REGIONAL ENGAGEMENTS

Countries in Eastern and Southern Africa remain weighed down by a series of crises, including the impacts of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, soaring commodity prices and food shortages, devastating climate shocks, and debt distress. Real GDP growth in the region is estimated to decline to 3 percent in 2023, from 3.5 percent in 2022. The region’s economy is hindered by lower long-term growth in the continent’s largest countries, such as South Africa, whose economic activity is set to weaken further in 2023 to 0.8 percent as the energy crisis deepens.

However, many countries are showing resilience, including Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, and Rwanda, which grew at 8.6 percent, 5.2 percent, and 8.2 percent in 2022, respectively. By harnessing their natural resources and enacting the right policies, countries can improve fiscal and debt sustainability.

World Bank assistance

In fiscal 2023, the Bank approved $16.7 billion in lending to Eastern and Southern Africa for 73 operations, including $2.4 billion in IBRD commitments and $14.3 billion in IDA commitments. This includes $3.8 billion in new financing to help countries boost food security. Our work in Eastern and Southern Africa focuses on addressing food insecurity, building resilience to climate change, boosting inclusion, and promoting digital development.

Through the World Bank Group’s Regional Integration Strategy, we stepped up efforts to strengthen regional integration in Africa during fiscal 2021–23, helping the continent recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and achieve economic transformation. The strategy also supports regional connectivity, trade and market integration, human capital development, and greater resilience. It focuses on bringing countries and partners together to address common fragility challenges in the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes.

Combating rising food insecurity

More than 36 million people across the Horn of Africa cannot access enough food as Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia experience the worst drought in 40 years. The Bank is helping countries tackle growing food insecurity through a $2.8 billion envelope that includes a Contingent Emergency Response Component to provide rapid financing in the region. This program is also supporting resilient agriculture, sustainable natural resources, greater market access, and more resilient food systems for the longer term through effective policies. Now in its third phase, the program is mobilizing much-needed resources to respond to the food crisis and promote resilient agricultural production in Comoros, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Somalia, and Tanzania. In Somalia, we helped over 1 million people, nearly a tenth of the country's population, receive unconditional cash transfers to meet basic nutrition and consumption needs. We also protected food security and livelihoods for another 600,000 people in the aftermath of a major locust outbreak in 2020 by temporarily scaling up the regular program and delivery of emergency cash transfers.

In March 2023, the longest-lasting tropical cyclone ever recorded in the Southern Hemisphere hit Malawi and Mozambique. Immediately following Cyclone Freddy, we activated emergency contingency measures worth $47 million and $150 million, respectively, to support disaster response. In Malawi, this support helped purchase 65,000 metric tons of maize and medical supplies to address food insecurity and the spread of cholera (see Spotlight on page 19). In Mozambique, this financing is helping rehabilitate roads, bridges, schools, health centers, power lines, water supply, and drainage structures. It is also helping restore rural livelihoods by distributing agriculture seeds and tools to affected farmers.

Increasing resilience to climate shocks

Crippling droughts, devastating floods, and rapidly rising temperatures are severely hitting African economies. We provided $385 million to help countries in the Horn of Africa better adapt to climate change. This project will foster cooperation between Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia to draw on the region’s largely untapped groundwater resources. It will reach more than 3 million people, half of them women, by increasing access to water supply, reducing vulnerability to climate change, and improving food security.

We also committed $328 million to help Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia address drought impacts on pastoral communities and better connect them to markets. The project will reach 250,000 households, helping pastoralists access drought insurance and digital tools and attracting more private investment. And in Rwanda, we provided $100 million in additional financing to support a sustainability-linked bond instrument, to be issued by the Development Bank of Rwanda in local currency, to help mobilize private capital.   

Expanding access to electricity

Unless the current pace of electrification is tripled, over half a billion people in Sub-Saharan Africa will remain without electricity in 2030. We are working to accelerate access to affordable, reliable, and sustainable electricity and facilitate a transition to more diverse and cleaner sources of energy that meet growing demand, promote growth, and create jobs. In Tanzania, we have helped provide more than 4.5 million people with access to electricity and added new connections to more than 1,600 health care facilities and nearly 6,000 schools since 2017. In South Africa, we are supporting a $497 million project that will help Eskom—the country’s main electricity supplier—decommission and repurpose the Komati coal-fired power plant using renewables and batteries. This effort will also create opportunities for those who are affected in Mpumalanga province, which has 12 of South Africa’s coal-fired power plants and 83 percent of South Africa’s coal production. This project was a landmark step in the Bank’s efforts to help countries transition to low-carbon economies without sacrificing their development goals.

Stepping up investments to empower women and girls

The Bank is committed to empowering women and girls to boost human capital and accelerate growth. This includes our support for girls’ education, economic opportunities for women, better health services, and greater agency for women. Our Regional Gender Action Plan focuses on closing gaps in earning, asset, digital, and education; improving reproductive health care; reducing gender-based violence; addressing social norms; strengthening laws and regulations; and engaging men and boys. In Somalia, we are providing additional financing of $52 million to increase access to education and skills training for 30,000 girls and women. This will help them acquire basic literacy, numeracy, life, and vocational skills that will allow them to improve their livelihoods. In Angola, a $250 million project will reach 900,000 youth, mostly girls, and increase access to secondary education for girls, provide sexual and reproductive health services, offer scholarships to keep girls in school, and proactively address gender-based violence.

Establishing a Digital Africa

The Bank supports efforts to expand high-speed internet access across the continent to help boost firm productivity and exports and helping create jobs. In Kenya, we are providing $390 million to expand access to high-speed internet, improve education and government services, and build skills for the regional digital economy—all of which will help reduce disparities in digital skills and connectivity and expand the digital marketplace. The project will also mobilize about $100 million in private capital to develop broadband infrastructure.

Further Information: Eastern and Southern Africa Homepage >

 

Regional Commitments and Disbusements for Fiscal 2021–23

	COMMITMENTS ($ MILLIONS)			DISBURSEMENTS ($ MILLIONS)
	FY21	FY22	FY23	FY21	FY22	FY23
IBRD	1,525	2,907	2,364	325	2,441	1,690
IDA	14,089	15,266	14,368	8,081	7,133	10,417
Portfolio of operations under implementation as of June 30, 2023: $74.2 billion.

 

SPOTLIGHT: Moving from response to resilience in cyclone-battered Malawi

With over 1,000 lives lost, hundreds of thousands displaced in camps, and roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, and powerlines damaged, Cyclone Freddy was the latest in a series of shocks that devastated the lives and livelihoods of the poorest and most vulnerable people in Malawi, as well as the country’s prospects for long-term, inclusive growth.

In response to myriad crises—including COVID-19, cyclones Ana and Gombe in 2022, and the year-long cholera outbreak—the World Bank has stepped up to support Malawi’s emergency response and promote more durable solutions. This includes $87 million for COVID-19 response, vaccines, and systems strengthening; $60 million to rehabilitate the Kapichira Dam, which supports one-third of Malawi’s installed electricity capacity; $100 million to protect essential health services in the face of cholera; and $110 million for social protection.

