The State of Economic Inclusion Report 2024 Moving to Scale in Uncertain Times

by Arévalo Sánchez, Inés; Heisey, Janet; Chaudhary, Sarang; Clay, Timothy; Strokova, Victoria; Vasudeva Dutta, Puja; Andrews, Colin

• ISBN13: 9781464820762
• ISBN10: 1464820767
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2024-04-01
• Publisher: World Bank Publications

Summary

The State of Economic Inclusion Report 2024 reveals a renewed surge in economic inclusion programs, responding to a rapidly changing world where governments must grapple with multiple interconnected and reinforcing crises. Vulnerable people in extreme poverty, especially women and youth, continue to be disproportionately impacted. The fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, high inflation, rising food insecurity and climate shocks, and conflict and volatility worldwide imperil hundreds of millions of people and threaten global efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Yet, while the relevance and potential of targeted support for people in extreme poverty remains great, sluggish economic growth and increasing debt are reducing countries’ fiscal space, limiting their ability to respond to these overlapping and lasting crises. Economic inclusion programs are increasing in number and also scaling up, but they remain small relative to the challenges we face, pushing government and nongovernmental organizations to explore scalable solutions in contexts of increased uncertainty and limited fiscal space. This report, following on the ground-breaking State of Economic Inclusion Report 2021, presents the new landscape of economic inclusion programming, explores three policy drivers pushing this agenda forward, including efforts to enhance climate resilience for the extreme poor and vulnerable, and examines how economic inclusion programs are moving to scale, even in uncertain times.