Forced displacement is among the most pressing challenges in the Eastern Mediterranean region. In the Middle East and Turkey, the Syrian refugee crisis involves humanitarian challenges coupled with significant spillover effects in neighboring regions. After six years of Syrian conflict and displacement, Syrian refugees are seen as medium-term stayers and urban communities are especially affected by their presence, as refugees mostly reside in towns and cities.

In the Kyrgyz Republic, the national rural water and sanitation program, launched in 2017, seeks to improve service delivery by providing adequate water and sanitation services to many underserved rural households. The primary objective of the knowledge exchange was to build the capacities of the key stakeholders to develop, pilot and support the gradual roll-out of a sector- wide rural water and sanitation monitoring system.

Climate Action Peer Exchange (CAPE) is a forum for peer learning, knowledge sharing, and mutual advisory support. It brings together ministers and senior technical specialists from finance ministries across the world, as well as World Bank staff and other international experts, to discuss the fiscal challenges involved in implementing the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) established under the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The governments of Cameroon and Ghana wanted to use oil and gas revenues more effectively to promote economic growth and reduce poverty. They also wanted to improve transparency and accountability in the sector. However, Cameroon and Ghana, as well as many other African countries, have had difficulty managing and sustaining the windfall wealth and savings from their natural resources.

The governments of Africa want to improve the investment climate and reduce poverty in their countries through modernization and industrialization. Learning from the Asian experience, many governments are developing Special Economic Zones (SEZs) to achieve these goals. Chinese knowledge, experience, and investment have been invaluable in developing these zones. However, most African countries still lack the infrastructure to make such SEZs effective and competitive on international markets.

Yemen faces natural water shortages because of its geographic location. The problem is exacerbated by weak institutional arrangements in the water and sanitation sector. Yemen is striving to address those challenges and achieve sustainable and efficient use of its water resources, which in turn can help the country’s economic development. Upon Yemen’s request, the World Bank connected Yemen with Uganda, which has extensive experience in private sector participation and improving the performance of public institutions in the water supply and sanitation sector.

After learning about the success of East Asian countries in developing their economies and attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) through Special Economic Zones (SEZ), many African governments wanted to use the same strategy to improve their economic performance. However, most African countries lack the capacity to design and implement SEZs, including lack of policy framework clarity, difficulties in physical planning and land administration, and insufficient regulatory and administrative knowledge. They have also not being very successful in involving the private sector in SEZs.

While Tanzania and Uganda had taken measures to increase milk production, including creation of National Dairy Development Boards (NDDBs), problems in the milk supply chains continued to hamper milk output. Tanzanian and Ugandan Ministry of Agriculture and other dairy sector officials wanted to learn from India, where a “white revolution” had expanded milk production dramatically over two decades.

The Cancer Care and Control South-South Knowledge Exchange brought together stakeholders from five countries in Africa — Botswana, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia — to share experiences, lessons, and good practices.  All five countries have initiated various programs to tackle the growing burden of cancer and have much to learn from each other. The knowledge exchange aimed to raise awareness, increase knowledge of effective strategies, and bolster regional collaboration.

Challenge