Immediately following Cyclone Freddy, the Bank helped clear debris, supply clean water, and purchase fuel for search and rescue. We activated two Contingent Emergency Response Components, which allow the quick redirection of project funding, for maize supply and essential medicines for the southern region, where they are most needed. Working closely with the UNDP and the EU, we supported a post-disaster needs assessment, which estimates loss and damages of about $600 million and recovery needs of $700 million.

To support recovery following the cyclone, we are helping improve growth, livelihoods, and critical services. This includes the Malawi Agriculture Commercialization Project, which supports more than 75,000 members of producer groups by fostering productivity, resilience, and market integration with more than 100 purchasers, such as domestic supermarkets and international agrifood companies. We are also providing $145 million to help municipal authorities in the city of Blantyre strengthen resilience in water supply and sanitation, reaching nearly half a million residents.

Looking ahead to the longer term, the Bank is preparing a comprehensive crisis response and resilience program to help Malawi build back better while also scaling up critical work on degraded landscapes.

 

Regional Snapshot

INDICATOR	2000	2011	CURRENT DATAa
Total population (millions)	402	538	721
Population growth (annual %)	2.6	2.7	2.5
GNI per capita (Atlas method, current US$)	658	1,575	1,542
GDP per capita growth (annual %)	0.8	0.9	0.8
Population living below $2.15 a day (millions)	227	231	262
Life expectancy at birth, females (years)	53.7	61.3	65.1
Life expectancy at birth, males (years)	50.2	57.3	59.9
Carbon dioxide emissions (megatons)	358	525	545
Extreme poverty (% of population below $2.15 a day, 2017 PPP)	56.5	42.9	40.3
Debt service as a proportion of exports of goods, services, and primary incomeb	12	4	19
Ratio of female to male labor force participation rate (%) (modeled ILO estimate)	85	86	87
Vulnerable employment, total (% of total employment) (modeled ILO estimate)	73	73	71
Under-5 mortality rate per 1,000 live births	138	82	57
Primary completion rate (% of relevant age group)	50	68	72
Individuals using the internet (% of population)	1	7	28
Access to electricity (% of population)	20	29	48
Renewable energy consumption (% of total final energy consumption)	65	63	66
People using at least basic drinking water services (% of population)	41	51	59
People using at least basic sanitation services (% of population)	23	27	31
Note: ILO = International Labour Organization; PPP = purchasing power parity.  a. The most current data available between 2018 and 2022; visit https://data.worldbank.org for data updates. b. Data for Sub-Saharan Africa.

Over the past two decades, most countries in East Asia and Pacific have generated strong and stable growth that has resulted in a striking decline in poverty. At the same time, inequality has been declining. Recovering from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the developing East Asia and Pacific region grew 3.5 percent in 2022 and is expected to accelerate to 5.5 percent in 2023, driven largely by China’s projected rebound following its post-pandemic reopening. Growth in the rest of the region is expected to slow moderately to 4.8 percent in 2023 due to weakening external and domestic demand after a strong recovery in 2022. Slowing global growth, elevated commodity prices, and financial market developments are expected to weigh on the region’s economies in 2023.

While most major economies in the region have recovered from recent shocks and are growing, progress toward the convergence of per capita income levels with those of high-income countries has stalled. The recovery has been uneven across the region, with output still below pre-pandemic levels in many island countries in the Pacific.

World Bank assistance

The Bank approved $7.5 billion for 28 operations in the region in fiscal 2023, including $6.6 billion in IBRD commitments and $877 million in IDA commitments. We also signed six Reimbursable Advisory Services agreements with two countries for a total of $3.5 million.

With countries in the region facing the challenges of deglobalization, aging, and climate change, our work focuses on four main areas: promoting economic recovery for long-term growth, building human capital and strengthening pandemic preparedness, mobilizing climate finance, and building resilience and sustainability. The World Bank remains engaged in Myanmar, aligned with the World Bank Group Strategy for Fragility, Conflict, and Violence. We are monitoring and assessing the situation on the ground and assisting the most vulnerable people through a multidonor trust fund. We continue to deepen our partnerships with non-borrowing member countries, including Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore, allowing us to exchange development lessons and solutions for shared priorities.

Promoting economic recovery for long-term growth

We help countries expand private sector opportunities and enable investment and innovation to promote sustainable growth. In the Philippines, the Bank is supporting a program to strengthen financial sector stability, expand financial inclusion, and bolster sustainable financing for mitigating climate and disaster risk. It supports reforms to boost job creation, human capital, and resilience to conflict and natural disasters. In Cambodia, we are supporting efforts to expand growth through a more competitive private sector environment and to strengthen the country’s fiscal, social, and environmental resilience. This will help enhance the financial sector and foster private enterprises while strengthening public sector accountability and finance. We are also promoting digitalization to improve public services, increase productivity, and expand access and inclusion, including in Kiribati, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and Mongolia.

Building human capital and strengthening future pandemic preparedness

Investing in human capital is key to ensuring long-term sustainable growth and reducing poverty. In Indonesia, we are supporting a successful children’s health initiative to improve nutrition and prevent stunting. In the Philippines, we are working to address the persistence of high levels of childhood undernutrition and reverse the trends that could seriously damage the country’s human and economic potential. In Timor-Leste, we are helping the government better prepare for, prevent, respond to, and mitigate the impact of epidemics; while in Tuvalu, we are supporting efforts to improve health service delivery, strengthen health management systems, and respond promptly and effectively to crises or emergencies.

We are helping Lao PDR improve child health, nutrition, and food security through social assistance and livelihood options, better child care, and access to health services and clean water. We are also working with the government to address the learning lost during the pandemic. In Papua New Guinea, we are supporting efforts to scale up a community-based approach to delivering nutrition services and improving families’ nutrition knowledge and practices.

Mobilizing climate finance for resilient growth

Through the World Bank’s Country Climate and Development Reports, we offer concrete, evidence-based proposals for countries to address climate change without sacrificing their development goals. The report for China analyzed the fundamental changes in energy, industry, transport, cities, and land use that could help realize national commitments to reach peak carbon emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.

Even though climate change is already exacting a heavy toll on the Philippines, the country has many of the tools required to reduce damages substantially, according to the report for the country. And in Vietnam, the report suggested that with the right mix of policies and strategies, decarbonization efforts could help ensure that the country can meet growth and development goals while achieving net zero emissions.

Building resilience and sustainability

East Asia and Pacific is highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. We work with countries to strengthen resilience, reduce pollution and emissions, support climate-smart agriculture, and transition to clean and renewable energy. This includes island countries in the Pacific, which are particularly vulnerable to climate change and natural disasters as well as economic shocks—such as the severe contraction of tourism during the COVID-19 pandemic—due to their geography, remoteness, and limited economic opportunities.

