Economics & Development

This report presents key economic indicators for Poland drawn from the World Bank’s Macro Poverty Outlook (April 2026), providing a snapshot of recent macroeconomic trends, growth performance, and poverty dynamics. The indicators highlight Poland’s economic progress, resilience to external shocks, and evolving challenges, including inflationary pressures, fiscal balances, and labor market conditions. They offer a concise overview of the country’s macroeconomic outlook within the Europe and Central Asia region, supporting the analysis of development priorities under the CPF. The data serve as a reference point for assessing economic stability, guiding policy dialogue, and informing future World Bank Group engagement in Poland.

To support the Government of Argentina to enhance the business environment and promote private investment, trade, and job creation. The operation is part of a coordinated package of international support, reflecting a shared commitment to helping Argentina restore access to international capital markets. The macroeconomic framework underpinning this operation is anchored by the IMF's EFF program. The operation is aligned with the second review of the EFF, completed in May 2026. In parallel, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is preparing a similar PBG operation. This collective effort supports Argentina's capacity to meet short-term external financing needs while advancing the structural reforms needed to continue reducing macroeconomic vulnerabilities and restore investor confidence. The risks surrounding this operation are high, with macroeconomic and political risks being the most pressing. Failure to regain access to international capital markets in the second half of 2026 or early 2027 will jeopardize Argentina's ability to meet its external debt service obligations, potentially triggering a renewed confidence crisis and reversing the hard-won gains of the stabilization program. Argentina’s longstanding history of political volatility could narrow the space for building cross-party consensus to sustain long-term structural macro-fiscal policies, while also giving rise to episodes of financial volatility that could, in turn, test macroeconomic stability. External shocks, including a protracted conflict in the Middle East disrupting global energy and commodity markets, or a severe drought affecting agricultural output and export revenues, could impact inflation, compress fiscal space, and weaken the external position at a moment when reserve accumulation remains critical. These risks are partially offset by Argentina's credible and sustained fiscal consolidation, the shift in structural export potential of the energy sector, particularly Vaca Muerta, which provides a durable source of foreign exchange earnings largely independent of domestic policy cycles, sound progress in the implementation of job enhancing structural reforms, and Argentina’s commitment to sound performance under the IMF program.

Being happy with one’s sex life is an important facet of sexual health. Several studies have found associations between sex life happiness and a range of individual (or proximate) and contextual (usually country-level) factors amongst men who have sex with men (MSM). Using a novel dataset, the 2017 European Men-Who-Have-Sex-With-Men Internet Survey (EMIS-2017), this paper simultaneously explores the association of both individual and contextual variables, sex life happiness, and health. Understanding and quantifying this link is important for policy makers concerned with improving health outcomes in minority, and often marginalized, populations. Results: Recency of sex and/or being in a steady sexual relationship had the largest positive associations with higher self-reported sex life happiness. Being single had the largest negative association. Among individual-level factors, not having experienced homophobia and being out to a majority of one’s social network were most strongly associated with sex life happiness. At the country-level, there is evidence that living in a country with a more authoritarian political regime is associated with less sex life happiness. Mediation analysis shows that authoritarian regimes are also indirectly negatively associated with sex life happiness via the likelihood of being open about one’s sexuality. This study provides a strong basis for further research exploring the potentially complex associations between proximate and contextual variables in determining sex life happiness amongst populations of men who have sex with men.

Simbu is regularly ranked as one of Papua New Guinea (PNG’s) best performing provincial governments in education. In both National Economic and Fiscal Commission (NEFC) ratings of the allocation and quality of core education spending, and results from the Pacific Islands Literacy and Numeracy Assessment (PILNA), Simbu often outperforms much better endowed provinces. This makes Simbu an important site for understanding the governance and accountability arrangements that contribute to success in education. This series of case studies is designed to highlight some of the key features of those arrangements, in order to contribute to inter-provincial learning and national policy dialogue. This first case study sets the scene, highlighting some of the factors that influence the prioritization of education in Simbu and the wider ethos of governance in the province. It briefly indicates some of the key attributes of that prioritization, which will be explored in more detail in subsequent case studies. Throughout the case study, the quotations included are from interviews with senior officials and education stakeholders in Simbu.