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The portability of social benefits is gaining importance given the increasing share of individuals working at least part of their life outside their home country. Bilateral social security agreements (BSSAs) are considered a crucial approach to establishing portability, but the functionality and effectiveness of these agreements have not yet been investigated; thus, important guidance for policy makers in migrant-sending and migrant-receiving countries is missing. To shed light on how BSSAs work in practice, this document is part of a series providing information and lessons from studies of portability in four diverse but comparable migration corridors: Austria-Turkey, Germany-Turkey, Belgium-Morocco, and France-Morocco. A summary policy paper draws broader conclusions and offers overarching policy recommendations. This report looks specifically into the working of the Belgium-Morocco corridor. Findings suggest that the BSSA is broadly working well, with no main substantive issues in the area of pension portability, except for the non-portability of the noncontributory top-up pension and issues with widows' pensions in case of divorce and repudiation, and in health care, the pending introduction of portable health care for retirees with single pensions from the other country. Process issues around information provision in Morocco and automation of information exchange are recognized.

This report is a synthesis of the technical assistance (TA) Scaling Up Rural Sanitation and Hygiene in Indonesia, carried out by the World Bank - Water and Sanitation Program (WSP). It was developed in consultation with the Directorate of Environmental Health, Directorate General of Public Health and Centre for Health Promotion of the Ministry of Health (MoH) and with key institutions in the focus provinces in West Java, Central Java, East Java, Bali, and West Nusa Tenggara. Reform in the rural sanitation sub-sector began in 2005 following the successful introduction of Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) in 6 districts. In 2007, the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) supported the Ministry of Health (MoH) to complement the use of CLTS with behavior change communication (BCC) and development of the sanitation market. This new approach was piloted at scale in 28 out of 29 districts in East Java Province in 2007-2011 under the Total Sanitation and Sanitation Marketing (TSSM) TA. Impressive results were achieved in just ten months, with 262 villages becoming Open Defecation Free (ODF). In response, MoH adopted the district-wide approach in 2008 and launched a new rural sanitation development strategy called Community-Based Total Sanitation (Sanitasi Total Berbasis Masyarakat) or STBM. The STBM strategy has three elements: demand creation through CLTS and BCC; supply chain improvement through developing the local sanitation market; and creation of and enabling environment through advocacy for local formal and informal regulations and resource mobilization. This project was was also complementary to a large-scale World Bank-funded program called PAMSIMAS, which has evolved from a project to a national platform through which the government intends to reach its newly adopted target of universal access to water supply and sanitation by 2019. Some of the key results and achievements are as follows : i) Well-functioning STBM Secretariat set up to co-ordinate STBM implementation nationwide, ii) Local government capacity in implementing STBM through demand creation, supply improvement and enabling environment increased, and iii) More effective STBM implementation at provincial and district Level. Some of the lesson learned: i) A capacity building framework to strengthen institutions at all levels is key for scaling up in a decentralized environment; ii) Well-crafted advocacy and communications are valuable for disseminating tested approaches and facilitating their adoption at scale; iii) Engagement of a range of institutions also strengthens campaign outreach; iv) An effective monitoring system is invaluable and it use should be formally integrated into the routine operations of government agencies; v) Local government can help to develop the rural sanitation market; and vi) The scaling up tested approaches can be enhanced greatly through their incorporation into established programmes.

