Economics & Development

The objective of this policy note is to provide an overview of the status of digital skills in Nigeria from a comparative perspective and understand how prepared educational institutions are to help develop the digital skills of the population. First, the note summarizes the status of access to digital infrastructure and equipment, a pre-condition to developing digital skills. The note also highlights the level of digital skills in the country based on survey data. Finally, the note summarizes the status of digital infrastructure in schools and educational facilities. The report can be seen as a complement to the digital skills section of the Nigeria Digital Economy Diagnostic Report.

Pakistan faces significant gender gaps in wage employment, entrepreneurship, and access to productive assets. Women in Pakistan also contend with critical issues related to safety, mobility, agency, and restrictive social norms. This report provides an in-depth analysis of these disparities and introduces an evidence-based policy toolkit that prioritizes actionable solutions drawn from global and regional evidence while highlighting areas that require further research. Utilizing extensive microdata from national and regional surveys, it offers a comprehensive 20-year review of trends and insights into women’s work and empowerment across multiple indicators, paving the way for targeted, data-driven policy interventions.

Under the updated low-income country debt sustainability framework (LIC DSF), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) remains at moderate risk of both external and overall debt distress, with some capacity to absorb shocks. However, its debt-carrying capacity is assessed as weak. Weak revenue mobilization - notably in the non-extractive sector - is a key factor underpinning the DRC’s moderate risk rating, despite relatively low external debt levels. Stress tests reveal breaches in external debt thresholds for both solvency and liquidity risks, underscoring the country’s vulnerability to external shocks, particularly from adverse export performance. Given limited fiscal buffers and significant exposure to volatile commodity prices, maintaining debt sustainability will require the adoption of prudent borrowing policies that prioritize concessional financing. Strengthening debt management frameworks and enhancing revenue mobilization are also critical to mitigating vulnerabilities and ensuring a sustainable debt trajectory.

The Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) guides policymakers and partners to align efforts toward sustainable development goals and emerging challenges. The SCD 2024 priorities are: create more and better jobs; promote a more resource-efficient, environmentally sustainable, development pathway; and strengthen institutions, government capacity, and effectiveness.

The Service Delivery Indicators (SDI) Health Survey in Ukraine is intended to provide policy-relevant evidence to enable governments, citizens, and other stakeholders to identify successes and bottlenecks in health service delivery, monitor progress over time, and make cross-country comparisons. The results of the assessment are intended to inform actions to improve population health outcomes. The Ukraine SDI Health Survey was conducted through a partnership of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, the National Health Service of Ukraine, and the World Bank, with funding from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. Data collection was conducted in primary health care (PHC) facilities between April and July. Health care providers and patients were interviewed during the survey. The survey covered PHC facilities in many oblasts in Ukraine and the city of Kyiv. Because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the sample frame was restricted to areas that were not actively contested during the survey planning and implementation period. This restriction has implications for some of the findings in the report, because areas most affected by the invasion are not represented.

This report is intended to support the government of Sierra Leone in the development of a risk management action plan and for disaster risk financing investments. It was compiled with extensive analysis of crop and livestock production, price, and meteorological data records between 2003–2022. It includes evidence from a literature review on production, market, and enabling environment risk events occurring over the foregoing time period and from stakeholder interviews held with farmers, traders, processors, and others sector players, as well as with government and agricultural research staff between June 2023 and March 2024. The results of the analysis are considered in light of the different stakeholders’ vulnerability to the effects of ex post shock events and the resulting ex ante impact upon investment. The most salient issues and results of this analysis are outlined in the report. A considerable volume of supporting data is supplied in the appendixes, including (1) key crop production zones, (2) further analysis of rainfall time series data, and (3) detailed crop yield loss records, among others.

The Country Opinion Survey in Seychelles assists the World Bank Group (WBG) in better understanding how stakeholders in Seychelles perceive the WBG. It provides the WBG with systematic feedback from national and local governments, multilateral and bilateral agencies, media, academia, the private sector, and civil society in Seychelles on: (1) their views regarding the general environment in Seychelles; (2) their overall attitudes toward the WBG in Seychelles; (3) overall impressions of the WBG’s effectiveness and results, knowledge work and activities, and communication and information sharing in Seychelles; and (4) their perceptions of the WBG’s future role in Seychelles.

Uzbekistan’s economic story over the past seven years is a captivating one of transition and reform; however, the country is not yet enjoying the full economic returns from these efforts. This report shows how to spur faster growth by improving the functioning of domestic markets and their integration into international markets. At its core, Uzbekistan’s economic success needs to have a vital, dynamic, and growing private sector that creates jobs and forges new economic opportunities. Two conditions are essential for this private sector development. Firstly, integration of domestic markets results when government policies and interventions in factor markets, product markets, and public infrastructure are considered crucial for this integration. Such policies determine a firm’s production choices - what, how, and where to produce, and the distribution of goods within the country. These government actions should be carefully designed to facilitate the efficient allocation of resources across firms and sectors, and the flow of goods nationwide. Secondly, integration with external markets comes when trade barriers are lowered and costs minimized so that domestic firms can derive multiple benefits from this greater external market access. Newly opened export markets can offer huge potential to expand while lowering costs through economies of scale. Access to a broader range of low-cost, quality inputs can enable higher value and more competitive firms to operate, while competition from abroad will further boost the forces of private sector dynamism and innovation.