In response to these challenges, we have rapidly expanded our program in the Pacific. This includes in Papua New Guinea, where the roads are vulnerable to natural disasters and climate change, and some three-quarters of them become impassable at some point during the year. We are helping improve the climate-resilience and sustainability of the country’s road network to diversify the economy, decentralize service delivery, and promote social inclusion. In Indonesia, we are helping mitigate climate change impacts through the Mangroves for Coastal Resilience and Oceans for Prosperity projects.

Further Information: East Asia and Pacific Homepage >

 

Regional Commitments and Disbusements for Fiscal 2021–23

	COMMITMENTS ($ MILLIONS)			DISBURSEMENTS ($ MILLIONS)
	FY21	FY22	FY23	FY21	FY22	FY23
IBRD	6,753	5,482	6,636	4,439	5,439	4,350
IDA	1,115	1,673	877	1,297	1,502	1,448
Portfolio of operations under implementation as of June 30, 2023: $34.4 billion.

 

SPOTLIGHT: Protecting forests and improving livelihoods in Indonesia 

In Indonesia, more than 40 percent of the country’s emissions result from deforestation and fires that release carbon into the atmosphere. But the undamaged trees and forests that remain help temper the damage by absorbing the carbon—effectively acting as a sink to drain carbon from the air. Indonesia wants to make its forests a net carbon sink by 2030 by fostering forest and land use practices that absorb more carbon than is emitted. This objective is part of Indonesia’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 32 percent—or as much as 43 percent with international assistance—by 2030. In addition to reducing emissions, sustainable forest management activities can also improve communities’ livelihoods.

The Bank has supported Indonesia’s transition toward low-carbon, resilient, biodiverse, and prosperous landscapes since 2016 through the Sustainable Landscape Management Program, which has yielded four important lessons. First, strong government leadership is essential, particularly at the local level. Second, decentralized forest management is key to balancing protection with local economic activity. Third, land-tenure security for local communities and Indigenous peoples is critical for forest protection and livelihoods. Fourth, solutions should be tailored to the different challenges across land uses.

We promote sustainable livelihood opportunities in Indonesia through the Second Forest Investment Program, which has reached over 110,000 people—nearly a third of them women and 15 percent from Indigenous communities—helping them develop skills in sustainable forest management. Through this program, we are also protecting forests while preserving sources of income for Indigenous communities. One example is the rehabilitation of a natural pool within the Mandala traditional forest as a tourist destination, which helped increase the number of visitors by 50 percent and contribute to the local economy.

The program has strengthened local forest management and established partnerships with communities as well as 95 forest farmer groups. It has provided participants—30 percent of them women or girls and 15 percent of them from Indigenous communities—with access to online training and support for agroforestry development, helping them better implement sustainable forest management.

We are also helping Indigenous peoples and local communities achieve legal access to land, positioning them as central to decision-making about the management of their regions and choices about their sustainable livelihoods. This has helped accelerate recognition of over 2 million hectares of customary land and over 180,000 hectares of customary forest areas in 51 communities.   

 

Regional Snapshot

INDICATOR	2000	2011	CURRENT DATAa
Total population (millions)	1,817	1,984	2,129
Population growth (annual %)	1	0.8	0.3
GNI per capita (Atlas method, current US$)	910	4,336	10,040
GDP per capita growth (annual %)	6.6	7.8	3.1
Population living below $2.15 a day (millions)	718	206	25
Life expectancy at birth, females (years)	72.9	76.8	78.4
Life expectancy at birth, males (years)	68.3	71.6	72.8
Carbon dioxide emissions (megatons)	4,142	10,516	12,661
Extreme poverty (% of population below $2.15 a day, 2017 PPP)	39.5	10.4	1.2
Debt service as a proportion of exports of goods, services, and primary income	16	4	10
Ratio of female to male labor force participation rate (%) (modeled ILO estimate)	82	79	81
Vulnerable employment, total (% of total employment) (modeled ILO estimate)	63	52	43
Under-5 mortality rate per 1,000 live births	42	22	16
Primary completion rate (% of relevant age group)	92	95	97
Individuals using the internet (% of population)	2	32	70
Access to electricity (% of population)	91	96	98
Renewable energy consumption (% of total final energy consumption)	32	15	16
People using at least basic drinking water services (% of population)	80	88	94
People using at least basic sanitation services (% of population)	56	75	90
Note: ILO = International Labour Organization; PPP = purchasing power parity.  a. The most current data available between 2019 and 2022; visit https://data.worldbank.org for data updates.

Countries in Europe and Central Asia are facing unprecedented shocks and uncertainty. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, now in its second year, has had devastating economic and social consequences for Ukraine and profound negative impacts on the region. The region’s economy is being adversely affected by the fallout from the war, notably with high energy and food prices, tighter financial conditions, trade disruptions, and geopolitical instability. Regional output is projected to grow by 1.4 percent in 2023. As a result, the region has experienced significant setbacks in development gains over the past year, including increases in poverty and unprecedented levels of forced displacement, as well as rising concerns over vulnerability, inequality, and exclusion.

World Bank assistance

We have scaled up our support, emphasizing speed, flexibility, and innovation in our lending; mobilizing partnerships; and leveraging existing engagements for crisis response. In fiscal 2023, the World Bank approved $11.3 billion in lending for 50 operations in Europe and Central Asia—a significant increase compared to previous years—including $10.2 billion in IBRD commitments and $1.1 billion in IDA commitments. We also supported 20 Reimbursable Advisory Services agreements with five countries for a total of $34 million.

For Ukraine alone, the Bank mobilized rapid and unprecedented financial support of more than $33 billion in fiscal 2023, mostly through generous grant support from donors, to help maintain basic administrative and institutional capacity and deliver critical services. Following the devastating earthquakes in Türkiye, we provided $780 million in immediate assistance through two ongoing projects and $1 billion through an emergency reconstruction loan. We are also responding to the impacts of fragility, conflict, and violence in Kosovo, Moldova, and other countries throughout the region.

We remain focused on boosting resilience to crises and addressing challenges to protect and strengthen the foundations of future prosperity. Our engagement centers on boosting human capital, skills, and inclusion; advancing the green transition and climate resilience; supporting private sector development and creating jobs; and strengthening institutions.

Boosting human capital, skills, and inclusion

We are helping countries strengthen social protection, education, and health systems to protect investments in human capital and reverse setbacks. In Tajikistan, we vaccinated 3 million people and provided equipment for intensive care units in 10 hospitals, expanding the country’s intensive care capacity by 100 beds. We also help countries manage transitions, including addressing aging societies and strengthening elder care in the Western Balkans and developing effective migration and integration policies in Moldova and Romania. In Türkiye, we are supporting the national employment agency, which is providing job counseling services to nearly 6 million Turkish citizens and 70,000 Syrian refugees. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, we are helping increase formal private sector employment for youth, strengthening job intermediation, and modernizing monitoring and evaluation practices. We are also helping countries in Central Asia develop a regional health approach across animal, environmental, and public health sectors to prevent pandemics and protect food systems.

