Economics & Development

Economic and population growth over the past 50 years have increased global natural resource use to levels that severely affect human well-being. In Türkiye, as elsewhere, economic and population growth have been accompanied by increasing levels of material consumption and waste. The need to transition away from current linear resource use patterns is conceptualized and promoted within the circular economy (CE) concept. Türkiye recognizes that it must transition to a more circular and material-efficient growth model. Türkiye launched its zero-waste initiative in 2017, and the CE is flagged as a priority in the 2021 economic reform program. A successful CE transition in Türkiye will also help the European Union (EU) achieve its CE goals of enhancing material efficiency and reducing environmental impact. A significant portion of the EU’s material consumption and footprint is based on imports, with 11 percent of domestic material consumption and nearly 36 percent of the total footprint being imported. This report highlights the importance of a deliberate, strategic, and articulated approach toward transitioning the Turkish economy to a CE, blending immediate actionable steps with a forward-looking long-term strategy. By moving forward with flexibility and vision, Türkiye can use its distinct advantages to not only respond to the changing global economy but also to lead in sustainable innovation and resilience, establishing a model for others in the worldwide move toward a more circular and thriving future.

The lack of a workable and accurate national sampling frame is one of the methodological constraints in conducting representative national surveys. It undermines policy and research efforts in many developing countries, particularly those experiencing significant internal displacement and relocation due to territorial and military conflicts. This paper addresses this issue by constructing the first digitized national sampling frame in Armenia, a conflict-affected developing country, where reliable and accessible national sampling frames for household and individual surveys are severely limited. The first-ever sensible digitized urban and rural classification boundaries in the country have been created for the sampling frame. The paper constructs a national sampling frame that meets international standards based on the pre-census enumeration areas tool, leveraging a semi-automatic and resource-efficient approach and the most recent data available. The generated national sampling frame offers several advantages over the existing potential sampling frames in the country, which are based on census settlements, electoral precincts, grid sampling, and old census enumeration areas. This new frame is applied to conducting the World Bank’s “Listening to Armenia” survey, demonstrating its potential for other socioeconomic surveys in the country. The method can also be employed to generate and update national sampling frames in other countries more efficiently, given that manually generating both the digitized and non-digitized national sampling frames requires substantial financial and non-financial resources.