This issue focuses on FCV Countries and Topics and features the following articles: Confronting the Development Challenges of Fragility, Conflict, and Violence; What Drives the Radicalization of Foreign Terrorist Recruits?
... See More + The Cost of Fear; Leaving, Staying, or Coming Back? Migration Decisionsduring the Northern Mali Conflict; How Myanmar’s Reforms Are Playing Out in Rural Villages; Obstacles on the Road to Economic Growth in the West Bank; Can Public Works Help Postconflict Communities Escape Poverty? Can Mass Media Increase Women’s Political Participation after Civil War? Conflict and Poverty in Afghanistan’s Transition; Who Benefited from Burundi’s Demobilization Program? and U.S. Food Aid and Civil Conflict Revisited: A Methodological Caution .
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This paper details the results from the first comprehensive survey of private firms across major urban areas in the Syrian Arab Republic -- including Aleppo, Homs, Hama, Latakia, and Damascus -- since the conflict began in 2011.
... See More + This builds on the World Bank's Enterprise Survey from 2009 and attempts to survey each of the 508 firms from 2009 again. The survey highlights the major challenges facing firms in Syria today, such as access to electricity, fuel, and water. Yet, loss of workers, managers, and supply chain relationships are also notably severe. Rebuilding the social and human capital of Syria may be even more difficult than the bricks and mortar. The paper also identifies the ways firms have been affected in their prices, sales, supply chains, taxation, and costs as well as how they have adapted in financing and employment. These constraints and impacts are also analyzed at the subnational level and across sectors. Firms in Aleppo stand out for their uniquely difficult challenges and responses that are sometimes at odds with the rest of the country. Finally, the paper analyzes firm exit from 2009 to 2017 and finds that higher productivity firms from 2009 were more likely to survive, except in Aleppo where the reverse holds. The paper hypothesizes that productive firms facing the particularly severe destruction in Aleppo may have made a different calculation compared with productive firms elsewhere: to use their capabilities to leave rather than to use their capabilities to weather the storm.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8397 APR 02, 2018
Transnational terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State (also known as Daesh) have shown an ability to attract radicalized individuals from many countries to join their ranks, and perpetrate attacks around the world.
... See More + Using a novel data set that reports countries of residence and educational levels of a large sample of Daesh's foreign recruits, the authors find that a lack of economic opportunities -- measured by unemployment rates disaggregated by country and education level -- explains foreign enrollment in the terrorist organization, especially for countries that are geographically closer to Syria.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8381 MAR 27, 2018
Abdel Jelil,Mohamed; Bhatia,Kartika; Brockmeyer,Anne; Do,Quy-Toan; Joubert,Clement Jean EdouardDisclosed
This study analyses how the Syrian refugee inflows into turkey affected firm entry and performance. To estimate the casual effects, instrumental variables, difference-indifferences and synthetic control methodologies are used.
... See More + The results suggest that hosting refugees is favourable for firms. Total firm entry does not seem to be significantly affected. However, there is a substantial increase in the number of new foreign-owned firms. In line with the increase in new foreign-owned firms, there is some indication of growth in gross profits and net sales.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8323 JAN 30, 2018
Akgunduz,Yusuf Emre; van den Berg,Marcel; Hassink,WolterDisclosed
Between fiscal year 2014 and 2018, the World Bank financed around 35 IBRD/IDA projects in the Mashreq Region, totaling approximately US$8 billion.
... See More + This includes loans and guarantees which support a wide array of investments in education, health, public administration, infrastructure, urban and social development, financial and private sector development, job creation, agriculture, and environmental and natural resource management. Lending operations have been complemented by several grant-funded projects in different sectors, particularly municipal services, poverty targeting, social protection and capacity building. The Mashreq portfolio is also leveraged by innovative concessional financing initiatives, provided through the Global Concessional Financing Facility which was established in 2016 to support Middle Income Countries impacted by a massive influx of refugees. Over the coming years, the World Bank’s strategy in the Mashreq Region focuses on: (i) promoting inclusive economic growth and job creation, (ii) financing climate-smart infrastructure, (iii) scaling up access to and quality of service delivery, and (iv) mitigating the economic and social impact of recent and ongoing crises in the Region in order to safeguard development gains and promote peace and stability. This paper includes the following headings: who we are? Main World Bank financing instruments; the World Bank Group Middle East and North Africa strategy; the World Bank in the Mashreq; strengthening the resilience of poor and vulnerable groups; growth for jobs; maximizing finance for development; climate-smart infrastructure for essential services; citizen engagement; building back better; capturing human capital; effective governance, finance and markets; and supporting reforms and strengthening service delivery.