Policy makers in developing countries, including India, are increasingly sensitive to the links between spatial transformation and economic development. However, the empirical knowledge available on those links is most often insufficient to guide policy decisions. There is no shortage of case studies on urban agglomerations of different sorts, or of benchmarking exercises for states and districts, but more systematic evidence is scarce. To help address this gap, this paper combines insights from poverty analysis and urban economics, and develops a methodology to assess spatial performance with a high degree of granularity. This methodology is applied to India, where individual household survey records are mapped to "places" (both rural and urban) below the district level. The analysis disentangles the contributions household characteristics and locations make to labor earnings, proxied by nominal household expenditure per capita. The paper shows that one-third of the variation in predicted labor earnings is explained by the locations where households reside and by the interaction between these locations and household characteristics such as education. In parallel, this methodology provides a workable metric to describe spatial productivity patterns across India. The paper shows that there is a gradation of spatial performance across places, rather than a clear rural-urban divide. It also finds that distance matters: places with higher productivity are close to each other, but some spread their prosperity over much broader areas than others. Using the spatial distribution of this metric across India, the paper further classifies places at below-district level into four tiers: top locations, their catchment areas, average locations, and bottom locations. The analysis finds that some small cities are among the top locations, while some large cities are not. It also finds that top locations and their catchment areas include many high-performing rural places, and are not necessarily more unequal than average locations. Preliminary analysis reveals that these top locations and their catchment areas display characteristics that are generally believed to drive agglomeration economies and contribute to faster productivity growth.

Despite rapid economic growth, inequality is increasing in Indonesia. After recovering from the Asian financial crisis in 1997/98, Indonesias real GDP per capita grew at an annual average of 5.4 percent between 2000 and 2014. This robust rate of growth helped to halve the poverty rate from 23.4 percent during the crisis down to 11.2 percent by 2015. However, between 2003 and 2010, consumption per person for the richest 10 percent of Indonesians grew at over 6 percent per year after adjusting for inflation, while for the poorest 40 percent it grew by less than 2 percent per year. This disparity in consumption between different income levels has, in turn, given rise to a sharp increase in the Gini coefficient over the past 15 years, increasing from 30 in 2000 to 41 in 2013.

Prior to the political and security crisis of 2012, Mali, a large landlocked country in West Africa already ranked among the poorest countries in the world. In early 2012, the vast northern regions fell under the control of extremist forces, while a coup d'état in Bamako threw the country into political instability and turmoil. A strong international military response in early 2013 prevented further destabilization, though part of the North remains outside government control and insecurity has spread to Bamako and the South. The signing of a peace agreement in June 2015 has revived hopes for peace and stability. The WBG has continued to support Mali throughout the crisis. An Interim Strategy Note (ISN, FY14-15) addressed the root causes of Mali's underestimated fragility, namely weak governance, extremely high demographic growth and the consequences of climate change. This CPF will continue to address the drivers of Mali's fragility, with a strong focus on governance, while building on the progress and experience of the ISN. Drawing from the recent Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD), which stresses the criticality of improving rural livelihoods to sustainable poverty reduction, the Framework intends to contribute to improving rural incomes by increasing productivity and resilience in the four livelihood zones of the country. Accordingly, the CPF proposes orientations for the WBG engagement around three areas of focus: (i) improve governance, by strengthening public resource management at central and local levels and fostering citizen engagement; (ii) create economic opportunities, by enhancing the productive capacity of smallholders, increasing agricultural value added and diversification to catalyze transformation, and improving basic services by developing infrastructure and connectivity; and (iii) build resilience, by developing human capital, strengthening safety nets, improving risk management mechanisms for the poor and vulnerable and mitigating climate shock. A comprehensive program has been proposed for the first two years of the CPF that includes knowledge activities and development policy operations to address the binding constraints to poverty reduction, as well as citizen engagement, investment financing, partner-funded and joint IFC/IDA investments and guarantees. Key areas include the reinsertion of ex-combatants, competitiveness and agricultural productivity, statistical capacity, climate change, water and sanitation, safety nets programs, energy, irrigation and transport.

Madagascar's education system exhibits severe weaknesses that leave a large number of children without the basic skills required to function in the labor market. Since the start of the political and economic crisis in 2009, progress made on key health indicators has stagnated or is being reversed with Madagascar falling off track to achieve the MDGs. The prevalence of chronic malnutrition among children under five is one of the highest in the world. Maternal mortality ratios also have remained relatively high and stagnant over the last ten years and the country.

