World Bank Group
World Bank Group
10/10/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 10/10/2024 00:27
South Asia Development Update October 2024
The World Bank's latest economic outlook explores growth prospects for South Asia and provides analysis on how the region can benefit from the green energy transition.
Output growth
Growth in South Asia is expected to exceed earlier expectations, in a broad-based upturn, and to be faster than in other emerging market and developing economies.
Sources: Macro Poverty Outlook (World Bank); World Bank.
Note: e = estimate; f = forecast; EMDEs = emerging market and developing economies; SAR = South Asia. Bars show the average for fiscal year. Aggregation method is weighted average.
Trade openness
South Asia's lack of openness limits the region's ability to leverage diverse geopolitical ties and benefit from the ongoing reshaping of global supply chains.
Sources: Aiyar and Ohnsorge (2024); World Development Indicators (database); World Bank.
Note: Red shades denote interquartile range for other EMDEs. Gray shades denote interquartile range for other small states. Trade is defined as the sum of goods and services exports and imports. Maldives uses 2022 data. Other EMDEs comprise 72 economies, and other small states comprise 13 economies (as defined in World Bank 2024l).
Household wealth in urban locations with different temperatures
Households with lower wealth experience more heat than better-off ones in South Asia and smaller firms are more exposed to heat in India, suggesting the potential benefit of targeted policies to support such groups.
Sources: ERA5; Relative Wealth Index; World Bank.
Note: RWI refers to the Relative Wealth Index (Chi et al. 2022). OLS regression coefficients showing the relationship between relative wealth and temperature in urban areas. Temperature bins (in degrees Celsius) on the X-axis. Relative wealth, measured by the RWI, on the Y-axis. The bars indicate the mean Relative Wealth Index estimate for a given temperature bin. Whiskers indicate 95 percent confidence intervals. State fixed effects included. Standard errors are clustered at the district level.
EMDE characteristics, by magnitude of remittance inflows
Countries with higher remittances have had higher imports and lower private investment.
Sources: Macro Poverty Outlook (World Bank), World Development Indicators (database), World Bank.
Note: RHS = Right-hand side. Bars represent country-decade real GDP-weighted average of EMDE country characteristics for the top ("High") and bottom ("Low") quartiles, based on average remittances-to-GDP ratios. Bars on the left-hand side shows imports of goods and services, in percent of GDP. Bars on the right-hand side shows private gross fixed capital formation, in percent of GDP. The whiskers are interquartile ranges. Sample includes up to 139 EMDEs, for decades in 1980-2023.
South Asia: Female employment shares
South Asian countries have female labor force participation rates that rank among the lowest in emerging market and developing economies.
Sources: International Labour Organization; World Development Indicators (database); World Bank.
Note: Red shaded region indicates interquartile range of EMDEs excluding South Asia (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India. Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka). EMDE averages are weighted by working-age population. Female (male) labor force participation rate is the share of the female (male) working-age population (15+) employed or looking for work, measured using ILO's ILOStat modeled data. Even if national data, based on national definitions, were used for South Asia, all countries except Bhutan and Maldives would remain in the bottom quartile among EMDEs. All regional averages are weighted by working-age population. Afghanistan has not published any official statistics since 2020.
Women's legal rights and social norms
South Asian countries have legal frameworks that are among the least women-friendly in the world. They also have some of the most conservative gender attitudes in the world, with 70 percent of the population expressing beliefs that are opposed to women working outside the home.
Sources: UN Comtrade; World Bank World Development Indicators (database); World Bank Women, Business, and the Law (database); World Bank Global Labor Database labor force survey microdata (database); World Bank-Facebook Survey on Gender Equality at Home (database); World Bank.
Note: Diamonds show the share of respondents who agreed with the "female homemaker" norm by region; data is from 2020. Bars show the average legal index score by region. All regional averages are weighted by the working-age population.