Economics & Development

The project aims to enhance agricultural productivity and food security in Bangladesh by financing the nationwide procurement, transport, storage, and distribution of fertilizers. The Ministry of Finance (MoF) will lead financing, implement and provide overall government oversight, while Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC) and Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation (BCIC) will be responsible for procurement. Activities will occur all the site offices of these organization at geographical areas of Bangladesh. From an environmental and social perspective, the activities involve generally manageable and localized risks related to fertilizer storage, transport, and handling, including dust, minor spillages, waste management, traffic, and worker health and safety issues. There is no land acquisition or civil works anticipated, and project has limited physical footprint. Risks are considered manageable and temporary, with mitigation measures available and effective under the ESF. However, detailed supply chain operational arrangements are not yet finalized; therefore, the ESMP will be prepared immediately after project effectiveness to establish a comprehensive supply chain mapping covering entry points, inland transport routes and modes, storage facilities, and associated site-specific E&S risks and mitigation measures.

Morocco Climate and Risk Finance Program for Morocco has the development objectives to strengthen the financial resilience of households, firms, and the financial sector to disaster and cyber risk and to enable private investment in climate-aligned projects. Component 1: Enabling long-term capital for climate action will build a pipeline of climate-aligned infrastructure projects with potential for private-sector participation, establish the institutional and financing architecture to prepare them, and design de-risking instruments to crowd in private capital. Sub-components include identifying and prioritizing a commercially viable pipeline of renewable energy, energy efficiency, sustainable transport, water, and climate-resilient infrastructure projects aligned with the Nationally Determined Contribution; creating a dedicated budget line and establishing a Project Preparation Facility (PPF) with a business plan, operations manual, environmental and social management system, and sustainable capitalization; and developing blended finance instruments through feasibility assessments and approval of either a Viability Gap Fund (VGF) or a Credit Guarantee Facility (CGF) to address affordability and off-taker risk. Component 2: Enhancing and expanding risk finance for improved economic resilience will refine the public-private disaster risk financing architecture, deepen insurance solutions for natural catastrophes and cyber risks, and strengthen digital payment rails for rapid post-shock support. Sub-components include adopting an updated Disaster Risk Financing strategy and amending Law 110-14 governing the catastrophe coverage regime to clarify roles and improve beneficiary protection; increasing the financial capacity and value-for-money of the Solidarity Fund against Catastrophic Events (Fonds de Solidarité contre les Événements Catastrophiques, FSEC) through diversified pre-arranged risk transfer such as reinsurance and potential catastrophe bonds and by setting cumulative per-year prearranged financing targets; improving microinsurance protection through amendments to Law 17-99 to simplify policy management, clarify clauses, limit exclusions, and adjust claims timelines; introducing market-ready cyber risk insurance for critical legal entities in coordination with the Supervisory Authority of Insurance and Social Welfare (Autorité de Contrôle des Assurances et de la Prévoyance Sociale, ACAPS) and private insurers; and scaling electronic payments via an Electronic Payment Acceptance Fund complemented by an Open Banking governance framework and application programming interface standards led by Bank Al Maghrib (BAM) to enable secure data sharing, innovation, and reliable last-mile transfers. Component 3: Enhanced resilience of the financial sector against climate, disaster, and cyber risks will upgrade prudential oversight and industry practices in banking and insurance. Sub-components include implementing BAM directives on climate-related disclosures and reporting for banks’ large exposures, accompanied by templates and sector dialogue consistent with International Sustainability Standards Board guidance, and advancing ACAPS risk-based supervision through legal updates, data exchange platforms, solvency risk capital tools, and supervisory procedures that require insurers and reinsurers to adequately incorporate climate and cyber risks into their risk management. Collectively, these components will mobilize private capital for green investments, improve the adequacy, sustainability, and speed of public and private risk finance, expand inclusive insurance and digital payments as resilience tools, and reinforce systemic stability through stronger regulation and supervision.

This paper employs large-scale text analytics and generative artificial intelligence methods to analyze innovation patterns within the World Bank Group portfolio. It draws on more than 7,500 Independent Evaluation Group project evaluations completed between 1998 and 2025. The study finds that, on average, innovative projects are associated with higher performance outcomes. It also identifies several key enabling factors for innovation at the World Bank Group, including disciplined experimentation, flexible and adaptive project designs, contextualization to local settings, participatory approaches in the design and piloting of new solutions, and visionary and supportive internal leadership. The analysis reveals that innovation within the World Bank Group has evolved over time from sporadic experimentation to an embedded organizational capability. However, significant constraints persist, such as bureaucratic fragmentation, capacity gaps, overly complex project designs, lack of continuity in scaling innovations, and insufficient incentives for learning and adaptation.

This paper addresses two main questions. First, what proportion of people are exposed to climate hazards in Latin America and the Caribbean, especially among the poor versus the nonpoor? Second, do certain areas—hotspots—have high rates of bothhazard exposure and poverty that require targeted policy? Using poverty maps and georeferenced climate hazard data, three innovations are introduced: five climate hazards are analyzed (droughts, hurricanes, heatwaves, floods, and landslides); official poverty data at administrative level 2 are used, instead of only administrative level 1; and an interpolation method estimates poverty-plus-exposure rates across countries with varying data sources. The estimates indicate that 36.9 percent of the population is exposed to at least one of the five climate hazards under consideration. Considering the population in poverty only, the percentage is higher, 44.6 percent, whereas the exposure rate for the nonpoor is 34.0 percent. Some areas experience high exposure to climate hazards and high poverty rates. These hotspots include about 10 percent of the region’s population. These areas are in the Brazilian northeast; the upper-Amazon region of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil; the Chaco region of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay; the islands of the Caribbean; the western coast of the Gulf of California; and the Yucatan Peninsula.