The African Legal Support Facility (ALSF) has developed country profiles to assess the progress of developing PPP legal frameworks and carried out a comparative analysis of existing legal and…

Maude Vallée, Andrea Stucchi |

With the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), world leaders made a bold pledge in 2015 to leave no one behind on the path of development by 2030. Half-way to the target date, some 22 countries…

Samuel Kofi Tetteh Baah, Christoph Lakner, Umar Serajuddin |

Less than half of EU member states that operate passenger railways offer services with commercial speeds over 200km/h. Nearly a third of passenger railway routes in the EU between medium or large…

Shomik Mehndiratta, Daniel Pulido, Luis C. Blancas, Victor Aragones, Mercedes Gutierrez |

When conflicts end, the tragic impact of lives lost, damages, and the countless needs of people left in its wake are overwhelmingly visible. There are also other long-lasting and damaging…

A.S. Harinath, Ahmed Ali |

As we marked World Poverty Day on October 17th, a blog published recently by World Bank staff highlights that poverty has finally receded to pre-COVID pandemic levels, which in essence means we…

Nadir Mohammed, Laura Moreno Herrera, Salman Zaidi |

High levels of marine and coastal pollution in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) pose a severe threat to the region’s “blue economy,” which is a key lever for economic growth in the region.…

Kanako Hasegawa, Lamia Mansour, Dahlia Lotayef, Suiko Yoshijima, Andrea Kutter |

Gender equality and fair treatment of women and girls is a moral imperative, but global data analytics, evidence and experience clearly demonstrate that including women also fosters economic…

Christopher Stephens |

Women of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have outperformed many other regions in terms of life expectancy, infant mortality, and tertiary education. Their performance in education has, in…

Ferid Belhaj, Paul Noumba Um, Muneeza Mehmood Alam |

West and Central Africa faces compounding challenges including increased climate change impacts, such as prolonged drought and unpredictable rainy seasons causing flooding in the Sahel; high…

Jorge Trevino, Thierry Davy |

For decades, many countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region have benefited from abundant natural resources, including oil and gas. But the region is not rich in all resources. In…

Harris Selod, Anna Corsi |