Category Archives: WBG News & Reports

World Bank Announces $500 Million to Fight Locusts, Preserve Food Security and Protect Livelihoods

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Emergency Financing for Locust Affected Countries will help people recover from losses

WASHINGTON, May 21, 2020 — The World Bank Group approved today a US$500 million program to help countries in Africa and the Middle East fight the locust swarms that are threatening the food security and livelihoods of millions of people.

The Emergency Locust Response Program (ELRP), approved today by the World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors, will focus on providing immediate assistance to help poor and vulnerable farmers, herders, and rural households overcome one of the worst locust upsurges in decades. ELRP will provide immediate support to affected households through targeted social safety nets like cash transfers, while investing in the medium-term recovery of agriculture and livestock production systems and rural livelihoods in affected countries.

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WBG: Weekly Recap

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The World Bank Group is now supporting 100 countries in their fight against coronavirus, helping strengthen health systems, protect the poorest and support jobs. This is the largest and fastest crisis response in our history, and is critical in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and accelerating a recovery.

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COVID-19: How the World Bank is helping countries procure critical medical supplies

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In the global crisis caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19), the World Bank is helping CoronaVirusHeader-Final-3-1536x647client countries respond. The World Bank Group will deploy up to $160 billion over the next 15 months to support COVID-19 measures that will help countries respond to immediate health consequences of the pandemic, support households and firms, and bolster economic recovery. Our first package of fast-track emergency health financing launched on April 2, 2020, and we are working with our borrowers as they move to implement emergency projects. A key component of this implementation is client access to critical medical equipment and supplies.

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Incidence of COVID-19 and Connections with Air Pollution Exposure : Evidence from the Netherlands

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The fast spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 has resulted in the young woman with face mask using smartphone-GND-iStockemergence of several hot-spots around the world. Several of these are located in areas associated with high levels of air pollution. This study investigates the relationship between exposure to particulate matter and COVID-19 incidence in 355 municipalities in the Netherlands. The results show that atmospheric particulate matter with diameter less than 2.5 is a highly significant predictor of the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases and related hospital admissions. The estimates suggest that expected COVID-19 cases increase by nearly 100 percent when pollution concentrations increase by 20 percent.

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Weekly Round Up

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3 phases to build more inclusive, efficient and resilient education systems in the wake of COVID-19

The pandemic has already had profound impacts on education. But it is possible to counter those shocks, and to turn crisis into opportunity. The policy responses to achieve this can be summarized in these three overlapping phases.

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How COVID-19 is changing the world: a statistical perspective from international agencies

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We are living through unprecedented times. The impact of the novel coronavirus and its TCard COVID statdisease, COVID-19, has reverberated through every corner of the globe—taking lives, destroying livelihoods, and changing everything about how we interact with each other and the world.

At a time of crisis, governments more than ever must rely on timely, reliable data to make decisions to mitigate harm and support their citizens. What’s more, given the grave impacts of the coronavirus pandemic in our interconnected world, decisions made today will have consequences that will last far into the future, affecting people in every region and community. 

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Coronavirus Live Series: Supporting Companies and Preserving Jobs through the Pandemic

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The economic impact of #COVID19 will hit developing countries hard. What can be done to support companies and preserve jobs? Join IFC’s Chief Operating Officer, Stephanie von Friedeburg, for discussion on the topic.

 

Broad, fast action to save lives and help countries rebuild

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Axel van Trotsenburg|

The COVID-19 pandemic is uncharted territory for every country in the world. It has unleashed both a global health emergency and an unprecedented economic crisis of historic magnitude. Even as the coronavirus continues to spread, the World Bank estimates that, between 2019 and 2020, the global economy will shrink by $4.2 trillion dollars.  That is substantially bigger than South Asia’s entire regional economy (which is about $3.5 trillion), and as if we somehow wiped both Germany and Belgium off the economic map. Worse still, the fall from where we expected to be in 2021 if COVID-19 hadn’t hit is closer to $7.5 trillion dollars—equivalent to 40% of the entire U.S. economy, as well as larger than the combined GDP of Latin America and the Caribbean plus the Middle East and North Africa.

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COVID-19: We’re tracking digital responses worldwide. Here’s what we see

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Digital technologies are vital tools for helping people cope with stay-at-home orders and young woman with face mask using smartphone-GND-iStocksocial distancing requirements during the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). Digital technologies are instrumental in supporting health care systems, not only though telemedicine and COVID screening apps, but also through Big Data and artificial intelligence analytics for mobility patterns, epidemiological models, and contact tracing. And in many other sectors, digital is also the new normal for individuals, governments, and businesses around the world.

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