We work to minimize learning losses and fortify schools against future crises, such as in Türkiye, where we are developing a digital learning platform for schools, and in Romania, where we are improving learning while making the school system more resilient. We also help people prepare for the changing nature of work by supporting relevant skills training in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, North Macedonia, and throughout Central Asia.

Advancing the green transition and climate resilience

We are scaling up our engagement on climate and strengthening the region’s resilience for a sustainable future. We help countries strengthen their ability to respond to disasters in a sustainable way, accelerate decarbonization, and support people through a just transition—one that is inclusive and equitable. To create this enabling environment, we assist countries with governance and energy subsidy reforms. We also focus on accelerating energy efficiency to reduce demand, improve service delivery and air quality, and boost renewable and hydropower energy.

This work includes our Country Climate and Development Reports for Kazakhstan and Türkiye as well as new operations in fiscal 2023, such as development policy financing for the green transition in Serbia, financing with IFC for hydropower in Central Asia, and support for e-waste recycling in Poland. Along the Danube basin, we have trained more than 400 utilities and 1,200 experts across 16 countries, fostering a network of water professionals to make water services more sustainable and resilient.

Supporting private sector development and creating jobs

We support reforms and investments that focus on private sector–led growth and job creation by enhancing competition, supporting productivity growth and innovation, and preparing people for the changing nature of jobs. We also work to strengthen macrofiscal management and transparency and the management and reform of state-owned enterprises. In Albania, Poland, and Serbia, our analytical work focuses on greening private sectors and expanding operations on green competitiveness. We are also promoting innovative approaches to decarbonizing key industries and greening industrial zones in Türkiye.

We are working closely with MIGA and IFC on private sector reforms to modernize infrastructure and promote the green agenda for industry and finance. Through our innovative financing instruments, we also help strengthen the resilience of the financial sector.

Strengthening institutions

Throughout the region, we are supporting the public sector’s crisis response and resilience through policies that aim to strengthen institutions, governance, and state effectiveness. We have scaled up financing to support fiscal reforms and manage energy and forced-displacement shocks in Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, Romania, and the Western Balkans. We are also using innovative instruments to mobilize resources, such as in Ukraine, where we are providing financing to the government to maintain basic administrative and institutional capacity and deliver critical services.

Further Information: Europe and Central Asia Homepage >

 

Regional Commitments and Disbusements for Fiscal 2021–23

	COMMITMENTS ($ MILLIONS)			DISBURSEMENTS ($ MILLIONS)
	FY21	FY22	FY23	FY21	FY22	FY23
IBRD	4,559	5,974	10,162	3,625	4,580	4,833
IDA	1,315	2,511	1,098	880	764	2,385
Portfolio of operations under implementation as of June 30, 2023: $42.6 billion.

 

SPOTLIGHT: Sustaining support for Ukraine 

Now in its second year, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a tragedy with far-reaching human and economic impacts. The war has unraveled 15 years of progress on reducing poverty, pushing 7.1 million more Ukrainians into poverty (living on less than $6.85 a day) and displacing 13.5 million people. The country’s GDP is projected to grow by only 0.5 percent in 2023, after contracting by 30 percent in 2022.

The World Bank Group has leveraged our broad range of financing instruments to rapidly disburse funds. We have expanded existing projects, established multidonor trust funds, and channeled guarantees and parallel financing from donor countries. Since the start of the invasion, we have mobilized more than $37.5 billion in emergency financing by providing platforms for generous support from donors and international partners that have supplemented our own resources to help the government meet urgent budget needs and support essential public services—about half of all economic assistance mobilized for Ukraine. We had disbursed nearly $23 billion by the end of the fiscal 2023.

This support has reached 10 million pensioners, 500,000 education staff, 145,000 government employees, 56,000 first responders, and more than 3 million internally displaced persons and recipients of social assistance. The Bank has deployed a range of mechanisms—including expenditure verification, beneficiary-complaint monitoring, procedure reviews, and surveys—to ensure that money goes where it is intended.

We are helping restore access to essential health services, administering 2 million doses of childhood vaccinations and providing more than 500,000 people with free or low-cost medicines. Nearly 70,000 people accessed critical rehabilitation services to address both mental and physical trauma, while 2,300 physicians were trained on how to address gender-based violence, which has escalated during the war.

In March, the World Bank released the updated Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment for Ukraine, which emphasized the need for both public and private funds to address an estimated $411 billion in reconstruction and recovery costs over the next 10 years. The highest estimated needs are in transport, housing, energy, social protection and livelihoods, explosive-hazard management, and agriculture. To support recovery and build capacity for reconstruction, the Bank devised an innovative “framework” project approach to disburse funds quickly and be scalable as more financing becomes available. Through this approach, we are helping Ukraine strengthen primary health care and address greater demand for mental health and rehabilitation services due to the war.

Our energy project is helping repair the country’s electricity transmission and heating infrastructure—half of which was damaged this past winter—by urgently procuring critical equipment. We are also helping Ukraine restore its transport network—which was disrupted in more than 21,000 villages, 51 towns, and 35 cities—by repairing bridges and railways to relink communities, support immediate humanitarian relief and recovery, and increase capacity of import and export corridors. These projects are supported by the Bank’s Ukraine Relief, Recovery, Reconstruction, and Reform Trust Fund, which channels and leverages grant contributions from donor partners.

In addition to our investments, we provide advice on policies and reforms and structuring viable projects, all of which can mobilize private capital to help Ukraine on its path to a sustainable future. These efforts strive to help Ukraine’s government, the international community, and the private sector work together to rebuild the country after the war ends.    

 

Regional Snapshot

INDICATOR	2000	2011	CURRENT DATAa
Total population (millions)	371	381	397
Population growth (annual %)	0	0.6	-1
GNI per capita (Atlas method, current US$)	1,789	8,060	9,221
GDP per capita growth (annual %)	8.4	5.7	1.8
Population living below $2.15 a day (millions)	43	18	11
Life expectancy at birth, females (years)	72.8	75.8	75.6
Life expectancy at birth, males (years)	62.7	66.9	67.5
Carbon dioxide emissions (megatons)	2,577	2,997	2,831
Extreme poverty (% of population below $2.15 a day, 2017 PPP)	9.1	3.8	2.3
Debt service as a proportion of exports of goods, services, and primary income	19	15	19
Ratio of female to male labor force participation rate (%) (modeled ILO estimate)	73	73	71
Vulnerable employment, total (% of total employment) (modeled ILO estimate)	23	19	16
Under-5 mortality rate per 1,000 live births	36	17	11
Primary completion rate (% of relevant age group)	94	99	101
Individuals using the internet (% of population)	2	44	84
Access to electricity (% of population)	98	99	100
Renewable energy consumption (% of total final energy consumption)	5	5	7
People using at least basic drinking water services (% of population)	93	95	96
People using at least basic sanitation services (% of population)	88	92	95
Note: ILO = International Labour Organization; PPP = purchasing power parity.  a. The most current data available between 2020 and 2022; visit https://data.worldbank.org for data updates.

