"Three compounding crises—conflict, COVID, and climate change—are giving rise to another: hunger.

Food prices rose 23 percent in 2021, ending several years of relative price stability, in part because extreme weather hurt harvests and energy costs climbed. Then came Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February, sending prices to an all-time high by disrupting commodity flows from two of the world’s largest exporters of wheat and other staples.

The invasion idled Ukraine’s once-busy Black Sea ports and left fields untended, while curbing Russia’s ability to export.

Nearly half a billion micro and small enterprises (MSEs) in emerging markets provide livelihood opportunities for millions of low-income populations around the world. Access to relevant, affordable, and responsible finance remains a persistent barrier, constraining stability and growth for these MSEs – especially the smallest firms and those in the informal sector. While the financial inclusion community has long focused on supporting MSEs, FSPs and funders tend to view the entire MSE sector as monolithic and do not consider the diversity of firms within that universe.

The region’s economy is expected to grow 4.3% this year, compared with ADB’s projection in April of a 5.2% expansion, while the growth forecast for next year is lowered to 4.9% from 5.3%. The downward revisions have been driven by increased monetary tightening by central banks, fallout from the protracted Russian invasion of Ukraine, and recurrent COVID-19 lockdowns in the People’s Republic of China.

The report covers the 49 regional members of ADB. It discusses trends in development progress and the challenges to achieving inclusive and sustainable economic growth across Asia and the Pacific.

"Money has transformed human society, enabling commerce and trade even between widely dispersed geographic locations. It allows the transfer of wealth and resources across space and over time. But for much of human history, it has also been the object of rapacity and depredation.

A new EBRD Working Paper (number 270)

The pandemic triggered a large, lasting shift to work from home (WFH). To study this shift, we survey full-time workers who finished primary school in 27 countries as of mid-2021 and early 2022. Our cross-country comparisons control for age, gender, education, and industry and treat the U.S. mean as the baseline. We find, first, that WFH averages 1.5 days per week in our sample, ranging widely across countries. Second, employers plan an average of 0.7WFH days per week after the pandemic, but workers want 1.7 days.

The world is paying a high price for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. The high humanitarian cost continues to grow and the global economic outlook has darkened further.

This Interim Report focuses on the effects of the war on the world economy and the energy crisis. With the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic still lingering, the war is dragging down growth more than anticipated.

"The pandemic has reignited debate over global assembly lines that stretch around the world

Have you ever visited a store only to find empty shelves rather than the product you wanted to buy? This might have been because of disrupted supply chains. Usually, these chains operate seamlessly in the background to bring you

"The OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2022-2031 provides a consensus assessment of the ten-year prospects for agricultural commodity and fish markets at national, regional, and global levels, and serves as a reference for forward-looking policy analysis and planning. Projections suggest that, following a business-as-usual path, SDG 2 on Zero Hunger would not be achieved by 2030 and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture would continue to increase.

To achieve the Zero Hunger target while reducing direct GHG by 6%, overall agricultural productivity would need to increase by 28% over the next decade.

"Digital innovations have changed the financial inclusion space for nearly 15 years. Today, a powerful new wave of digital innovation is gathering on the horizon. One of the most profound may be a shift toward a more modular financial sector and there is good reason to be hopeful that this “modularization” could help expand financial inclusion while also profoundly altering the financial industry in ways that make it both more competitive and more efficient. This working paper explores the market-level modularization of financial services by studying the following illustrative examples of the new models

Using a sample of more than 12,000 firms in 32 countries, this paper empirically examines the impact of digital technology on the resilience of enterprises during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

After controlling for firm characteristics, macroeconomic conditions, and pandemic prevalence, the paper finds that digital technology had a significant and positive effect on firm performance during the pandemic. The evidence suggests that key channels of resilience are electronic commerce and remote work.

"The OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2022-2031 provides a consensus assessment of the ten-year prospects for agricultural commodity and fish markets at national, regional, and global levels, and serves as a reference for forward-looking policy analysis and planning. Projections suggest that, following a business-as-usual path, SDG 2 on Zero Hunger would not be achieved by 2030 and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture would continue to increase.

To achieve the Zero Hunger target while reducing direct GHG by 6%, overall agricultural productivity would need to increase by 28% over the next decade. Comprehensive action to boost agricultural investment and innovation, and to enable technology transfer are urgently required in order to put the agricultural sector on the necessary sustainable growth trajectory. Additional efforts to reduce food loss and waste, and to limit excess calorie and protein intakes would also be necessary.