The G20 has delivered a strong message that multilateral development banks (MDBs) need to be “better, bigger, and more effective.” That’s the headline of the G20 reform plan adopted in November 2024, which not only sets out the future path but also establishes how to get there with a detailed roadmap of 13 recommendations and 44 actions.
Continue readingMARRAKECH, February 18, 2025 – Road safety financing faces a critical shortfall, hindering progress toward halving global road traffic fatalities and injuries by 2030. Each year, road crashes claim an estimated 1.19 million lives, leave countless others with permanent disabilities, and impose significant economic costs.
Continue readingCan you imagine a job where you can decide where to work, when to work, and which projects to work on? According to our recent data analysis, this is exactly how 243 million youth around the world are challenging the traditional career path, particularly in developing countries where they seek higher pay and jobs that are not easily available close to home.
As explored in the recent World Bank report Working without Borders, many young workers are using digital platforms to access jobs from all over the globe and embracing online gig work rather than pursuing informal, low-quality, local jobs. They are performing task-based jobs facilitated through online gig platforms, continually upgrading their skills, and trying to stay ahead of the competition and evolving technology.
This way of work is rapidly gaining popularity among youth. Youth make up over half of this workforce, a percentage that exceeds their relative share of overall workers. By understanding what drives young people to join the online gig economy, policymakers and organizations supporting young people can harness this trend and generate more jobs while empowering youth.
Why are young people breaking with tradition and working online?
Online gig work allows students to generate additional income and gain valuable experience in their field while pursuing their studies. Similarly, young professionals at the beginning of their careers can take advantage of the ability to continually upgrade their skills in line with market demands.
In addition to flexibility, online gig work also presents the opportunity to earn higher pay compared to traditional employment. This income potential, coupled with the ability to be one’s own boss and access job opportunities in areas where local demand for labor may be low, makes online gig work an attractive proposition for many. It also enables people to cover income gaps and achieve greater financial stability, especially during shock or transition.
Figure 1: Motivations for Youth Participation in Online Gig Work
Where do online gig workers live, and how does internet access affect this trend?
Contrary to a commonly held assumptions, our research revealed that a significant number of online gig workers hail from smaller towns rather than major metropolitan areas. This presents a valuable opportunity for youth living in smaller cities, where there may be few local employment opportunities.
Online gig workers may not need to move to big cities to find work, but they need access to the internet, a reliable connection, and digital devices. In countries with higher internet coverage, the percentage of online gig workers from smaller cities is notably higher, highlighting the importance of expanding internet access to address spatial inequalities in labor markets.
So, is expanding internet access enough? The answer is NO. Our survey found variations across countries with similar levels of internet coverage, suggesting there are barriers to online gig work beyond internet access. For example, in the Middle East and Northern Africa, the share of youth performing online gig work in smaller cities is lower despite higher internet coverage, highlighting untapped potential opportunities.
Figure 2: Internet coverage and the share of young online gig workers in smaller cities
Source: Global Online Gig Workers Survey
What are the benefits of online gigs for different workers?
Online gig work offers better pay and opportunities for young people regardless of their education attainment. For example, in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region, online gig workers earn more than informal sector workers, even after adjusting for education, age, marital status, and working hours. Our research, however, suggests that in general workers with a college education have a greater chance of accessing higher-paying gigs.
Online gig work also can offer opportunities for young women by providing much-needed flexibility to earn an income while attending to household responsibilities.
Young gig workers aim to improve their skills, while also earning an income. While technical and digital skills are important, youth also highlight the importance of learning communication and time management skills to be successful as gig workers.
How can we help address potential challenges of online gig work?
While online gig work holds immense potential, most online gig workers – like other informal jobs in developing countries – do not have adequate social protection. While most young gig workers lack access to health insurance or old age benefits, they aspire for more than just traditional social security benefits; they are keen to develop their skills and want financial support for work-related needs such as computers and devices, highlighting the need for targeted social protection programs.
Despite challenges, most young gig workers aspire to grow their careers as online freelancers and want to earn more by freelancing full-time or starting their own agencies. Policymakers also have an opportunity to partner with online platforms to design innovative programs that expand social protection coverage for informal workers and meet the evolving needs of this dynamic workforce, shaping the future of work.
This blog is part of a Short Notes series that explores findings from the World Bank report “Working Without Borders: The Promise and Peril of Online Gig Work.”
Related blogs
The Promise and Peril of Online Gig Work in Developing Countries
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Small businesses can play an impactful role in fragile and conflict affected situations (FCS). They can create jobs and directly provide necessity goods and services such as food, water, health, education, and transportation. They can also contribute to the resilience of local populations during periods of conflict.