Over the past year, Latin America and the Caribbean largely recovered from recent GDP losses, with COVID-19 having receded and employment back to pre-pandemic levels. The region’s economy grew by an estimated 3.7 percent in 2022, but recovery growth prospects have turned bleak, estimated to be 1.5 percent in 2023 and 2.0 percent in 2024.

Poverty has also gone down to pre-pandemic levels. Excluding Brazil, which implemented generous mitigation programs, average poverty (measured at $6.85 a day) is estimated at 30.3 percent. However, long-term scars from the crisis remain. If human capital losses are not properly addressed, they are likely to affect the future well-being of today’s school-age children. The region’s growth prospects are also facing global headwinds, including softening commodity prices, rising interest rates in the G7 countries, and China’s unsteady recovery.

World Bank assistance

The World Bank approved $10.0 billion in lending to the region in fiscal 2023, including $9.8 billion in IBRD commitments and $181 million in IDA commitments. We signed four Reimbursable Advisory Services agreements with four countries for a total of $2 million.

In the region, we seek to boost sustainable, resilient, and inclusive growth by protecting and improving human capital, adapting to climate change and mitigating its impacts, and seizing new opportunities in the green industries. We also aim to foster inclusive recovery by attracting investments, promoting job creation, and engaging with traditionally excluded groups, including Indigenous peoples and Afro-descendants. In fiscal 2023, we prioritized helping basic education recover from the learning losses of the pandemic, boosting resilience in the health sector, and strengthening social protection systems.

Fostering inclusive growth

To reduce exclusion and inequality in the region, the Bank invests in development projects that reinforce social safety nets and improve productivity and job creation. In Haiti, a $20 million project helped more than 1,300 avocado, cacao, coffee, and mango producers export to the United States, Europe, and Japan and also expand their business skills. In Bolivia, a $254 million project improved access to basic services by expanding safety net coverage to workers in the informal sector who were unemployed due to COVID-19; more than 3.5 million people, including 1.5 million women, received temporary cash transfers. And in Colombia, we supported policies to reduce public expenditures, increase the tax base, and improve competition and innovation among small and medium enterprises.

Investing in human capital

The COVID-19 pandemic had devastating impacts on the region’s education and health systems. The Bank helps countries recover and strengthen their resilience to new challenges. In the Caribbean, we provided $35 million to support access to high-quality and affordable digital connectivity for more than half the people of Grenada, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, helping improve access for students and schools.

In Ecuador, a $53 million project strengthened basic services in disaster-affected sectors, including water, health, social protection, and disaster risk management, reaching more than 2 million people, half of them women. And in Honduras, we committed $30 million to support managerial training and market access for rural producers, including women from Indigenous communities.

Supporting a green recovery

Climate-related events, such as droughts, floods, and hurricanes, affect vulnerable communities the most. The Bank works to support a green transition and a low-carbon future for the region. In Uruguay, we helped more than 5,000 farmers, nearly a quarter of them women, adopt climate-smart agriculture and livestock practices to enhance resilience to climate change through two projects totaling $91 million. They also helped bring over 2.7 million hectares of land under sustainable landscape management practices. In Central America and the Caribbean, we provided $24 million in grants to support co-financed catastrophe risk insurance against earthquakes, tropical cyclones, and excess rainfall; payouts totaling $245 million have helped more than 3.5 million people. In Chile, we committed $150 million to help develop the clean hydrogen industry—the first project of its kind globally—which will accelerate the energy transition, create jobs, and generate growth while mitigating climate impacts.

We also work to build resilience against disasters and preserve the region’s vast natural capital. We provided $66 million to help Panama better manage risks stemming from natural and health-related hazards. In Honduras, a $30 million project strengthened national and community-level disaster preparedness and response capacity, benefiting 1.3 million people. And in Brazil, we helped implement a system to monitor deforestation and forest fires in the Cerrado biome, which extends across several states in the country and is the largest savanna region in South America. Through a $9 million grant, we strengthened the institutional capacity to monitor the area, which will support the growth of agriculture while conserving natural vegetation, critical ecosystem services, rural livelihoods, and lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Helping countries achieve development goals

The Bank also provides advisory services, analysis, and technical assistance to support countries’ development goals. Our Roadmap for Climate Action in Latin America and the Caribbean report looked at opportunities for countries to build resilience to the impacts of climate change and transition to low-carbon economies. We also issued Country Climate and Development Reports—which offer diagnostics to support countries’ climate and development goals—for Argentina and Peru in November 2022 and Brazil and Honduras in May 2023.

Our Building Resilient Health Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean report summarizes key findings about the COVID-19 pandemic’s health impacts on countries in the region and proposes courses of action for decision makers. And our Understanding Migration in North Central America Countries report explores the main factors behind migration flows from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua to inform policies and programs at the national, bilateral, and regional levels.

Further Information: Latin America and the Caribbean Homepage >

 

Regional Commitments and Disbusements for Fiscal 2021–23

	COMMITMENTS ($ MILLIONS)			DISBURSEMENTS ($ MILLIONS)
	FY21	FY22	FY23	FY21	FY22	FY23
IBRD	9,464	9,407	9,828	8,741	8,911	8,216
IDA	769	1,030	181	495	510	322
Portfolio of operations under implementation as of June 30, 2023: $33.1 billion.

 

SPOTLIGHT: Expanding opportunities for women in Brazil  

Brazil has been a leader among Latin American countries in addressing gender issues, with all levels of government enacting policies to protect women and advance gender equality. Yet challenges remain. Two-thirds of the country’s university graduates are women, but women still earn only 77 percent of men’s wages, and they are concentrated in low-paying jobs. The COVID-19 pandemic worsened these gaps, with women seeing their labor force participation fall from 66 to 62 percent as well as higher unemployment rates, especially among Afro-Brazilian women. Maternal mortality and gender-based violence also increased during the pandemic.

To address these challenges, the World Bank helped increase women’s access to opportunities including through productive farming technologies and land titles, as well as by addressing the risks of violence and giving women better access to social protection and public services. In the state of Rio de Janeiro, nearly 5,300 women farmers transitioned to more productive and sustainable farming technologies. To help overcome women’s disadvantages in land access, over 1,300 land titles in the state of Piaui were issued to small-scale farmers in the names of both spouses and in the woman’s name for farmers without a spouse.

We also supported efforts to address gender-based violence across the country. In the state of Pernambuco, we helped establish the Chamber on Violence against Women and the first state-level system, SeiMulheres, to register cases of gender-based violence and act on them. We also worked with the Women Secretariat of the National Congress to promote awareness and prevention of gender-based violence among youth. 

The World Bank also helped develop and finance the Bolsa Familia program and build its registry, Cadastro Único, to target resources to those in need. By 2018, the program had reached nearly 47 million people, of whom about 24 million were women. As an early response to the economic shocks of the pandemic, we supported the expansion of the program through a $1 billion project that reached 14 million families.    

