With the COVID-19 pandemic, the development context for the world is fundamentally challenged in many ways. The pandemic has taken a drastic human toll, and its global-scale economic and social impacts affected rural development work focused on the most poor and vulnerable populations. It has...

While the incidence of COVID-19 in Belize has subsided, the lasting health and economic impacts caused by the pandemic have demonstrated the need to build a resilient health system. The most recent figures from the Statistical institute of Belize confirm that there have been over 60,000 cases...

Central Asia has made much progress in public health and animal health in the last 20 years but was as unprepared as other regions in the world to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. The region also faces challenges from other emerging diseases, re-emerging diseases, and climate change. Since...

Myanmar exhibits poor health outcomes and lags regional peers. Myanmar's Human Capital Index (HCI) score is 0.47, compared to a regional average of 0.60. Every year, 2,000 pregnant women and 50,000 children die from preventable causes, and 29 percent of children under age 5 are stunted. While...

The COVID-19 pandemic and the decline in global oil demand and prices dealt the GCC countries a health crisis and a commodity market shock. The GCC's aggregate GDP contracted by 4.8 percent in 2020 from 2019, with the growth outturns ranging from -3.7 in Qatar to an estimated -6.3 percent in...

In 2018, the World Bank launched the Human Capital Index (HCI), which is designed to highlight how improvements in current health and education outcomes will shape the productivity of the next generation of workers. The HCI measures the amount of human capital that a child born today can expect...

After a period of rapid economic growth associated with high commodity prices, the region had entered a phase of lackluster performance. Recent developments, including a new oil price shock, and the outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic will push the region into recession. Many countries are...

Growth in the developing East Asia and Pacific region slowed sharply in 2020Q1 because of the negative impact of the Covid-19 on economic activity. The decline has been broad-based reflecting the interconnectedness of the EAP economies and reverberations from the global economy as the virus...

Little research attention has been paid to documenting and analyzing attempts of education systems moving quickly and at scale to provide online learning when all or many schools are closed. Related 'good practices' are considered rare, and on the whole, activities and initiatives of these sorts...

WBG support for tourism clients and destinations during the COVID-19 crisis in the form of planning and communication, reducing tax burdens, contamination support, generating alternative revenues, minimizing revenue loss, redeploying assets, and other