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Doing Business 2018 is the 15th in a series of annual reports investigating the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it.
... See More + This economy profile presents the Doing Business indicators for Syrian Arab Republic. Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulation and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 190 economies; for 2018 Syrian Arab Republic ranks 174. Doing Business measures aspects of regulation affecting 11 areas of the life of a business. Ten of these areas are included in this year’s ranking on the ease of doing business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. Doing Business also measures features of labor market regulation, which is not included in this year’s ranking. Data in Doing Business 2018 are current as of June 1, 2017. The indicators are used to analyze economic outcomes and identify what reforms of business regulation have worked, where and why.
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The combination of conflict, food insecurity, and displacement generates competing claims for financial resources that stretch the donors' ability to provide funding and the humanitarian organizations' capacity to provide social assistance.
... See More + The paper uses Receiver Operating Characteristic curves and related indexes to determine the optimal targeting strategy of a food voucher program for refugees. The estimations focus on the 2014 food vouchers administered by the World Food Programme to Syrian refugees in Jordan. The analysis uses data collected by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Based on a poverty model, Receiver Operating Characteristic curves are used to optimize coverage and leakage rates under budget constraints. The paper shows how policy makers can use these instruments to fine-tune targeting using coverage rates, budgets, or poverty lines as guiding principles to increase the overall efficiency of a program. As humanitarian organizations operate under increasing budget constraints and increasing demands for efficiency, the proposed approach addresses both concerns.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8191 SEP 12, 2017
The objective of the Damage Assessment (DA) of selected cities is to provide information onthe effects of the current crisis on population, physical infrastructure, and quality of servicedelivery in those cities.
... See More + It is a broad brush and remote-based exercise, drawing mostly onexisting secondary sources of information including satellite imagery, social media analytics,existing public information, and – whenever available – partner organizations’ data. Theassessment data is aggregated in a digital geospatial platform that allows for the collection,monitoring and regular updates of the damage information. This assessment has been conducted at three distinct times during the evolution of the crisis. Phase 1 was conducted in December 2014, Phase 2 in March 2016, and Phase 3 in February 2017. The first phase of the assessment established pre-crisis baseline data on assets and facilities, and estimated damages across six cities and six sectors as of December 2014. The second phase was an update of the December 2014 assessment, and provided a more recent snapshot of damages and quality of services as of March 2016 by using the baseline established in the first phase. The third phase updates the damage information of the second phase for three cities: Aleppo, Idlib and Hama.
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The Arab Spring protest marked the beginning of a new era in the Syrian Arab Republic in 2011. Minor public protests began almost immediately after the initial protests in Cairo in January 2011.
... See More + The first large demonstrations began two months later in March, and the following months saw a process of escalation as demonstrations spread and increased in size within the country. By the summer of 2011, the armed conflict was already unfolding. Now in its sixth year, the Syrian conflict remains active and is bringing much pain and tragedy on a daily basis. This study provides an assessment of the conflict's impact on economic and social outcomes in Syria as of early 2017. Conflicts destroy tangible and intangible assets and leave deep marks on a country's social fabric, culture, and collective memories. The Syrian conflict has quickly become a particularly harsh example of this.
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The Arab Spring protest marked the beginning of a new era in the Syrian Arab Republic in 2011. Minor public protests began almost immediately after the initial protests in Cairo in January 2011.