 

Regional Snapshot

INDICATOR	2000	2011	CURRENT DATAa
Total population (millions)	468	535	597
Population growth (annual %)	1.5	1.1	0.7
GNI per capita (Atlas method, current US$)	4,023	8,487	8,149
GDP per capita growth (annual %)	2.1	3.3	2.9
Population living below $2.15 a day (millions)	70	35	31
Life expectancy at birth, females (years)	74.2	76.8	75.4
Life expectancy at birth, males (years)	67.7	70.7	68.6
Carbon dioxide emissions (megatons)	1,037	1,352	1,242
Extreme poverty (% of population below $2.15 a day, 2017 PPP)	13.5	6	4.7
Debt service as a proportion of exports of goods, services, and primary income	44	14	26
Ratio of female to male labor force participation rate (%) (modeled ILO estimate)	61	66	69
Vulnerable employment, total (% of total employment) (modeled ILO estimate)	36	33	35
Under-5 mortality rate per 1,000 live births	34	21	16
Primary completion rate (% of relevant age group)	99	100	100
Individuals using the internet (% of population)	3	39	76
Access to electricity (% of population)	91	96	98
Renewable energy consumption (% of total final energy consumption)	30	30	35
People using at least basic drinking water services (% of population)	90	95	97
People using at least basic sanitation services (% of population)	73	82	88
Note: ILO = International Labour Organization; PPP = purchasing power parity.  a. The most current data available between 2020 and 2022; visit https://data.worldbank.org for data updates.

 

Economies in the Middle East and North Africa experienced divergent growth rates in 2022. The region’s average rate of inflation-adjusted GDP growth is estimated to have reached 5.8 percent in 2022, making it one of the fastest-growing regions in the world. However, this growth was concentrated in high-income, oil-exporting economies that benefited from elevated global oil prices. The region’s developing economies experienced more modest growth; their poorest and most vulnerable people face further pressure from rapidly rising inflation, particularly in food prices. Between March and December 2022, food inflation rose by as much as 29 percent over the previous year.

These challenges reflect deeper structural challenges for countries in the region relating to economic governance that contribute to an outsize presence of the state in the economy, high labor inactivity and unemployment rates among women and youth, and limited intraregional trade and investment. Average regional growth is expected to decelerate to 3.0 percent in 2023.

World Bank assistance

The World Bank approved $5.2 billion in lending to the region for 22 operations in fiscal 2023, including $4.7 billion in IBRD commitments and $561 million in IDA commitments. Another $80 million in special financing was provided for projects in the West Bank and Gaza. We also delivered 107 advisory services and analytics products. Revenue from Reimbursable Advisory Services agreements reached $9 million for strategic and technical assistance on sustainable social, economic, and environmental reforms.

Supporting the most vulnerable people during times of crisis

The World Bank works to support the region’s poorest and most vulnerable people, especially during times of crisis. We are providing an additional $500 million to expand Egypt’s social safety net program, “Takaful and Karama.” This program covers nearly 4.6 million households, representing more than 18 million people, nearly three-quarters of them women. The program helped boost the resilience of vulnerable households against global economic shocks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise in food and energy prices. We also approved $300 million in additional financing for Lebanon to expand targeted cash transfers for poor and vulnerable households.

In Yemen, we are providing $207 million to address chronic food insecurity and malnutrition, reaching around 1.8 million households. The project will also further the transition to digital payments for cash transfers, helping people obtain national identification and improve their financial literacy on a pilot basis. We also committed an additional $20 million that will reach 3 million Yemenis by restoring access to critical urban services.

Promoting private sector engagement and financial inclusion

The World Bank works with countries to help strengthen the private sector and expand access to finance. In Tunisia, a $120 million project is helping small and medium enterprises access long-term lines of credit from the Ministry of Finance through participating financial institutions.

In Morocco, we are providing $450 million—the third round in a series of financing—to help the government implement reforms to improve financial inclusion, digital entrepreneurship, and access to digital infrastructure and services for people and businesses. The series has enabled the country to increase access to financial services to 44 percent in 2023 from 29 percent in 2017 and digital payments to 30 percent from 17 over the same period. It has also improved the infrastructure for digital payments, mobile payment networks, microinsurance, collateral registries, and women's access to finance and economic empowerment.

We have also enabled almost $70 million in private capital to be invested in the West Bank and Gaza. The Innovative Private Sector Development Project leveraged roughly $4 million in grants to enable $11 million in private investment by venture capital firms in nearly 40 early-stage small and medium enterprises. The TechStart project has helped catalyze over $1.5 million in private investment in technology training and business infrastructure. And the Second Finance for Jobs Project leveraged nearly $13 million in grants, through the Investment Co-financing Facility and Development Impact Bond, mobilizing $56 million in private capital to help create jobs.

Transitioning economies and boosting climate resilience

Under the Bank Group’s Climate Change Action Plan for 2021–25, we continued to help countries in the region in their energy transition and to boost climate resilience. In Jordan, a $400 million program is promoting jobs and business opportunities for women and strengthening government effectiveness through better policies. It will help the government integrate climate concerns in the country’s economic reform agenda and investment plans. It will also support Jordan’s goals to achieve a low-carbon trajectory and work toward the country’s Nationally Determined Contribution target of 31 percent of renewable energy in the electricity supply mix. We are also providing $250 million to improve the efficiency, reliability, and governance of the country’s electricity sector.

To support the new Tunisia-Italy electricity interconnector, we are providing $268 million to help scale up the development of renewable energy in Tunisia and increase the trade of clean electricity across the Mediterranean.

In the West Bank and Gaza, the World Bank is aiming to expand access to safe water for nearly 100,000 residents in the Jenin Governorate through investments in infrastructure. This is made possible through a $25 million World Bank grant that leverages an additional $26 million in co-financing from the Palestinian Partnership for Infrastructure Development Multidonor Trust Fund, supported by Australia, Finland, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. In Morocco, we are helping strengthen the institutional capacity to implement the country’s Nationally Determined Contributions and help vulnerable groups and ecosystems become more resilient to climate change. And in Egypt, we are helping shift freight transport from roads to low-carbon rail between Alexandria and the Greater Cairo Area to support the decarbonization of the logistics and transport sectors.

In fiscal 2023, we published Country Climate and Development Reports for Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and Morocco. These reports underscored that without urgent action, decades of development gains could be reversed, and that water scarcity could affect almost every aspect of socioeconomic development in an already-dry region. They also showed that decarbonization can protect and generate jobs and contribute to economic growth.

Further Information: Middle East and North Africa Homepage >

 

Regional Commitments and Disbusements for Fiscal 2021–23

	COMMITMENTS ($ MILLIONS)			DISBURSEMENTS ($ MILLIONS)
	FY21	FY22	FY23	FY21	FY22	FY23
IBRD	3,976	4,135	4,697	2,764	3,407	2,964
IDA	658	817	561	379	559	552
Portfolio of operations under implementation as of June 30, 2023: $25.9 billion.

