Digital Integration
The World Bank launched an early twentieth replenishment process of the International Development Association (IDA), aiming to support countries in their recovery from the COVID-19 crisis and transition to green, resilient, and inclusive development. Under the theme “Building Back Better from the Crisis: Towards a Green, Resilient and Inclusive Future,” the IDA20 replenishment process will be informed by IDA19 progress as well as the World Bank’s mission and COVID-19 response. The IDA20 will maintain the four IDA19 special themes of climate change; fragility, conflict and violence; gender; and jobs and economic transformation; and introduce human capital as the fifth special theme.
Investing in girls’ education and keeping girls in school are critical first steps in building a country’s human capital and opening up opportunities for women in the Sahel. The IDA-supported Sahel Women’s Empowerment and Demographic Dividend project (SWEDD) aims to empower women and adolescent girls and increase their access to quality education and reproductive, child, and maternal health services.
The IDA-supported Development Response to Displacement Impacts Project (DRDIP), which aims to improve access to basic social services, expand economic opportunities, and enhance environmental management for communities hosting refugees, is shifting its focus in response to the COVID-19 crisis.
The IDA-supported Regional Disease Surveillance Systems Enhancement (REDISSE) Program was launched in 2016 to help Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo respond to the challenges created by the Ebola outbreak and better protect against epidemic threats. Now, REDISSE has strongly positioned these countries as they face yet another health crisis—the global COVID-19 pandemic.
The violent attacks carried out by Boko Haram since 2009 have left deep scars for the 15 million people that call the region of North-East Nigeria home. Some 20,00 people have died, and 2.2 million people have been forcibly displaced by the conflict. About 70 percent of those displaced are hosted in the states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe. Between 2017-2020, 687 infrastructure rehabilitation projects have been initiated, and the construction and repair of nearly 180 kilometers of roads and three bridges are underway. Over 105,000 beneficiaries (of which 49 percent are women) have gained access to rehabilitated roads, hospitals, schools, water, sanitation and hygiene facilities, and public buildings. The project has also responded to the trauma of conflict and displacement, with ...
The IDA-supported WURI Program is helping to build the foundational identification systems needed across Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Niger, and Togo to facilitate access to services for millions of people. Informal workers represent 80 percent of total employment in this part of the world—90 percent of whom are women—and they often fall through the cracks of existing social protection programs. In times of crisis, the program aids countries in quickly scaling up social protection programs through flexible platforms, including providing emergency support to informal workers.
A Liberia youth farming group in rural Lofa County that benefitted from the outh Opportunities Project (YOP) has been successful in its agriculture efforts, enabling it provide solar electrification for their small village. One member and young mother, Fatumata Bility, says she feels proud to be part of a group that worked hard to bring such development to her community.
In the Central African Republic, where years of prolonged violence and conflict have ravaged the country’s health care system, an innovative approach is saving lives and putting people to work. As the global COVID-19 pandemic bore down on the country, the government made the difficult decision to mandate the use of facial masks. Like many countries, however, they were faced with a dearth of masks in local and international markets. The IDA supported LONDO project was able to quickly rise to the challenge, locally producing more than 2.4 million masks in record time.
The IDA-financed Regional Sahel Pastoralism Support Project (PRAPS) supports countries of the Sahel—Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal. It helps to protect pastoral systems by improving resource management and animal health, facilitating access to markets, diversifying sources of income for pastoral households, and managing conflicts.
IDA-supported Eastern & Southern Africa Higher Education Centers of Excellence (ACEII) project is designed to strengthen selected academic research centers to deliver quality post-graduate education and develop globally engaged and collaborative research capacity in the Eastern and Southern Africa region.
