Based on a literature review and case studies of various urban cash transfer schemes that were implemented in response to… Read more Covid-19 across LMICs (with primary case studies from Madagascar, Peru and Nigeria), this paper explores the successes and challenges of implementing cash transfers in urban settings in response to a large, covariate shock. It also considers the expected longer term implications and lessons learned for building capacity to respond to future shocks and for social protection system-strengthening more broadly. Read less ...

A rapidly urbanizing world presents enormous economic opportunities for the poor and vulnerable but also presents significant barriers to their… Read more economic inclusion. About two thirds of the world’s population is expected to live in urban centers by 2050, with nearly 90 percent of this increase in Asia and Africa. Section two is a summary of the urban context and challenges. Section three then describes a framework for fostering urban economic inclusion, and section four examines the current landscape of economic inclusion programs, starting with the policy impetus driving their emergence. Section 5 turns to the case for scaling up urban programs by synthesizing evidence on costs and impacts. Section 6 draws conclusions. This note draws heavily on the framework and analysis provided in The State of Economic Inclusion (SEI) Report 2021: the potential to scale (Andrews et al. 2021), especially the PEI 2020 Landscape and Costing Surveys, an updated World Bank portfolio (2021) review, and an updated review of impact evaluations of urban economic inclusion programs. Read less ...

This report is the main output from the second round of a three-year research project, commissioned by Concern Worldwide Bangladesh, which… Read more monitors the livelihoods of selected participants of the Irish Aid-funded programme ‘Improving the Lives of the Urban Extreme Poor’ (ILUEP) in Chattogram and Dhaka. By delivering a comprehensive package of livelihood support, training in business management and coaching in a range of life skills, the ILUEP aims to move 9,000 pavement dweller, slum dweller and squatter households out of extreme poverty and improve their overall wellbeing. Read less ...

This report documents cross-country findings from analysis conducted by World Bank staff working on Jobs Diagnostics. It identifies some key… Read more insights for policy makers to take into account when designing policies and programs for inclusive growth. The findings are drawn from three different sources. The macroeconomic section analyzes data for over 16,000 overlapping episodes of economic growth in 125 countries. The labor supply section analyzes labor data from the latest household surveys in 150 countries around the world. The firm-level analysis draws on business data from countries for which—at the time of writing—the World Bank had conducted a Jobs Diagnostic. The report identifies jobs-related transitions as the pathways people follow to better jobs —workers increase their hours worked, become more productive in their work, move between locations, change sectors and occupations, and shift from self- to waged employment and from less to more successful firms. Read less ...

Most safety net programs in low and middle-income countries have hitherto been conceived for rural areas. Yet as the global… Read more urban population increases and poverty urbanizes, it becomes of utmost importance to understand how to make safety nets work in urban settings. This paper discusses the process of urbanization, the peculiar features of urban poverty, and emerging experiences with urban safety net programs in dozens of countries. It does so by reviewing multidisciplinary literature, examining household survey data, and presenting a compilation of case studies from a 'first generation' of programs. The paper finds that urban areas pose fundamentally different sets of opportunities and challenges for social protection, and that safety net programs are at the very beginning of a process of urban adaptation. The mixed-performance and preliminary nature of the experiences suggest putting a premium on learning and evidence-generation. This might include revisiting some key design choices and better connecting safety nets to spatial, economic and social services agendas compelling to urban areas. The mixed-performance and preliminary nature of the experiences suggest putting a premium on learning and evidence-generation. This might include revisiting some key design choices and better connecting safety nets to spatial, economic and social services agendas compelling to urban areas. The mixed-performance and preliminary nature of the experiences suggest putting a premium on learning and evidence-generation. This might include revisiting some key design choices and better connecting safety nets to spatial, economic and social services agendas compelling to urban areas. Read less ...