 

SPOTLIGHT: Advancing gender equity in the Middle East and North Africa

The World Bank’s Regional Gender Action Plan for fiscal 2018–23 and Regional Action Plan to Address Gender-Based Violence guide our efforts to help countries improve women’s access to jobs, entrepreneurship and financial inclusion, and access to and ownership of assets and enhance agency, including in situations of fragility, conflict, and violence.               

In Jordan, we supported policies focused on flexible work arrangements and streamlined licensing for home-based businesses. Among companies that adopted flexible work, 70 percent reported higher productivity, while 60 percent reported an increase in the employment and retention of female employees. Our support helped the Jordanian government register 5,500 home-based businesses, 60 percent of them owned by women and 10 percent by Syrian refugees. In Morocco and Tunisia, we support access to private equity for hundreds of women-led startups and small and medium enterprises and provide business skills training.

In the West Bank and Gaza, we piloted the development impact bond, a results-based financing tool designed to address high unemployment, especially among female youth, and to make firms more competitive. As of May 2023, the program has helped over 500 youth—40 percent of them women—access technical training and secure employment in a broad range of sectors. We also support efforts to help women better understand their rights and the processes around tenure security and real estate registration. In Egypt, we are supporting the government’s work to help women access housing subsidies and establish eligibility criteria for ownership and rental subsidies that prioritize women-headed households—increasing the female share of housing owners to 20 percent.

In Djibouti, we provide grants to new enterprises and business plan competition winners, support business development training, and provide resources for entrepreneurs. As part of the first standalone project in the region focused on gender-based violence, we work to improve community awareness of the risks of gender-based violence and counseling services for survivors. In Yemen, we reached nearly 3 million women with income support and over 120,000 women with nutrition services, and almost half of solar kit credit sales under the Yemen Emergency Electricity Access Project were to women, as of December 2022.

In the United Arab Emirates, we launched a Gender Center for Excellence, which will help address gender issues through research and knowledge exchange. And in Saudi Arabia, our advisory services contributed to legal measures to help women become heads of households, prohibit discrimination in employment and access to credit, mandate equal pay, and introduce protection from sexual harassment in the workplace. These reforms have helped boost women’s participation in the labor force from 22 percent in 2019 to almost 35 percent in 2023, exceeding the target of 30 percent set by Saudi Vision 2030.

In June 2022, we launched the Regional Network in Energy for Women, supported by the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program, to boost women’s participation in the energy sector. With partnerships with national energy security utilities, the private sector, and academia from across the region, the network held its first conference in Tunis in June 2023.    

 

Regional Snapshot

INDICATOR	2000	2011	CURRENT DATAa
Total population (millions)	284	350	424
Population growth (annual %)	2	1.9	1.5
GNI per capita (Atlas method, current US$)	1,763	4,241	3,742
GDP per capita growth (annual %)	4	-2.8	2.3
Population living below $2.15 a day (millions)	10	8	39
Life expectancy at birth, females (years)	70.8	73.9	74.4
Life expectancy at birth, males (years)	66.5	69.2	69.5
Carbon dioxide emissions (megatons)	813	1,239	1,371
Extreme poverty (% of population below $2.15 a day, 2017 PPP)	3.5	2.2	9.6
Debt service as a proportion of exports of goods, services, and primary income	16	6	13
Ratio of female to male labor force participation rate (%) (modeled ILO estimate)	24	26	24
Vulnerable employment, total (% of total employment) (modeled ILO estimate)	35	32	30
Under-5 mortality rate per 1,000 live births	47	29	24
Primary completion rate (% of relevant age group)	81	90	93
Individuals using the internet (% of population)	1	23	73
Access to electricity (% of population)	91	95	97
Renewable energy consumption (% of total final energy consumption)	3	3	3
People using at least basic drinking water services (% of population)	86	91	94
People using at least basic sanitation services (% of population)	79	86	90
Note: ILO = International Labour Organization; PPP = purchasing power parity.  a. The most current data available between 2018 and 2022; visit https://data.worldbank.org for data updates.

South Asia’s GDP is expected to grow 5.6 percent in 2023 and to remain moderate at 5.9 percent in 2024, following an initial post-pandemic recovery of 8.2 percent in 2021. The region’s growth prospects have weakened due to tightening financial conditions, with limited fiscal space and depleting reserves contributing to large downside risks in most countries. The decline in poverty is expected to recover in line with economic growth, with the number of people living on less than $3.20 a day across the region forecast to be 754 million in 2023, lower than the estimates in 2019.

South Asia is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and natural disasters. Over the past two decades, climate-related disasters have affected 750 million people—more than half of the people in the region. High inequality magnifies these impacts, as the poor, vulnerable, and marginalized bear the greatest burden of these disasters and have limited means to help them recover.

World Bank assistance

The World Bank approved $10.1 billion in lending to the region for 37 operations in fiscal 2023, including $4.3 billion in IBRD commitments and $5.8 billion in IDA commitments. We also supported 61 advisory services and analytical products for eight countries. These provided technical advice on issues such as debt management, governance, job creation, social protection, air pollution, and climate resilience.

Across the region, we are focused on the resilience of human capital to minimize the scarring effects of crises; resilience to the impacts of a changing climate and natural disasters; and resilience of the economy, markets, and society so that development is inclusive and sustainable.

Protecting people in the wake of crisis

The Bank helped Pakistan respond to devastating floods with nearly $1.7 billion for five projects in the worst-affected Sindh province to build resilient housing, restore crop production, provide health services for mothers and children, and strengthen social protection and the local government’s disaster response capacity. In Afghanistan, we have continued to provide support for basic services and livelihoods in health, agriculture, and education, with more than $1 billion in off-budget support implemented through UN agencies and international non-governmental organizations.

In response to the unprecedented economic and financial crisis in Sri Lanka, we moved quickly to protect people—particularly the poor and vulnerable—from its worst impacts. We repurposed $325 million to finance emergency cash transfers, medicines, school feeding programs, tuition vouchers, fertilizer for smallholder farmers, and cooking gas. In December 2022, the Bank approved Sri Lanka’s request to access concessional financing from IDA—a process called reverse graduation—to stabilize the economy. We also prepared a new country partnership framework for fiscal 2024–27, along with two operations totaling $700 million to advance critical economic reforms and improve social protection.

Investing in resilient human capital

Across South Asia, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a collapse in human capital for millions of children and young people. Today’s students could lose more than 14 percent of their future earnings; today’s toddlers could see a 25 percent decline in earnings when they reach adulthood. Learning poverty—the inability to read and understand a simple text by age 10—increased from 60 to 78 percent during the pandemic. We support education policies that ensure learning for all, build skills for future needs, and improve access to labor markets. In Maldives, a $9 million project is improving the quality of secondary education. In Nepal, a $120 million project is helping establish a teacher mentoring system and ensuring that a full complement of subjects is taught in schools.

