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131
Indicators
61
Years
217
Economies
The World Bank curates and maintains a wide range of ESG data for policy makers, financial market participants and academic researchers. Use this portal to explore how countries compare to each other, create country profiles and learn about the latest research on ESG.
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The Potential Implications of Economic and Social Rights for Sovereign Debt Investing
This paper discusses both the relevance of economic and social rights (ESRs) for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing in the sovereign debt asset class and how to start incorporating these rights into the investment process in a practical way. Many in the investment industry recognize the potential role that investors can play in influencing a country’s decisions on environmental and social issues, including human rights. Investors are also increasingly acknowledging the potential to influence a sovereign’s actions on social issues, such as ESRs, given the state’s direct role in providing a pathway to social advancement for its citizens. The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 explains the relevance of ESRs to the sovereign debt asset class. Section 3 introduces the income adjusted ESR dataset, and section 4 illustrates the insights that this dataset can provide for sovereign debt investors. Section 5 provides one practical example of how sovereign debt investors could use such a dataset in practice. Section 6 presents our conclusions.
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Video clip
Data for Better Investments: Sovereign ESG Data Portal
The continued rise in sustainable investing is only matched by the continued demand for more and better data. The World Bank's Sovereign ESG Data Portal includes 71 Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) indicators ranging from water stress, coastal protection, forest cover loss, heating and cooling degree days, precipitation anomalies, and new data on economic and social rights. This video showcases the data portal features and capabilities and how sovereign ESG data can be incorporated into investment decision and financial analysis.
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Blog post
Pitch perfect: Tuning financial instruments for harmony with sustainable development goals
Sustainability-Linked Funds (SLFs) represent an innovative approach to mobilizing private capital towards achieving sustainable development goals. By leveraging concessional finance from donors, SLFs can enhance credit for issuers and offer a financial incentive for achieving pre-established Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). SLFs can invest in conventional debt instruments, avoiding fragmentation of the debt portfolio and supporting emerging market issuers' access to private capital.
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Report
More for Less: Scaling Sustainability-linked Sovereign Debt
‘More for less’ demonstrates how a viable market for sustainability-linked debt can address the triple challenge of public debt distress, climate shocks and nature degradation. The paper charts out building blocks, use cases and seven pathways for scaling sustainability-linked sovereign debt. Barriers to achieving scale are also addressed, from data and technology shortfalls to restrictive accounting practices and coordination failures among key stakeholders. As a way forward, the paper calls for coordinated, ambitious interventions by key stakeholders across the sustainable sovereign financing universe.
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Data stories
Putting data to work
Finding your Peers: Comparing Countries on a Level Playing Field
The peer comparison method provides a robust, transparent and intuitive way to assess whether a country's sustainability performance was extraordinary or nothing special — compared to its peers. It allows investors to link financial incentives with key performance indicators and reward “better-than-expected” performance.
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New dataset
The Economic and Social Rights Performance Score
The Economic and Social Rights Performance Score is one of the new indicators in the Sovereign ESG data portal. This dataset was developed by the Human Rights Measurment Initiative and that quantifies the Quality of Life across five dimensions. Right to education, right to food, right to health, right to housing and right to work. These scores measure how well a country is using its resources to ensure people's economic and social rights are fulfilled. By nature of its constructuion, the score automatically adjusts for the ingrained income bias.
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New dataset
Wealth Accounting — The Long-term View
Wealth accounting—the balance sheet for a country—captures the value of all the assets that generate income and support human well-being. Gross domestic product (GDP) indicates how much monetary income or output a country creates in a year; wealth indicates the value of the underlying national assets
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Portal update
The New Sovereign ESG Data Portal
Since the launch of our Sovereign ESG Data Portal (BETA) back in 2019, the ESG investing space has grown by leaps and bounds. ESG has become such a central point of discussion that it's hard to find a financial newspaper doesn't feature an article about climate, sustainability or green finance on its front page.
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Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Income classification
Lower middle income
Geographic region
Sub-Saharan Africa
Climate profile
Arid
Indicator
Value
Year
Population, total
15.09 million
2021
Population growth (annual %)
1.53%
2021
Surface area (sq. km)
390,760
2018
GDP (current US$)
26.22 billion
2021
GDP growth (annual %)
5.85%
2021
GDP per capita (current US$)
1,737.17
2021
Inflation, consumer prices (annual %)
98.55%
2021
Human Capital Index (HCI) (scale 0-1)
0.47
2020
CO2 emissions (metric tons per capita)
0.80
2019
Latest publication
For a full list of our research, see our Publications page.
The Potential Implications of Economic and Social Rights for Sovereign Debt Investing
This paper discusses both the relevance of economic and social rights (ESRs) for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing in the sovereign debt asset class and how to start incorporating these rights into the investment process in a practical way. Many in the investment industry recognize the potential role that investors can play in influencing a country’s decisions on environmental and social issues, including human rights. Investors are also increasingly acknowledging the potential to influence a sovereign’s actions on social issues, such as ESRs, given the state’s direct role in providing a pathway to social advancement for its citizens. The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 explains the relevance of ESRs to the sovereign debt asset class. Section 3 introduces the income adjusted ESR dataset, and section 4 illustrates the insights that this dataset can provide for sovereign debt investors. Section 5 provides one practical example of how sovereign debt investors could use such a dataset in practice. Section 6 presents our conclusions.
May 24, 2023
Data story
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