The World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
The World Bank Open Knowledge Repository (OKR) is The World Bank’s official open access repository for its research outputs and knowledge products.
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Total publications: 38,924
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Publication Regulatory Indicators for Sustainable Energy (RISE)(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-09) Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP)Since the publication of the previous (2022) RISE edition, progress toward universal electrification reversed course for the first time in 20 years. About 685 million people, most of them living in Sub-Saharan Africa, lacked access in 2022. While RISE electricity access scores climbed in many countries between 2021 and 2023, progress in fragile states stalled due to structural barriers and instability. Most countries with substantial unelectrified populations have high RISE scores, but this has not translated into significant electrification gains, because access requires more than sound policies. Expanding access requires capacity for implementation, together with efforts to address barriers to affordability and financing, and challenging environments for doing business. With just five years left to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), moving beyond strong RISE scores to expand actual electricity access is more urgent than ever. Clean cooking policy and regulatory frameworks saw modest progress between 2021 and 2023. Many countries showed minimal changes, while any improvements were slow and uneven. More than half of surveyed countries remain in the red zone, underscoring the need for stronger frameworks, targeted financial interventions, and greater international collaboration to scale clean cooking solutions.Publication Thailand Monthly Economic Monitor, May 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-09) World BankThailand’s economic performance remained mixed in March with stable private consumption and robust exports offset by weak private investment amid rising uncertainty. While fiscal stimulus supported consumption, softening consumer confidence and weak manufacturing production pose risks to the outlook. The tourism recovery slowed, with fewer tourist arrivals particularly from China. Inflation turned negative for the first time in over a year, prompting the Bank of Thailand to lower its policy rate amid a dimmer economic outlook. Financial markets experienced volatility due to global trade uncertainty. The Thai baht depreciated against the US dollar in early April, before notably appreciating in the following weeks.Publication A Global Assessment of Building Regulation for Resilience Building Codes: Current Status and Evolving Needs to Promote Resilient, Green and Inclusive Buildings(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-09) World Bank; Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR)The quality of the built environment is fundamental to the functioning, health, and sustainability of societies and economies. Rapid population growth and urbanization are expected to increase the proportion of people living in cities to nearly 70 percent by 2050. This means that a significant portion of global building stock that will exist in 2050 is yet to be constructed (UN, 2019). Much of this growth will occur in African, Asian, and Latin American cities, presenting both opportunities and challenges. Enhanced building codes and compliance mechanisms are essential tools to address the impacts of natural disasters, urbanization, and the need for accessible buildings. Modern building codes, finely tuned to local contexts, can create vibrant and resilient urban landscapes that stand the test of time. Additionally, the increasing frequency and severity of tropical cyclones, floods, extreme heat and other climate-related events, demand comprehensive design provisions in building codes to mitigate damage and ensure habitability. Improved building codes can reduce risks for new construction and play a crucial role in ensuring the safety and adaptive reuse of existing structures. This approach enhances the resilience of the built environment and ensures that cities are safe, healthy, and sustainable for future generations. This report assesses the technical content of building codes for selected countries and related code implementation mechanisms. It considers three priority areas: structural safety and resilience, green buildings, and universal accessibility. It aims to support a wide range of actors involved in building regulatory policy and code development, including policy makers, government agencies at national and local level, technical professionals, academics, and development partners.Publication Integrated Urban Land Management for Climate Sensitive Cities: Contraints, Opportunities, and Lessons from Ethiopia(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-09) World BankThis report synthesizes lessons learned from the studies and interventions commissioned by the World Bank in Ethiopia from 2022-2024 to support integrated urban land management – highlighting the potential contribution integrated urban land approaches can play in achieving the long-term climate outcomes for fast urbanizing countries facing similar challenges around the globe. The report is structured as follows: Section II sets the scene by describing the climate and urbanization challenges in Ethiopia, detailing the current urbanization trend and its climate and development implications. Section III then turns to the key challenges, gaps and deficiencies in the institutional and policy framework, as well as in implementation, in addressing the climate-urban land nexus, effectively the ‘barriers to action’ that perpetuate and exacerbate climate risks and disincentivize sustainable urban development. Section IV then proceeds to highlight potential solutions to support integrated urban land management in Ethiopia. The first subsection discusses the major policy and institutional reforms underway in Ethiopia to contribute to integrated urban land management, and the co-benefits of such action to achieve climate objectives; the second subsection discusses some tools tested during the World Bank study, and their contributions to climate objectives; while the final subsection provides an outline of potential interventions. Finally, Section V concludes with future directions, highlighting the investments required to continue Ethiopia’s transition towards equitable, livable and climate-resilient urban environments.Publication Making Refugee Self-Reliance Work: From Aid to Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-09) Hoogeveen, Johannes; Silva, Karishma; Hopper, Robert Benjamin"Making Refugee Self-Reliance Work: From Aid to Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa" advocates for the enhancement of refugee self-reliance as a strategic, humane, development approach to refugee assistance. Facilitating refugees’ capacity to support themselves through gainful work not only upholds their dignity and autonomy but also offers socioeconomic benefits to host communities by unlocking opportunities for shared investment and development. The report demonstrates how refugee self-reliance in Sub-Saharan Africa remains elusive and identifies various reasons why this is the case: encampment limits the scope for self-reliance; restrictions on refugees’ right to work hinder self-sufficiency; small allocations of infertile land make even subsistence farming impossible; aid delivery in specific areas contributes to settlement patterns in which skills and economic opportunities do not match; economic development in remote, resource-scarce regions is unsustainable; and dependence on aid shifts funding priorities from long-term development to unproductive care and maintenance models. To overcome these challenges, the report outlines five areas for policy action: 1. Ending restrictive encampment policies 2. Boosting refugees’ economic participation 3. Supporting host communities 4. Reshaping financing and investment models 5. Investing in preparedness. Success requires committed leadership from host governments, as well as coordinated engagement and sustained support from humanitarian organizations and development partners.