Verification in results-based financing (RBF) mechanisms is one of the key differentiators between it and related health financing structures such as social health insurance. Verifying that providers have achieved reported performance in RBF mechanisms is considered a crucial part of program implementation and key to maintaining trust through transparency, as well as the viability of the mechanism. Verification is however a process which has thus far been little studied. Information on the methodologies used in different settings (including frequency and sampling methodology), the effectiveness of the verification process, the direct and tangential effects, and the cost is scarce. Plan Nacer employs one of the largest RBF mechanisms in the world and is therefore an excellent case study for the role, methodology and effects of the verification process. This study will give the background to Plan Nacer, detail the major characteristics of the verification process and draw lessons on the process which can inform the design of verification in RBF mechanisms in other countries.

This is a policy note following from the book Health Financing in the Republic of Gabon. The book is a comprehensive assessment of health financing in the Republic of Gabon. The book reviews the health financing situation in light of the government's introduction of a national health insurance program and its commitment to achieving universal health insurance coverage in the medium term. The book provides a diagnostic of the situation in light of recent data from the demographic and health survey, updated national health accounts, and a review of public expenditures in the health sector. Additionally, it performs a benchmarking exercise to assess how Gabon performs in its health spending and health outcomes compared to countries of similar income and compared to countries in the region. A forthcoming household survey is expected to provide better information on financial protection against illness costs. This book attempts to diagnose Gabon's current situation in regards to achieving universal health coverage. Gabon should be commended for its commitment to improving health indicators of the poor and the underserved. The book shows that while the government has set an ambitious goal for itself, several challenges exist in meeting these objectives in the medium term as follows (i) resource mobilization efforts are a priority to sustain its programs financially; (ii) to prioritize resources for areas considered, value for money, to improve equity in access and delivery of health services, with particular focus on primary care, public health program, and quality of care; (iii) to increase the population's coverage under the national health insurance program, with focus on the poor and the informal sector workers; and (v) to consider areas that would improve efficiency and reduce costs. The book is timely, given that the government has recently produced, the Plan Social. It provides a diagnostic of the health sector and provides key recommendations and options for the government to consider in the short to medium term.

The problems of employment have become a central global concern in recent times. This makes nearly all the governments and development partners to be fully engaged in finding a lasting solution to the problems. In the past, development planning efforts were concentrated on the development of a modern industrial sector. It was believed that this would serve the domestic market and facilitate the absorption of redundant or surplus workers in the urban economy. It was also the belief that rapid economic growth and development would be achieved. The study is structured into five chapters. While chapter one looks at the background to the study, the terms of reference and the structure of the report, chapter two focuses on copious relevant literature on skills development bringing out the conceptual definitions, theoretical and empirical issues in the informal sector of the economy. Chapter three presents the methodology of how training providers as well as the beneficiaries of the programs were surveyed in the study. Chapter four gives the inventory of the programs for the informal sector skills development and a detailed analysis of five most important non- state-run programs in the country. Chapter five forms the conclusions and recommendations of the work.

This paper reviews the performance of the parastatal sector, with a specific focus on four main parastatals: the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA); the Zimbabwe Water Authority (ZINWA); the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (NOCZIM); and the Grain Marketing Board (GMB). These parastatals are selected on the basis of their quasi-fiscal dependency and strategic importance to the economy. The specific objective of this paper is to identify the important factors behind their eroding profitability as observed in their financial statements, and make some preliminary thoughts about the way forward. This paper was prepared based on the data provided to a World Bank team, supplemented by information collected through interviews with the representatives of parastatals, the RBZ, the Ministry of Finance, line ministries and the private sector in November 2007. The statistics presented in this paper should be interpreted with extreme caution. As prices are heavily distorted in the presence of extremely high inflation and pervasive price controls, analysis of quasi-fiscal data and parastatals' financial performance has posed a significant challenge to the team. While every possible effort was made to address such distortions, analysis largely based on annual data cannot possibly capture a fully accurate picture, and should therefore be taken with caution.