We are also strengthening health systems, expanding access to primary care, and building targeted and responsive social protection systems. In the Indian state of Gujarat, we are providing $350 million to improve public health care, with a special focus on girls. In India’s Odisha state—which is hit with a natural disaster about every 15 months—a $100 million program is enhancing social protection coverage for poor and vulnerable households through a digital cash transfer program.

Building resilient economies

To help countries build economic resilience, we promote private sector–led solutions, increase transparency of debt and investment, improve credit and market access for small and medium enterprises, and boost digital transformation. Our research looks at the drivers of the high rate of inequality of opportunity and how countries can enhance inclusion.          

In the Indian state of Punjab, we committed $150 million to help the state better manage its financial resources and improve access to public services by leveraging digital technology and increasing accountability in public procurement. In Maldives, a $15 million project is strengthening private participation in state-owned enterprises, as well as their financial stability, and boosting the competitiveness of small and medium enterprises. In Nepal, we provided $100 million to support sustainable and productive use of natural capital, strengthen resilience to climate change, and promote private sector investment in greening the economy and creating jobs and livelihoods.

Boosting resilience to climate change and natural disasters

South Asia is confronting intensifying heat waves, cyclones, droughts, and floods—the changing climate could sharply diminish living conditions for up to 800 million people. In fiscal 2023, we launched Country Climate and Development Reports for Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan. The reports underscore the urgent need to boost resilience across the region’s roads, hydropower dams, coastal communities, and agriculture, as well as its rapidly growing cities, which are full of informal settlements that are at the highest risk.

In India, we provided $1.5 billion to scale up renewable energy, develop green hydrogen, and stimulate climate finance for low-carbon energy investments. In Pakistan’s Punjab province—which accounts for 73 percent of the country’s total food production—a $200 million project is promoting climate-smart technologies and practices to improve water-use efficiency, build resilience to extreme weather, and increase small-scale farmers’ incomes. In Bangladesh, we provided $250 million to promote green investments in the brick-kiln sector, municipal waste management, clean cookstoves, and rooftop solar systems to reduce air pollution and improve environmental quality.

Promoting regional integration and cooperation

We support regional cooperation to strengthen economic and digital connectivity, climate resilience, and human capital. Our Striving for Clean Air report presents evidence that regional approaches to air-quality management are more efficient and cost-effective and lead to faster results. Our partnership with the United Kingdom through a $63 million trust fund is helping accelerate climate action through the Resilient Asia Program.

We support the clean energy transition and promote energy trade between Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and Nepal. Our work to upgrade roads to climate-resilient highways and modernize infrastructure at land ports is improving trade and transport connectivity in these four countries. In the southwest Indian Ocean region, we are strengthening fisheries management, with Maldives leading the way on sustainable fisheries and sharing lessons learned. We continue to engage through regional forums for collective action, including WePower, a network of women professionals in the energy sector, and the South Asia HydroMet Forum, a platform to improve weather information and climate services.

Further Information: South Asia Homepage >

 

Regional Commitments and Disbusements for Fiscal 2021–23

	COMMITMENTS ($ MILLIONS)			DISBURSEMENTS ($ MILLIONS)
	FY21	FY22	FY23	FY21	FY22	FY23
IBRD	3,746	4,781	4,321	3,665	3,129	3,290
IDA	7,127	4,217	5,770	5,744	4,202	4,646
Portfolio of operations under implementation as of June 30, 2023: $57.8 billion.

 

SPOTLIGHT: Maldives: Powered by sunshine toward a resilient future   

Like other small island developing states, Maldives has a small, undiversified economy that makes it particularly vulnerable to external shocks, including sky-rocketing food and energy prices in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The country spends over 10 percent of its GDP annually to import diesel to meet energy needs. In 2020, its GDP contracted by 34 percent as the pandemic shut down tourism, the main driver of economic growth. In 2022, Maldives was hit by the surge in global commodity prices, putting pressure on domestic inflation, the government’s fiscal position, and the balance of payments. It is also extremely vulnerable to rising sea levels and extreme weather brought on by climate change. Much of the country lies just a meter above sea level; current projections show that it is likely to be fully submerged by rising sea levels by the end of this century.

The island nation is building resilience by scaling up renewable energy capacity, investing in green infrastructure, restoring mangroves to protect against coastal flooding, and ramping up early warning systems. Maldives has also committed to becoming a net-zero carbon emitter by 2030. But amid highly constrained public borrowing capacity, the private sector must play a critical role to fill the financing gap. With just over $12 million in World Bank concessional financing, the Accelerating Sustainable Private Investments in Renewable Energy and the Accelerating Renewable Energy Integration and Sustainable Energy projects are helping install a total of 53.5 megawatts of solar panels on the islands and on the open ocean, build 40 MWh of battery storage solutions for the country, and upgrade the electricity grid to include cleaner energy sources.

This Bank financing leveraged an additional $140 million—about 12 times the amount of funding for every dollar spent—including from the private sector. Bank Group guarantees will help mitigate the risks that kept investors from putting their money into a small island with a volatile economy. By allaying investors’ fears and attracting more private investment, this approach has made renewable energy projects more financially sustainable for Maldives.

The first solar project in Maldives under ASPIRE attracted only four investors in 2014; buoyed by the risk mitigation structure, there were a record 63 bids in 2022. Greater private investment has also driven down costs—the power purchase price, which is the purchase price per unit of electricity that a power company agrees to with a solar power plant, decreased over this period from 21 cents per unit of electricity to less than 9.8 cents, significantly below the current price of imported fossil energy. These successes in attracting private investors have helped Maldives expand renewable energy, reduce import costs, and generate affordable and reliable clean energy.    

 

Regional Snapshot

INDICATOR	2000	2011	CURRENT DATAa
Total population (millions)	1,407	1,685	1,919
Population growth (annual %)	2	1.5	0.9
GNI per capita (Atlas method, current US$)	440	1,260	2,278
GDP per capita growth (annual %)	2.1	3.6	5.5
Population living below $2.15 a day (millions)b	582	360	161
Life expectancy at birth, females (years)	63.9	69	69.4
Life expectancy at birth, males (years)	62	65.5	65.9
Carbon dioxide emissions (megatons)	1,073	1,987	2,518
Extreme poverty (% of population below $2.15 a day, 2017 PPP)b	39.8	21.4	8.6
Debt service as a proportion of exports of goods, services, and primary income	17	7	9
Ratio of female to male labor force participation rate (%) (modeled ILO estimate)	35	35	34
Vulnerable employment, total (% of total employment) (modeled ILO estimate)	79	76	69
Under-5 mortality rate per 1,000 live births	93	60	37
Primary completion rate (% of relevant age group)	69	87	92
Individuals using the internet (% of population)	0	9	43
Access to electricity (% of population)	58	78	99
Renewable energy consumption (% of total final energy consumption)	49	38	38
People using at least basic drinking water services (% of population)	82	87	91
People using at least basic sanitation services (% of population)	18	46	69
Note: ILO = International Labour Organization; PPP = purchasing power parity.  a. The most current data available between 2019 and 2022; visit https://data.worldbank.org for data updates. b. Data from 2002.