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Trafficking is an emerging concern in West Africa. In 2011, 17 percent of all cocaine consumed in Europe-21 tons-passed through the region, for a retail value of USD 1.7 billion. This paper discusses the evolution of trafficking in the region and provides estimates of the size and value of trafficking flows to demonstrate the significance of this illegal activity. Although this topic is gaining increasing attention, less attention has been has been paid to how trafficking is perpetuating fragility. This paper contributes to this area of research by identifying five channels through which trafficking is intensifying fragility in the region. The relative importance of each channel is discussed, with specific countries as case-study examples. Possible programmatic responses are then suggested with examples of policy approaches successfully adopted elsewhere in the world.

Conflict and Development --- Crime and Society --- Criminal Networks --- Fragility --- Governance --- Governance Indicators --- Human Rights --- Illicit Goods --- Institutional Weaknesses --- Law and Development --- Post Conflict Reconstruction --- Public Sector Development --- Social Development --- Trafficking

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This paper presents a comprehensive review of the operations that the World Bank has supported to create jobs and promote employment in fragile and conflict-affected situations. A novel approach to identifying projects is presented that enables searching for projects based on stated development objectives, regardless of the sector of the project. Of a sample of 2,166 projects funded by the International Development Association, this resulted in the identification of 98 projects that have specific job creation and employment generation development objectives. Among these projects, 51 percent of countries appearing on the list between 2004 and 2012 have implemented projects. Detailed textual analysis is carried out on the project descriptions and indicators to evaluate how well projects are aligned to the context. The results suggest there is a lack of measurement on outcomes that are particularly relevant for fragile and conflict-affected situations, such as the development of social cohesion, reintegration of those involved or affected by violence, impacts jobs have on the willingness to engage in violence or conflict, perceptions of government accountability, and equitable access to these economic opportunities. Quantitative analysis of the portfolio indicates that there are also systematic differences in the size and resources associated with job creation projects in countries with fragile and conflict-affected situations relative to similar projects in other International Development Association-borrowing countries. Given the mixed empirical evidence on the relationship between jobs and conflict, this report calls for more methodological measurement of the impacts of these programs on stabilization outcomes in the future.

Banks and Banking Reform --- Communities & Human Settlements --- Development Economics & Aid Effectiveness --- Employment Generation Development --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Fragile And Conflict-Affected Situations --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Housing & Human Habitats --- Job Creation --- Labor Markets --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Population Policies --- Poverty Reduction --- Social Cohesion --- Social Protections and Labor

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Interventions in highly insecure and fragile contexts are always confronted with the latent risk of not being able to implement the program as intended. Despite its high policy relevance, little is known about the impacts of program disruption or cancellation on beneficiaries. This study uses the unplanned cancellation of the South Sudan Youth Business Start-Up Grant Program to assess the socioeconomic, behavioral, and psychological consequences of a program that fails to be implemented as intended. Originally planned as a randomized trial, the Youth Startup Business Grant Program consisted of an unconditional cash grant combined with a business and life skills training targeting the youth in South Sudan. Due to the intensification of violence in the country, the disbursement of the grant was terminated in late 2016 before most of the intended beneficiaries had accessed the grant. The study uses survey data from face-to-face interviews and experimental data from lotteries, trust games, and a list experiment to assess the consequences of the cancellation in a comprehensive form. The empirical analysis employs instrumental variable regressions to control for individual characteristics that might have made it more likely to access the grant before disbursement was frozen. The results show that participants who received the originally planned treatment displayed significant improvements in their consumption, savings, and psychological well-being. However, participants who vainly expected to receive the cash grant showed reduced levels of consumption and women among this subgroup also experienced strong reductions in their trust level. In addition, the study finds some evidence that these women were less likely to migrate.

Cash Transfers --- Impact Evaluation --- Poverty Reduction --- Risk Aversion --- Services and Transfers to Poor --- Social Protections and Assistance --- Social Protections and Labor --- Trust --- Violent Conflict

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Safety nets in Africa are a popular policy instrument to address the widespread chronic poverty and encourage human capital investments in the education and health of children. Although there have been considerable analyses on the impacts of safety nets globally, particularly in Latin America, less been done on synthesizing results across Sub-Saharan African programs. This study fills this gap by systematically extracting and standardizing the results across impact evaluations for better understanding of what has been achieved using this policy instrument in the continent. The study finds that these programs on average have significant positive impacts on total and food consumption. The programs show promising results on asset accumulation, such as livestock ownership. However, there is substantial heterogeneity in the impacts achieved across programs for some development outcomes. Through exploring this heterogeneity in impacts, the study puts forward several suggestions for better targeting various development outcomes through modifications in the design and implementation of safety net programs.

Public welfare --- Povertt --- Prevention. --- Africa --- Social policy.