This study on Latin America is based on a sample of eight countries, comprising the big four economies of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico; Colombia and Ecuador, two of the poorest South American tropical countries; the Dominican Republic, the largest Caribbean economy; and Nicaragua, the poorest country in Central America. Together, in 2000-04, these countries accounted for 78 percent of the region's population, 80 percent of the region's agricultural value added, and 84 percent of the total gross domestic product (GDP) of Latin America. The key characteristics of these economies-which account for only 4.5 percent of worldwide Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but 7.7 percent of agricultural value added and more than 10 percent of agricultural and food exports. The table reveals the considerable diversity within the region in terms of stages of development, relative resource endowments, comparative advantages and, hence, trade specialization, and the incidence of poverty and income inequality. This means that these countries represent a rich sample for comparative study. Nicaragua's per capita income is only one-seventh the global average, while the incomes of Colombia and Ecuador are one-third of this average. By contrast, the per capita incomes of Argentina and Chile average just one-eighth below and that of Mexico is one eighth above the global average. Only Argentina, Brazil, and Nicaragua are well above the global average in endowments of agricultural land per capita; the Dominican Republic and Ecuador are well below this average; and Chile, Colombia, and Mexico are a little less than one-third above the average.

President Trump's most recent pronouncement about the Gaza Strip and the people who live there brings to mind Abraham Lincoln's definition of a hypocrite as a man who murders his parents and then pleads for mercy on grounds that he is an orphan. Trump is correct in saying that the residents of Gaza are "living in hell." But in the same breath he supports the policies and actions of the foreign state that has turned the Gaza Strip into hell. Trump is comfortable with the United States helping Israel to "murder" the Gaza Strip — and is increasing the supply of weapons to do so — while pretending to be merciful and compassionate toward the remaining people of Gaza who so far have survived the Israeli onslaught but are suffering immensely.The hypocrisy only adds a further gloss to what already was morally indefensible support for ethnic cleansing. As debates about whether Israel is committing genocide get bogged down in semantics as a digression from substance, it is undeniable that Israel is conducting ethnic cleansing. The words as well as actions of senior Israeli officials make clear that removing Palestinians from Palestine is Israeli policy.The United States formerly opposed ethnic cleansing. During the wars in the 1990s that followed the break-up of Yugoslavia, the United States, after some hesitation, decisively opposed Bosnian Serbs' ethnic cleansing of Muslims, going so far as to lead a military intervention that ended the Serbs' deadly campaign. But now the United States is not only condoning but actively supporting Israel's campaign of ethnic cleansing.The moral depravity of what is happening to the Palestinians is linked to multiple negative consequences for the United States to the extent Washington associates itself with the Israeli campaign. The consequences include lessened ability to achieve goals that require the cooperation of Arab states and increased motivation of terrorists to strike the United States.Although these consequences had already existed due to longstanding U.S. toleration of Israel's subjugation of the Palestinians, unwilling removal of the subjugated population from Palestine altogether would amplify the emotions involved and the related ill effects on the United States. Such removal evokes painful memories of the Nakba or "catastrophe" in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were driven from their homes in the war in 1948 that followed Israel's declaration of independence.Trump's assertions that Palestinians would be "thrilled" to move out of Palestine and that other Arab states would be willing to accept them bear no resemblance to reality. The strong attachment of most Palestinians to their homeland despite the miserable conditions in Gaza has been demonstrated by the determination of internally displaced families to return to north Gaza during the current ceasefire despite awareness that many of their homes had been turned to rubble.As for acceptance by other Arab states, when Trump last month suggested that Palestinians should go to Egypt or Jordan, both those states strongly rejected the idea. Both have compelling reasons for their rejection involving their own internal security and domestic politics, in addition to repugnance over the injustice to the Palestinians.Jordan sees a fresh mass influx of Palestinians as an existential threat. It would upset an already fragile internal situation that involves a large Palestinian population — many of them refugees from the original Nakba — living under a Bedouin-led regime. Such a displacement would be contrary to the