... See More + The first large demonstrations began two months later in March, and the following months saw a process of escalation as demonstrations spread and increased in size within the country. By the summer of 2011, the armed conflict was already unfolding. Now in its sixth year, the Syrian conflict remains active and is bringing much pain and tragedy on a daily basis. This study provides an assessment of the conflict's impact on economic and social outcomes in Syria as of early 2017. Conflicts destroy tangible and intangible assets and leave deep marks on a country's social fabric, culture, and collective memories. The Syrian conflict has quickly become a particularly harsh example of this.
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The Arab Spring protest marked the beginning of a new era in the Syrian Arab Republic in 2011. Minor public protests began almost immediately after the initial protests in Cairo in January 2011.
... See More + The first large demonstrations began two months later in March, and the following months saw a process of escalation as demonstrations spread and increased in size within the country. By the summer of 2011, the armed conflict was already unfolding. Now in its sixth year, the Syrian conflict remains active and is bringing much pain and tragedy on a daily basis. This study provides an assessment of the conflict's impact on economic and social outcomes in Syria as of early 2017. Conflicts destroy tangible and intangible assets and leave deep marks on a country's social fabric, culture, and collective memories. The Syrian conflict has quickly become a particularly harsh example of this.
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The Arab Spring protest marked the beginning of a new era in the Syrian Arab Republic in 2011. Minor public protests began almost immediately after the initial protests in Cairo in January 2011.
... See More + The first large demonstrations began two months later in March, and the following months saw a process of escalation as demonstrations spread and increased in size within the country. By the summer of 2011, the armed conflict was already unfolding. Now in its sixth year, the Syrian conflict remains active and is bringing much pain and tragedy on a daily basis. This study provides an assessment of the conflict's impact on economic and social outcomes in Syria as of early 2017. Conflicts destroy tangible and intangible assets and leave deep marks on a country's social fabric, culture, and collective memories. The Syrian conflict has quickly become a particularly harsh example of this.
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Forced displacement -- defined as the displacement of refugees and internally displaced persons due to violence -- has reached an unprecedented scale and global attention during the past few years, particularly in the aftermath of the Syrian refugee crisis in 2011 and the European Union's migration crisis in 2015.
... See More + As this plight gained momentum, economics found itself unprepared to answer the basic questions surrounding refugees and internally displaced persons. Few economists or institutions were working on forced displacement. Economic theory or empirics had little to offer in articles published in journals. Data were scarce, unreliable, or inaccessible. Can economics rise to the challenge? Is the economics of forced displacement different from neoclassical economics? Can off-the-shelves models be used to study forced displaced populations? What is missing to do the economics of forced displacement? What are the data constraints that limit economists in this work? This paper provides a first nontechnical introduction to these topics. The paper argues that the modeling of utility, choice, risk, and information in a short-term setting is the key to address the problem. Neoclassical economics lacks some of the theoretical ingredients that are needed, but recent developments in game theory, neuroeconomics, and behavioral economics have opened new horizons that make the task of modeling forced displacement within reach. Empirics is clearly limited by the scarcity of quality data, but an example shows how welfare economists can start working with existing data. Economists have no excuse to maintain the status quo and should get on with the work on forced displacement.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8038 APR 25, 2017
This economy profile presents the Doing Business indicators for Syrian Arab Republic. To allow useful comparison, it also provides data for other selected economies (comparator economies) for each indicator.
... See More + Doing Business 2017 is the 14th in a series of annual reports investigating the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. Economies are ranked on their ease of doing business; for 2016 Syrian Arab Republic ranks 172. Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 11 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and labor market regulation. Doing Business 2017 presents the data for the labor market regulation indicators in an annex. The report does not present rankings of economies on labor market regulation indicators or include the topic in the aggregate distance to frontier score or ranking on the ease of doing business. The indicators are used to analyze economic outcomes and identify what reforms have worked, where and why. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2016 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January–December 2015).
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The estimated duration of forced displacement situations is a key parameter in defining an adequate response to the crisis. Where the crisis is short, humanitarian aid may suffice; when it lasts, development interventions are required.
