Economics & Development

私人消费继续支撑东亚太平洋地区的增长，但消费者信心依旧低迷。人工智能相关电子产品出口是2025年的一大亮点，马来西亚、菲律宾、泰国和越南的出货量增长强劲，而其他产品的出口增长较为缓慢。在政策不确定性上升和近期一系列冲击的影响下，本地区大部分国家的私人投资仍低于疫情前水平。地区前景受到三大外部力量的影响：中东冲突导致的能源价格上涨、美国关税措施导致的持续贸易政策不确定性以及全球人工智能热潮加速。虽然人工智能正在刺激投资并重塑技术供应链，但其在整个地区的扩散仍受限于连通性、技能和创新生态系统的差距。维持较长期增长将取决于扭转生产率结构性放缓趋势，具体措施包括增强基础性公共产品、减少政策扭曲、精心设计的有针对性的干预措施来应对市场失灵，同时最大限度降低财政和效率风险。

The Country Partnership Framework (CPF) for Guinea is anchored in the government’s long-term “Simandou 2040” vision and focuses on leveraging the country’s mineral wealth to drive diversified, private sector–led growth and large-scale job creation. Despite strong economic growth driven by mining, employment generation and poverty reduction have remained limited, with most jobs informal and concentrated outside high-growth sectors. With the upcoming Simandou iron ore exports and significant natural resource potential, Guinea has a unique opportunity to transform its economy by expanding employment-intensive sectors such as agribusiness, tourism, and value-added manufacturing. The CPF reflects the World Bank Group’s jobs-focused approach by addressing key constraints including low human capital, limited private investment, weak infrastructure, governance challenges, and climate vulnerabilities. It prioritizes institutional strengthening, improved revenue management, and enhanced access to markets, finance, and services, especially for SMEs, while aligning with SCD recommendations and CPF selectivity filters. Drawing on lessons from the Completion and Learning Review, the CPF emphasizes flexibility, targeted interventions, and partnerships, ensuring that WBG support is focused on areas where it can deliver the greatest development impact and help Guinea achieve sustainable, job-rich growth.

This paper uses five rounds of Mexican and Brazilian census extracts to evaluate the accuracy of different model specifications and estimation methods that use survey and census data to generate small area estimates of poverty. Models that utilize more granular data for prediction (household- and/or village-level predictors) tend to produce more accurate estimates of poverty than models estimated only using area-level predictors. Differences in accuracy across models and methods that utilize household or village level predictors are minor. Models that omit household-level predictors tend to be more robust than unit-level models to the use of old census data and classical measurement error in survey predictors. The performance of the Fay-Herriot area-level model falls in the presence of sample selection bias and small sample sizes. Rescaling sample weights is important in Mexico, where the sample is informative within areas. Applying raw sample weights without rescaling in this case greatly reduces the accuracy of estimates from linear models and distorts methodological comparisons. Overall, no one approach dominates across all contexts, but when sample weights are rescaled there is no downside to using more granular data for prediction.

การบริโภคภาคเอกชนยังคงสนับสนุนการเติบโตในเอเชียตะวันออกและแปซิฟิก แม้ว่าความเชื่อมั่นของผู้บริโภคจะยังคงซบเซา การส่งออกอุปกรณ์อิเล็กทรอนิกส์ที่เกี่ยวข้องกับปัญญาประดิษฐ์เป็นจุดสว่างที่โดดเด่นในปี 2568 โดยมีการเติบโตที่แข็งแกร่งในการขนส่งจากมาเลเซีย ฟิลิปปินส์ ไทย และเวียดนาม ในขณะที่การส่งออกผลิตภัณฑ์อื่นๆ ขยายตัวช้าลง การลงทุนภาคเอกชนยังคงต่ํากว่าระดับก่อนเกิดโรคระบาดในภูมิภาคส่วนใหญ่ ท่ามกลางความไม่แน่นอนของนโยบายที่สูงขึ้นและแรงกระแทกเมื่อเร็วๆ นี้ แนวโน้มระดับภูมิภาคถูกกําหนดโดยปัจจัยภายนอกสามประการ ได้แก่ ราคาพลังงานที่สูงขึ้นซึ่งเกิดจากความขัดแย้งในตะวันออกกลาง ความไม่แน่นอนของนโยบายการค้าอย่างต่อเนื่องซึ่งขับเคลื่อนโดยมาตรการภาษีของสหรัฐฯ และปัญญาประดิษฐ์ทั่วโลกที่เฟื่องฟูอย่างรวดเร็ว แม้ว่าปัญญาประดิษฐ์จะกระตุ้นการลงทุนและปรับเปลี่ยนห่วงโซ่อุปทานเทคโนโลยี แต่การแพร่กระจายไปทั่วภูมิภาคยังคงถูกจํากัดด้วยช่องว่างในการเชื่อมต่อ ทักษะ และระบบนิเวศนวัตกรรม การรักษาการเติบโตในระยะยาวจะขึ้นอยู่กับการย้อนกลับการชะลอตัวของผลผลิตเชิงโครงสร้างผ่านสินค้าสาธารณะพื้นฐานที่แข็งแกร่งขึ้น

