By speeding up information exchange and the tracing of shipments, ePhyto will enhance Côte d’Ivoire’s trade competitiveness and help Ivorian traders participate more fully in the global economy.…

Shane Sela, Maiko Miyake |

Zimbabwe’s services exports are dominated by tourism and transport; largely missing are higher value services such as telecommunications, finance, and business process outsourcing and should be…

Mike Nyawo, Stella Ilieva, Marko Kwaramba |

This blog is a biweekly feature highlighting recent working papers from around the World Bank Group. It introduces six papers published in January of 2023 on various topics, including gender,…

Marcelo Buitron, Policy Research Working Paper team |

A tumultuous year of deep uncertainty brought on by multiple overlapping crises in which South Asia was hit by a series of unprecedented shocks. Here's a look back at 2022 in 10 blogs.

Adnan Siddiqi |

For South Asia to reach its full economic potential, it must explore untapped opportunities.

Hans Timmer |

As the gusts of the COVID-19 pandemic quieten, South Asian economies, left fragile and uneven in their recovery, are facing renewed headwinds: high inflation, rising fiscal deficits, and…

Zoe Leiyu Xie, Xiao'ou Zhu |

A native of of Visakhapatnam on India’s southeastern coast, Pavani has witnessed the dramatic changes foreign investment can bring. She was the first employee hired in 2008 when Sri Lankan firm…

Sanjay Kathuria, Ravindra A. Yatawara, Xiao'ou Zhu |

If you paid some of the highest electricity tariffs in the world, you would expect some of the most reliable electricity services. Unfortunately, this logic does not hold in West Africa, where…

Mustafa Zakir Hussain |

Eastern Waterways Grid has the potential to rejuvenate the economies of the eastern subcontinent, generating rich dividends for the South Asia region’s 600 million people.

Natalya Stankevich, Erik Nora, Arnab Bandyopadhyay. |

Good Neighbours series spotlights successful examples of regional cooperation in South Asia and demonstrates how people-to-people activities advance regionalism. Research guides this World Bank’s…

Mandakini Kaul, Nikita Singla |