... See More + Using data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, this paper proposes propose a new approach to estimate the mean and median durations of exile, and their variations over time. The analysis finds that people who were refugees at the end of 2015 have been in exile for an average duration of 10.3 years and a median duration of 4 years; the average duration of exile has varied between 10 and 15 years since the late 1990s. The number of people who are in protracted situations (over five years) has been steady at 5 million to 7 million since the mid-1990s, and currently stands at 6.6 million. For those people, the average duration of exile is as long as 21.2 years. All these estimates are very sensitive to two situations: Afghanistan, where the crisis has been ongoing since 1979 and increases all averages, and the Syrian Arab Republic, which is relatively recent and lowers the averages.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7810 SEP 01, 2016
The Syrian crisis has devastated the country and set it back decades in terms of development. The Syria Information and Research Initiative (SIRI) was designed to respond to the main challenges represented by the Syrian conflict and offer an innovative solution to the problem of coordinating humanitarian and developmental efforts across World Bank Group (WBG) and other development partners.
... See More + As part of this initiative, a damage assessment was conducted in the Syrian city of Dar’a. Following this assessment the WorldBank’s Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regional team requested GFDRR support to conduct a damage and needs assessment for six Syrian cities. The objective of this assessment was to estimate the effects of the crisis on the population, infrastructure, and service delivery,and understand the preliminary recovery needs.
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This issue includes the following headings: Measuring Financial Inclusion around the World; A New Global Count of the Extreme Poor; Economic Effects of the Syrian War and the Spread of ISIS; Identifying and Spurring High-Growth Entrepreneurship; How Syrian Refugees Have Affected the Turkish Labor Market; Uncompetitive Devaluations?
... See More + ; Top 35 Policy Research Working Papers of 2015
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In recent years, Turkey has been host to more than two million Syrians seeking refuge. Initially concentrated in the southeastern regions, these refugees now reside throughout the country.
... See More + There are many questions from policy makers regarding the impact of the population of Syrians Under Temporary Protection on the host community. This paper examines the impact of migrants on regional host communities from a poverty perspective. The paper does not find any negative impacts on poverty for the host community from the increasing population of Syrians Under Temporary Protection as of 2013, despite the high poverty rates experienced among the recent migrants.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7542 JAN 28, 2016
Azevedo,Joao Pedro Wagner De; Yang,Judy; Inan,Osman KaanDisclosed
As June 20th marked World Refugee Day, the global count of registered refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) has reached the highest level since Second World War, with a combined figure of over 50 million people (13 million refugees and 38 million IDPs).
... See More + In addition to their humanitarian dimensions, refugee and IDP crises reflect development failures that are not easily remedied. The average time that a person spends as a refugee is 17 years. Unless given the opportunity to lead a ‘normal’ life, generations of refugees in prolonged exile experience frustration and impoverishment. This marginalization generates loss of skills, lowers self-confidence, and hampers the capacity of a population to rebound from shocks. This report builds on the work carried out in Jordan and Lebanon in 2013 and 2014 and expands it to produce a comprehensive welfare, poverty, and vulnerability assessment of refugees in the context of the Syrian crisis. This is the first collaboration of its kind for both the World Bank and the UNHCR and it was made possible by an unprecedented data-sharing agreement between the two institutions as well as by the close collaboration between the two institutions at headquarters and field level. This assessment can inform policy design to improve the well-being of refugees and mitigate the crisis’ impact on hosting communities. It can also inform the development of new strategies to assist refugees, bridging the historical divide between humanitarian and developmental assistance.
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This economy profile for Doing Business 2016 presents the 11 Doing Business indicators for Syrian Arab Republic. To allow for useful comparison, the profile also provides data for other selected economies (comparator economies) for each indicator.
... See More + Doing Business 2016 is the 13th edition in a series of annual reports measuring the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. Economies are ranked on their ease of doing business; for 2015 Syrian Arab Republic ranks 175. A high ease of doing business ranking means the regulatory environment is more conducive to the starting and operation of a local firm. Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 189 economies from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe and over time. Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 11 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and labor market regulation. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2015 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period from January to December 2014).
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