Umbrella Facility for Poverty and Equity : FY22 Annual Report (English)

Research suggests that the effects of the current crises will almost certainly be felt in most countries through 2030. Under these conditions, the goal of bringing the global absolute poverty rate to less than 3 percent by 2030, which was already at risk before the pandemic, is now beyond reach unless countries take swift, significant, and substantial policy action. To confront these challenges, the Umbrella Facility for Poverty and Equity was established in July 2021 as the first global trust fund to support the cross-cutting poverty and equity agenda. The objective is to inform and support the design, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation of policies and programs to reduce poverty and promote equity. The UFPE brings value to the World Bank, partners, and clients through a strategic focus on creating policy-relevant global public goods, strengthening strategic partnerships on the poverty and equity agenda, leading, and promoting innovation, and developing and scaling new tools and methods to strengthen the poverty and equity impacts of country and regional engagements. At the country level, the UPFE filled key data gaps, strengthened country systems for data use in policymaking, produced timely and relevant analytics on the drivers and constraints to poverty reduction, equity and inclusive growth, and informed policy and program design for four World Bank lending operations and two stand-alone policy dialogues. At the global level, the COVID-19 Household Monitoring Dashboard and global harmonized database informed the World Bank's COVID-19 operational response, two World Bank Flagship Reports and more than 100 knowledge products on the COVID-19 crisis and recovery. In the area of fiscal policy, the UFPE made a critical contribution to capacity building and awareness of fiscal incidence analysis, country-level tools and training, and resources to guide dialogue on fiscal policies that support inclusive growth. This report focuses on UFPE activities for FY22.