From education to entrepreneurship, global recovery efforts need to pay
particular attention to the needs of women and girls.
When the 2008 recession hit, few asked how stimulus measures would affect women compared with men.
Firms and workers continue to be deeply impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic as it enters its 
eleventh month. Building on insights from COVID-19 Business Pulse Surveys, the first blog post in this series described the implications of the crisis for firm sales, employment, and financial performance, while the second discussed record levels of uncertainty and firms’ coping strategies, including adoption of digital technology. This third and final part of the series focuses on public policy responses.
The toxic cocktail of climate change, conflict, and COVID-19 is making itself felt most intensely 
in the world’s poorest and most vulnerable countries. As a result, a record 235 million people worldwide will need humanitarian assistance and protection in 2021 – an increase of 40% from last year.
The coronavirus pandemic wreaked havoc around the world and dealt a major setback to 
decades of development outcomes. Last spring, we successfully championed a moratorium on debt for the world’s poorest countries and launched a fast, broad-based response to COVID-19. We are financing emergency operations in over 111 countries – home to 70% of the global population- which has been the largest and fastest crisis response in the World Bank Group’s history.
Ahead of the World Bank Group-IMF Annual Meetings, Frankfurt School of Finance and Management will host World Bank Group President David Malpass who will discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people and the challenge of building a resilient and inclusive global recovery.
The event will be introduced by Germany’s Bundesbank President Dr. Jens Weidmann and include a conversation between President Malpass and Professor Nils Stieglitz, President and Managing Director of Frankfurt School of Finance and Management.
One morning in February, in Kaffrine Region, Senegal, Kaffia Diallo emerged from her tent. She 
is happy; her new grandson was born just two days earlier. “A beautiful baby,” she said, “although I wish he weighed a little more.”
Water touches every aspect of development and flows through nearly every Sustainable 
: By Sam Fargher and Stephane Hallegatte
Like every other country, the Republic of Fiji faces the unprecedented challenge of managing the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the number of cases remains low, in a country where international tourism is a cornerstone of the economy, the implications of the crisis are massive. GDP is expected to contract by more than 20 percent in 2020, with a 75 percent drop in international tourist arrivals and 40,000 tourism jobs already lost. In response, the government is planning a 3.7-billion-Fijian-dollar stimulus package to protect the population and support economic activity.
Following decades of violent conflicts in Burundi, Rwanda, South Sudan and the 
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Tanzania became home to thousands of refugees seeking shelter. , making it one of the top four refugee-receiving countries in Sub Saharan Africa. The majority of these refugees settled in 13 main camps in the northwestern districts of Karagwe, Ngara, Kasulu, Kigoma and Kibondo. In some of these districts, refugees outnumbered Tanzanians five to one— making it perhaps the most pronounced forced displacement crisis. By the end of May 1994, the Benaco refugee camp in Ngara district had become the largest in the world.
There are about 68.5 million forcibly displaced people in the world today, of which more
than 25 million are considered refugees.
Almost 85 percent of them are hosted by low or middle countries with limited resources such as Jordan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Turkey, and Bangladesh. These countries face enormous challenges in meeting the needs of refugees while continuing to grow and develop themselves.
Last week, in a gathering of governments and organizations at the World Bank-hosted 2018 Fragility Forum, the international community took an important step forward in fighting fragility by sharpening our understanding of it, hearing directly from those affected by it and thinking collectively through what we must do to overcome it.
We all agreed, acting on a renewed understanding of fragility and what it means to vulnerable communities represents an urgent and collective responsibility. We’ve all seen the suffering. In places like Syria, Myanmar, Yemen and South Sudan, the loss of life, dignity and economic prosperity is rife. With more than half of the world’s poor expected to live in fragile settings by 2030, we can’t end poverty unless we promote stability, prosperity, and peace in these places ravaged by conflict and crisis.
