The South African government offers various support mechanisms to support Eskom, the state-owned electric utility, and the independent power producers in providing low-cost electricity, including credit and payment guarantees. Guarantees constitute contingent liabilities to the government and...

The consumer financial services sector in South Africa is among the most sophisticated in the world, yet nearly 40 percent of the population, especially blacks, use no formal financial services. The now ubiquitous mobile phones are dramatically changing the landscape of digital financial...

The consumer financial services sector in South Africa is among the most sophisticated in the world, yet nearly 40 percent of the population, especially blacks, use no formal financial services. The now ubiquitous mobile phones are dramatically changing the landscape of digital financial...

The risk of the El Nino-induced food insecurity in southern Africa in 2016; the recent risk of famine in northern Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, and South Sudan; and the recent outbreak of the fall armyworm (FAW) in East and Southern Africa (ESA) all demonstrate that responses are still largely reactive...

Despite the commitments of the development community toward broader access to finance, financial inclusion rates worldwide are rather unsatisfactory. To date, around two billion adults do not have access to basic financial services such as savings and checking accounts. Attempting to bridge such...

State-owned financial institutions fall into three main groups: commercial banks, hybrid banks, and development institutions. The larger state-owned commercial banks/ groups include Sberbank, the VTB Bank group, and Gazprombank. Like private commercial banks, these institutions do not have a...

Over the past decade, financial consumer protection has become an increasingly mainstream priority for policymakers. A strong consumer protection regime is key to ensuring that expanded access to financial services benefits consumers, enabling them to make well-informed decisions on how best to...

The report highlight the opportunities, problems, and challenges related to the financial inclusion of women through MFS adoption in Bangladesh. The data in this report was collected through a nationally representative survey of 2,000 female mobile financial services (MFS) users and 2,000 female...

Cote d'Ivoire has the world's largest cocoa sector, producing over 1.4 million metric tons of raw cocoa per year, accounting for thirty two percent of world production. Harvest payments often arrive late due to the complex logistics of cash-based payments and, it is not uncommon for the amount...

Hydrological and meteorological (hydromet) data collection and analysis in Afghanistan started in the late 1940s and mid-1950s, respectively. The hydrometric network expanded rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s, reaching a peak of 150 in 1980, and the meteorological network had a similar trajectory....