Economics & Development

Annual capital raised by private infrastructure funds increased from US$31.9 billion in 2010 to US$172.4 billion in 2022. An unprecedented decline occurred in 2023 when the annual capital raised was US$94.9 billion, almost half of the 2022 level. Investor surveys note rising interest rates were the leading driver of this decline. In 2024, the fundraising remained subdued with US$70.5 billion raised by Q3 2024. North America and Europe dominate, capturing 82 percent of capital raised during 2020-2024, driven by energy/climate transition initiatives and investor preference for stable markets. Asia-Pacific, especially India, attracts private financing in emerging markets.

The Partnership for Infrastructure Development Multi-Donor Trust Fund (PID MDTF) provides co-financing for World Bank operations in the West Bank and Gaza. (WB&G). During the reporting period (July 1, 2024 to December 31, 2024), the PID supported eight project: two in the urban and land sectors, three in the water sector, and three in the energy sector. A further project, the Integrated Solid Waste Management Project, was developed during the reporting period and approved on January 30, 2025. Additionally, the PID co-financed five Advisory Services and Analytics (ASA) activities. The PID MDTF is currently supported by nine development donors.

This report explores the potential of maturing technologies to address specific health financing challenges in East and Southern Africa. To the extent possible, it draws on examples from countries in the region and shows how some technologies have been used in other sectors that could inform similar application to health financing challenges. The report discusses benefits, drawbacks, risks, and costs of the various options and emphasizes that these need to be balanced when exploring the introduction of any such tools.

Digitalization accelerated by the pandemic has exponentially increased the number and variability of alternative data sources. The stay-at-home requirements during the pandemic forced several business models to be digitized. This helped spur the digitization that had been ongoing pre-pandemic, largely driven by governments as countries sought to leverage the benefits of the digital economy. Advances in technological innovations are also facilitating the development of advanced credit underwriting models and the use of structured and unstructured data to assess creditworthiness. This has enabled the financial industry to actively integrate alternative data to gain a competitive edge. This study examines the evolution of the use of alternative data in creditworthiness assessment since the ICCR issued its Policy Guidance Note in 2018. The report identifies the use cases of alternative data in creditworthiness and the emerging models across geographical regions. After assessing the evolution of associated legal and regulatory frameworks, it concludes by offering recommendations and policy considerations. The findings of the study are detailed below.

This document collection focuses on utilizing Earth observation data to enhance resilience in island communities. The training program emphasizes practical applications of Earth observation techniques for water management, specifically addressing watershed delineation at a regional scale and water management design at a local level. The program includes interactive sessions, assignments, and opportunities for participants to apply their knowledge in a dynamic learning environment.

The Global Data Facility (GDF) is an innovative global funding mechanism that was established in October 2021 to strengthen and facilitate transformative and sustainable improvements in data systems and data capital in low- and middle-income countries with the overall objective of improving social, economic, and sustainable development outcomes. The GDF seeks to assist these countries not only in boosting their financial resources to enhance data systems but also in developing the essential data infrastructure, technical skills, and institutional and regulatory frameworks needed to facilitate access to and foster trust in data systems. The GDF prioritizes data and statistics through pooling resources and expertise to create data-driven policies that enhance interventions and yield better development results in areas such as climate action, poverty alleviation, gender equality, food security, and youth economic empowerment. The GDF also ensures demand-driven funding for data and statistics priorities at the global, regional, and national levels. It supports flexible, country-led approaches by investing in both data fundamentals and innovative data frontiers. Additionally, the GDF serves as a global coordination mechanism for a spectrum of partners, practitioners, and country clients to improve and scale up support for the global development data agenda. Operating in tandem with other initiatives, such as the Bern Network’s Clearinghouse for Financing Development Data and the United Nation’s Complex Risk Analytics Fund (CRAF’d), the GDF optimizes alignment of funding and priorities around the world.

The Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF)—a multi-donor partnership managed by the World Bank—supports efforts in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to halve their road traffic fatalities and serious injuries. To achieve its objectives, GRSF provides grant funding, knowledge, and technical assistance to scale-up road safety efforts in LMICs; catalyzes and informs multisectoral road safety investments financed by the World Bank and other multilateral development banks; and delivers global road safety knowledge products and capacity enhancement initiatives.

Bangladesh is warming at an alarming rate, the maximum temperature increased by 1.1°C between 1980 and 2023. At the same time, the heat index, or feels like temperature (which combines humidity and temperature to assess impacts on human health brought on by heat), rose by 4.5°C. Heat waves from global warming have already caused more deaths than all other forms of natural disasters combined in many countries (Jay et al. 2021). Developing countries are particularly susceptible to heat-related adverse impacts because adaptation to climate change is expensive and a large proportion of the workforce is engaged in outdoor occupations (Lancet 2018). Countries in South and Southeast Asia, particularly Bangladesh, are vulnerable to a high burden of heat-related diseases (Burkart et al. 2021). Bangladesh ranks second globally in exposure to elevated temperatures, with its capital, Dhaka, identified as a global hotspot for urban heat (Zachariah et al. 2023). Despite the region’s high vulnerability, research on the human health impacts of heat waves is limited. To better understand the links between heat and health, this report responds to the following question: How does increasing exposure to excess heat affect the physical and mental health outcomes of individuals and their productivity in the short term? In doing so, the report sets the context with a historical analysis of temperature changes in Bangladesh between 1976 and 2023. Next, it uses nationally and sub nationally representative two-round panel data comprising more than 16,000 individuals in Bangladesh from 2024 to quantify the impact of exposure to heat on physical and mental health conditions and productivity losses. The report thus serves three specific objectives: (1) grounded in localized evidence that links the effect of heat on health, recommend effective adaptation measures to reduce the vulnerabilities of the Bangladeshi population to heat; (2) quantify economic losses borne by the country due to global warming to assist Bangladesh policy makers in leveraging international support and financing to mitigate the impacts; and (3) add evidence to the global discourse on heat and human health, especially mental health conditions and loss of productivity. This report is first of its kind in Bangladesh, collecting data on specific physical and mental health conditions to establish the link between heat and health. The evidence-based policy recommendations derived from this study are applicable to other countries as well.