However, small businesses operating in FCS countries endure numerous setbacks to their activity, from frequent electricity cuts to bribery to armed attacks. Surviving and growing in these situations is difficult. Navigating daily challenges without access to affordable credit is almost impossible.
As it turns out, access to bank credit is consistently reported as a key business environment constraint for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in FCSs countries. True, access to finance is a problem for SMEs in every country, including in advanced economies, but it is particularly acute in FCS countries (figure 1).
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What drives SME financial exclusion in FCS countries vis-à-vis non-FCS countries? In a recent paper we examine this question, focusing in particular on the role of economic fundamentals and institutional factors. Economic fundamentals matter for SME financial inclusion. Higher incomes and better physical infrastructure increase savings and the pool of funds in the economy and improve access to finance while macroeconomic and financial stability can positively affect credit and other financial services to SMEs.
Institutions—the rules of the game in a society—matter too. Institutions influence the development of entrepreneurship and can support SME financial inclusion by improving the information environment and strengthening contract enforcement, as well as supporting equal treatment of firms in access to financial services.
On both counts, FCS countries generally lag behind non-FCS countries, especially, as would be expected, in terms of institutional development (figure 2). But what do we find in the data?
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The results of our analysis show that output growth has a negative impact on SME financial inclusion in FCS countries, probably reflecting demand for countercyclical finance — typically backed by the government — by financially constrained SMEs that otherwise tend to resort to internal funds to finance their operations and investment.
On the other hand, price stability, a key sign of macroeconomic stability, is associated with higher SME financial inclusion in FCS countries. Moreover, access and usage of financial services by SMEs in FCS countries tends to increase with economic development, for example, income levels.
Other economic fundamentals also play a role in SME financial inclusion in FCS countries. Economies with large informal sectors tend to face tighter constraints on SME financial inclusion. Similarly, the lack of economic diversification also has a significant impact. Financial sector characteristics also affect SME access and usage of finance. The quantity of financial intermediation, such as deeper credit markets, helps enhance SME financial inclusion, and this is particularly important in FCS contexts.
The quality of financial intermediation is equally important because government and state-owned enterprise financing can crowd out credit to the private sector, including SMEs. In our sample of FCS countries, available credit tends to go proportionally more to the public sector than the private sector compared to non-FCS countries. Our analysis suggests that a significant role is played by crowding out effects in FCS countries. A lack of competition among banks reduces SME financial inclusion in FCS countries. Reducing banking market concentration is found to have a positive impact on SME access and usage of formal financial services in FCS countries. Finally, banking sector soundness, as measured by the quality of lending (NPL ratio), significantly and strongly supports SME financial inclusion.
Turning to institutional factors, strong governance and stable institutions exert a significant influence on SME access and usage of formal financial services in FCS countries. Voice and accountability, political stability, government effectiveness, and control of corruption are all positively correlated with SME financial inclusion. The importance of government effectiveness and control of corruption is particularly strong for FCS countries.
Credit information is also a key factor for SME financial inclusion. Rules affecting the scope, accessibility, and quality of credit information available through public or private credit registries can greatly facilitate banking relationships, and they are especially important for FCS countries.
Constraints to the quality of contract enforcement, property rights, and the effectiveness of courts, as well as to the ability of the authorities to formulate and implement policies and regulations that permit and promote private sector development, are negatively correlated with SME access and usage of formal financial services. Their impact is significantly stronger for FCS countries, suggesting that improvements in the overall business environment can have relatively sizable effects on SME financial inclusion in those countries.
Our analysis shows that the macrofinancial and institutional constraints that affect SME access and usage of formal financial services are similar across FCS countries and non-FCS countries, with differences in degree rather than in kind , that is, the relative importance of constraints is greater in FCS countries, particularly in middle- income FCS countries. Accordingly, to advance SME financial inclusion it is important to designing and implementing comprehensive strategies that take into account proper macroeconomic and financial policy frameworks and conducive governance, institutional and regulatory arrangements, tailored to country contexts.
Our upcoming Spring Meetings will focus on Reshaping Development for a New Era – this is
an excellent opportunity to take stock of progress being made to tackle the many challenges facing global development, including climate change.
An increase of nearly 30 per cent on the previous year, boosting projects that help developing countries cut emissions and address climate risks.
WASHINGTON, June 13, 2018 – Climate financing by the world’s six largest multilateral development banks (MDBs) rose to a seven-year high of $35.2 billion in 2017, up 28 per cent on the previous year.
Netherlands for the World Bank 
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