissions (November 2023) | Resources | Blog Post | More research by Susmita Dasgupta
Climate Change as a Major Threat to Sustainable Development: The case of sea-level rise in the Ganges Brahmaputra Delta in Asia
Presentation, December 2, 2023, Harvard Graduate School
Families in coastal Bangladesh are already on the “front line” of climate change. Their experience gives a preview of the kinds of future decisions faced by hundreds of millions of families worldwide that will be confronted by similar threats well before 2100. In this presentation delivered at Harvard Graduate School in December 2023, Susmita Dasgupta discussed the multifaceted threats from sea-level rise in the Ganges Delta, as well as policy and adaptation measures to respond to these threats.

LATEST WORKING PAPERS

Deterring Industrial Vessels from African Coastal Fisheries
Aishwarya Agarwal and Gabriel Englander
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 11222, September 2025

Using Remotely Sensed Data to Assess War-Induced Damage to Agricultural Cultivation: Evidence from Ukraine
Klaus Deininger, Daniel Ayalew, Nataliia Kussul, Guido Lemoine, Andrii Shelestov, and Leonid Shumilo
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 11221, September 2025

Economics of Household Cooking Using Electricity in Nepal
Sunil Malla, Govinda R. Timilsina, and Martin P. Heger
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 11157, June 2025

Yield Gains from Balancing Fertilizer Use: Evidence from Eastern India
Julian Arteaga, and Klaus Deininger
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 11134, May 2025

Certified to Stay? Long-Run Experimental Evidence on Land Formalization and Widows’ Tenure Security in Benin
Ioana Botea, Markus Goldstein, Kenneth Houngbedji, Florence Kondylis, Michael O’Sullivan, and Harris Selod
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 11102, April 2025

Capitalizing on Digital Transformation to Enhance the Effectiveness of Property Institutions: Conceptual Background and Evidence from 85 Countries
Klaus Deininger, Thea Hilhorst, Jaap Zevenbergen, and Emmanuel Nkurunziza
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 11100, April 2025

This section highlights a few recent working papers. For a full list of working papers, please see: More Working Papers

LATEST JOURNAL ARTICLES

Conserving Wildlife through Demand Reduction and Supply Alternatives: Two Experiments in Restaurants in Kinshasa
Abdoulaye Cisse, Gabriel Englander, and Daniel Ingram
People and Nature, Forthcoming

Matching Frictions and Distorted Beliefs: Evidence from a Job Fair Experiment
Girum Abebe, Stefano Caria, Marcel Fafchamps, Paolo Falco, Simon Franklin, Simon Quinn, and Forhad Shilpi
The Economic Journal, vol. 135, October 2025

Making the Most of Coresident Data: Credible Evidence on Intergenerational Mobility with Sibling Correlation
Ahsan, Md Nazmul, M. Shahe Emran, Hanchen Jiang, and Forhad Shilpi
Journal of Development Economics, vol. 176, September 2025

Decentralized markets for electricity in low-income countries
Megan Lang
Journal of Public Economics, vol. 247, July 2025

Assessment of War-Induced Agricultural Land Use Changes in Ukraine using Machine Learning applied to Sentinel Satellite Data
Nataliia Kussul, Klaus Deininger, Guido Lemoine, Andrii Shelestov, Hanna Yailimova
International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, vol. 140, June 2025

Infrastructure Inequality Across Indian States: Role of Economic, Social, Institutional, and Political Factor
Govinda R. Timilsina, Ranjan Kumar Dash, and Pravakar Sahoo
Asian Development Review, vol. 135, June 2025

Pathways to 30 × 30: Evidence-Based Lessons from Global Case Studies in Biodiversity Conservation
Susmita Dasgupta, David Wheeler, and Brian Blankespoor
Diversity - Special Issue: Restoring and Conserving Biodiversity: A Global Perspective, vol. 17, June 2025

The role of market frictions in demand for prepaid electricity
Megan Lang
Journal of Development Economics, vol. 175, June 2025

