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 |

Urgent reforms on broadband policy would hasten the digital transformation the Philippines needs to achieve its goal of becoming a prosperous middle-class society by 2040.

Naoto Kanehira, Mitch Abdon, Mary Grace Mirandilla-Santos |

A new World Bank report, Unlivable: What the Urban Heat Island Effect Means for East Asia’s Cities, sheds light on three important questions to help city leaders rise to the extreme urban heat…

Anna Wellenstein, Mark Roberts, Chandan Deuskar, Nick Jones, Jane Park |

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 |

Discover how Central Asian countries are using regional data and knowledge to enhance their disaster preparedness.

Chyi-Yun Huang, Stephan Zimmermann, Stuart Fraser |

Drylands in Central Asia are among the most rapidly degrading and climate-vulnerable areas worldwide. Desertification caused by climate change and human activities has led to land degradation,…

Banu Setlur, Paola Agostini, Brenden Jongman |

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 |

While green IT initiatives in private and public sectors differ in reach, focus, and organizational approach, we can identify several green IT solutions that have already been developed, tested,…

Achim Blume |

Catastrophe bonds, also known as #catbonds, brings diversification to investment portfolios and provides robust performance in good and bad times. What could a cat bond for a Central Asian country…

Naomi Cooney, Daniel McGree, Martin Melecky, Tatiana Skalon |

Getting the balance right at the water-energy nexus is already a challenge, and the climate crisis is only expected to exacerbate this, especially in Central Asia.

Tatiana Proskuryakova, Winston Yu |