The Vienna Development Knowledge Center (VDKC) was established in 2025 as a joint initiative of the World Bank Group (WBG) and the Federal Government of Austria to strengthen the use of knowledge in addressing complex development challenges in Europe and Central Asia (ECA). The Center responds to growing demand from policy makers and practitioners for practical, implementation‑focused knowledge that supports decision‑making, especially in complex, multisectoral reform contexts. VDKC focuses on four thematic areas: Economic Governance, Livable and Competitive Cities, Climate Adaptation and Resilience, and Human Capital and Productive Aging. In each of these areas, the Center supports the use and application of knowledge by convening decision-makers and practitioners around concrete policy and implementation challenges and by embedding these exchanges within the World Bank’s ongoing policy dialogue, advisory services, and lending operations. In doing so, VDKC operationalizes the WBG Knowledge Bank model in ECA, blending timely, targeted knowledge with different instruments and strategic engagements. As the Center enters its second year, it has moved beyond proof of concept. Experience from the first year confirms that VDKC is most effective when it focuses on implementation challenges, uses applied learning formats, and supports sustained client engagement around strategic topics. These lessons directly informed the 2026 workplan. Responding to increased demand from World Bank teams and clients, the Center’s 2026 workplan prioritized activities aligned with operational pipelines, continuity, and regional priorities. A tiered programming model, piloted in 2025, is formalized to manage demand while preserving the Center’s role as a selective regional platform for strategic engagement. The 2026 workplan deepens established learning trajectories in areas such as market institutions, SOE governance, public financial management (PFM), urban service delivery, climate adaptation, and social protection systems. At the same time, it introduces emerging topics such as skills and jobs, health systems, renewable energy scale-up, tax policy, and Environmental and Social Governance (ESG) in energy transition. Digital transformation and private finance mobilization remain cross-cutting enablers, with selected activities implemented jointly with the International Finance Corporation (IFC). Looking ahead, the Center’s second year will deepen what works, sustaining learning pathways, strengthening operational links, and staying responsive to client needs and regional dynamics. By supporting the translation of client and WBG strategic priorities into institutionally grounded design choices and investment pathways, VDKC will continue its journey toward becoming a leading knowledge platform for ECA.

The development objectives of the Emergency Food Crisis Response Project for Central African Republic (CAR) are to increase food production and to improve resilience of targeted smallholder farmers and food insecure households in affected areas. The additional financing (AF) will be used to scale up parent project activities with targeted design adjustments to better respond to a rapidly deteriorating food and nutrition security crisis in CAR driven by a combination of acute supply-side and market shocks compounded by persistent armed conflict, widespread displacement, and a sharply deteriorating response environment. Specifically, the AF will finance: (i) emergency support and resilience-building interventions for the most vulnerable households, including cash-for-work, food and livelihood support, and the distribution of climate-resilient agricultural inputs and livestock; (ii) rehabilitation of critical market, aggregation, storage, and processing infrastructure to reduce post-harvest losses and stabilize food supply chains; and (iii) institutional capacity strengthening including strengthening national food and nutrition security systems and crisis preparedness and response mechanisms and support to the development of an agricultural sector strategy, expected to contribute to long-term food security by moving beyond short-term fixes and focusing on resilience and sustainability.

The development objective of Second Energy Transition and Climate Resilience Development Policy Financing Program is to support Government of the Philippines reforms to (1) scale up adoption of clean energy technologies; (2) increase the security, flexibility and competition of electricity markets; and (3) improve water management across water uses. The Philippines Development Plan (2023–2028), anchored in AmBisyon Natin 2040, sets out the Government’s vision for a prosperous, inclusive, and climate-resilient economy, focusing on poverty reduction, job creation, and economic transformation while strengthening resilience to climate and disaster risks. The program is structured around three pillars. Pillar 1 focuses on scaling up adoption of clean energy technologies, with renewable energy expansion and efficiency measures central to the country’s energy transition and climate goals. Pillar 2 supports increasing the security, flexibility, and competition of electricity markets, recognizing that a well-functioning and competitive electricity system is essential to ensure reliable and affordable power. Pillar 3 aims at improving water management across water uses through governance reforms and institutional strengthening at national and local levels. The program aligns with the World Bank Group’s Country Partnership Framework and corporate priorities by supporting private sector–led growth, climate action, and improved service delivery, while advancing gender inclusion and mobilization of private capital. It builds on prior reforms in the energy and water sectors and supports the Maximizing Finance for Development approach by addressing policy, regulatory, and institutional constraints, enabling increased private investment and strengthening climate resilience and sustainable infrastructure development in the Philippines.