Outward and Upward Construction: A 3D Analysis of the Global Building Stock
Thomas Esch, Klaus Deininger, Remi Jedwab, and Daniela Palacios-Lopez
World Development, vol. 188, April 2025

How can a carbon tax be designed to benefit the poor? An investigation for Ethiopia
Govinda R. Timilsina, and Samuel Sebsibie
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, vol. 213, March 2025

Firm-Level Adaptation to Climate Change in Low- and Middle-Income Countries
Ana Goicoechea, Megan Lang
World Bank Research Observer, February 2025

Land Policies and Institutions for Equitable and Resilient Growth in Africa
Klaus Deininger and Aparajita Goyal
World Bank Research Observer, vol. 40, February 2025

Books and Reports

Carbon Pricing Around the World
Joseph Pryor, Paolo Agnolucci, Carolyn Fischer, Dirk Heine, Mariza Montes de Oca Leon, April 2023
This book chapter provides an overview of approaches for measuring carbon pricing. It summarizes World Bank indicators for tracking direct carbon pricing, including recent trends, as well as outlining the methodologies and limitations (https://carbonpricingdashboard.worldbank.org/). This chapter appears in the book Data for a Greener World: A Guide for Practitioners and Policymakers.
More research from Carolyn Fischer
Minimizing Ecological Damage from Road Improvement in Tropical Forests: Evidence from Bolivia, Cameroon and Myanmar
Susmita Dasgupta, David R. Wheeler, 2022
The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the vulnerabilities of socio-economic systems globally and exposed the risks that natural capital degradation imposes on human health, economy, and society. This book studies the environmental challenges faced by developing economies in a post-COVID-19 world. This chapter appears in the book Environmental Economics in Developing Countries: Issues and Challenges.
More research from Susmita Dasgupta
Economics of Renewable Energy: A Comparison of Electricity Production Costs Across Technologies
Govinda R. Timilsina, Kalim Shah, May 2022
This chapter appears in the book Oxford Encyclopedia of Environmental Economics. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Environmental Economics focuses on the most important research topics in environmental and natural resource economics, with a treatment of close to 100 different research areas.
More research from Govinda R. Timilsina
Economic Approach to Intergenerational Mobility: Measures, Methods, And Challenges in Developing Countries
M. Shahe Emran, Forhad Shilpi, March 2022
Social mobility is the hope of economic development and the mantra of a good society. There are disagreements about what constitutes social mobility, but there is broad agreement that people should have roughly equal chances of success regardless of their economic status at birth. Concerns about rising inequality have engendered a renewed interest in social mobility—especially in the developing world. This book chapter provides a critical survey and synthesis of the recent economic literature on intergenerational mobility in developing countries, with a focus on data and methodological challenges.
More research from Forhad Shilpi
Energy Subsidies in Russia: Size Impact and Potential for Reform
Apurva Sanghi, Jevgenijs Steinbuks, December 1, 2021
This report seeks to understand the size, impacts, and potential for energy subsidy reform in the Russian Federation to inform policymakers as they explore approaches to reducing such subsidies.
Coping with Climate Change in the Sundarbans: Lessons from Multidisciplinary Studies
Susmita Dasgupta, David Wheeler, Md. Istiak Sobhan, Sunando Bandyopadhyay, Ainun Nishat, and Tapas Paul, November 2020
Climate change is a major threat to the Sundarbans — the world’s largest remaining contiguous mangrove forest — wetland of international importance, and the surrounding poor communities whose livelihoods depend on its natural resources. This book synthesizes multiyear, multidisciplinary studies that assess the vulnerability of this ecosystem and its neighboring coastal communities and recommend “resilient-smart” adaptation measures. The methods and findings will be of interest to development practitioners, policy makers, and researchers focused on island nations and countries worldwide that feature high density populations and economic activity in low-lying coastal regions vulnerable to sea-level rise.
Download the report | More research by Susmita Dasgupta