understandings Jordan thought it had reached when signing its peace treaty with Israel in 1994. The displacement would risk collapsing a regime the United States has counted on as a reliable friend in a critical part of the Middle East.When Trump said that some "really nice places" could be built for ethnically-cleansed Palestinians, he made it sound like moving from a crummy apartment in Queens to an attractive condo in mid-town Manhattan. Absent from his remarks was any appreciation for a sense of home and of place, especially for Palestinians who are attached to a homeland where their families have lived for centuries.Some six million Palestinians, mostly displaced by Israel's earlier wars, already live in other Arab countries. The conditions in which most of them live are not "really nice." Many are refugee camps, in name, as well as in reality, with all the squalor that implies. Even with a turnover that has gone through multiple generations since 1948, the sense of being a Palestinian and being a refugee displaced from one's homeland has, for most of these people, not been extinguished.Moreover, as demonstrated by the massacre of Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps by an Israel-backed militia during an earlier Israeli invasion of Lebanon country in 1982, even displacement to a neighboring Arab country does not mean safety from Israeli aggression. Such thoughts are probably going through the minds of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who during the past year have been driven by Israel out of their homes only to be attacked again in what supposedly were "safe zones."Notwithstanding the unreality of Trump's ideas about ethnically cleansing Palestinians out of Palestine, this does appear to constitute a major part of his administration's policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He has now voiced the idea more than once, and it is consistent with his practice, dating back to his first term, of going all-in with the policies of the Israeli government. Thus the ill consequences of such ethnic cleansing, as summarized above, need to be a major part of policy debate going forward.The other part of Trump's comments following his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — about the United States "taking over" the Gaza Strip — is no less outrageous but of a different character. Even some congressional Republicans — who so far have been in lock-step support, or at least tacit acquiescence with, almost everything else Trump has done so far this term — have expressed reservations about the idea. That alone should get Trump's attention. So will the fact that such involvement runs counter to Trump's own declared intention to reduce U.S. costs and commitments overseas, especially ones that involve a new war.Thus the comment about taking over Gaza cannot yet be taken as administration policy. But for the record, such a policy would be a disastrous mistake. It would mean, besides taking on a huge reconstruction burden, a costly counterinsurgency in a militarily difficult area where Hamas is still alive and kicking. In some respects, such a military operation would be worse than the U.S. war in Iraq, because the United States could not even pose as a liberator opposing an oppressive regime but instead would be acting in concert with the oppressor.Some have suggested that the "takeover" comment was a bargaining ploy — an extreme demand designed to get Hamas and Saudi Arabia to agree to something more moderate for the future of Gaza while giving Israel a reason to extend the current ceasefire. Possibly, but that theory gives Trump credit for more complex strategic thinking than he has displayed in the past. More likely, the comment reflected a combination of Trump's focus on an individual idea that fascinated him, his instincts about what has served him politically or generated applause lines, and what the last person in the room said to him.Trump's vision for Gaza replays one that his son-in-law Jared Kushner voiced almost a year ago about how the "valuable waterfront property" in Gaza could be developed as long as the people could be removed first. As a fellow real estate developer, Trump can relate to that idea. The notion of a U.S. takeover also sounds consistent with the sort of imperialist designs that Trump already had regarding Greenland and Panama.The fact that the comment came in a joint press conference after meeting with Netanyahu is significant. Some observers expected there would be friction and disagreement in the meeting, and behind closed doors there possibly was. But Trump's default instinct on anything involving these issues is to continue to be seen going all-in with Israel. A beaming Netanyahu, who at the press conference piled compliments onto Trump, showed that this meeting met both leaders' need for positive optics.Trump's declared doctrine may be "America First," but on anything involving the Middle East his policy is Israel First. Or more accurately, it is a policy of deference to almost anything the government of Israel, with its right-wing extremists, wants, even if those wants run counter to the long-term peace and security of the Israeli people as much as the other people of the Middle East.

Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro went to presidential elections on Sunday with the hope of gaining the legitimacy he lacked from the widely questioned 2018 presidential elections. Instead, his regime is receiving perhaps its deepest challenge yet, as the victory announced by the electoral authority has been questioned nationally and internationally. Turnout seems to have been massive on Sunday with an estimated participation of 63% or 80%. It's hard to actually know, given that over 20% of the population has emigrated in recent years, rendering any calculation difficult based on an outdated electoral registry. The turnout, as well as a number of exit polls that were circulating on social media, raised expectations of a significant win for opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez, supported by the opposition's leader, María Corina Machado. However, when the National Electoral Council (CNE) provided results close to midnight Sunday, it showed Maduro with a 51% majority and an "irreversible tendency" based on 80% of the votes having allegedly been counted. This immediately spurred protests given the reports across the country of grave irregularities at the end of the process. In Venezuela's system, when the voting ends, the voting machine is finalized and spits out a paper tally of the votes received by that machine. Each party witness is supposed to receive a copy. However, in most cases this did not happen, and the opposition ended up with only 30-40% of the paper tallies. Furthermore, the CNE did not, and still has not, published the voting data on its webpage, as it is required to do by law. Shortly afterwards from their campaign headquarters, Machado and Gonzalez charged that the CNE's results were fraudulent and that the tallies they did have showed that Gonzalez had won handily. They called for people to go to the electoral centers to defend the vote. However, they did not call for street mobilizations, in order to avoid violence which could play into the government's hands.What they did do was work with the witnesses of other opposition candidates, to collect as many paper tallies as they could. Based on that work, they announced Monday evening that with 73.3% of the tallies, Edmundo Gonzalez had an irreversible lead of 3.5 million votes. As early as Sunday night, regional leaders had expressed doubts about the CNE's results. Chilean President Gabriel Boric set the tone saying on X:The Maduro Regime should understand that the results it has published are hard to believe. The International community and above all the Venezuelan people, including the millions of Venezuelans in exile, demand complete transparency of the vote tallies and the process, and that the international observers not committed to the government testify to the veracity of the votesChile will not recognize any result that is not verifiable.The situation only became more critical on Monday and Tuesday as more international leaders, many with an institutional or ideological commitment to moderation joined the chorus, including the United Nations Secretary General and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs which has been facilitating negotiations since 2019. President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum reiterated Mexico's traditional emphasis on non-intervention but said the way to put aside doubts would be the complete transparency of the vote. U.S. President Joe Biden, whose administration carefully negotiated sanctions relief in exchange for democratic elections called for the release of detailed voting data, as did the top foreign policy official of the European Union, Josep BorrellOn Tuesday the Carter Center, which brought the most significant international effort at elections monitoring, announced that it was removing all personnel from Venezuela. When it returned to Atlanta, it released a scathing report saying that, from beginning to end, the elections did not meet international standards. In Washington, the Organization of American States' election observation department suggested that "The events of election night confirm a coordinated strategy, unfolding over recent months, to undermine the integrity of the electoral process."The critical positions of Colombia, Brazil are particularly important given that they are border countries and are on the ideological left and exerted an important impact during the electoral campaign with timely statements criticizing aspects of the process. Although they have not yet issued a much anticipated joint statement, there are hopes they still could, and perhaps engage in direct diplomatic engagement with Maduro. Colombian President Gustavo Petro Wednesday called for the release of detailed vote tallies.On the other side, Russia, China, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Honduras and Cuba congratulated Maduro on his reelection shortly after the CNE announced its results.The Maduro government itself has responded so far by leaning into the situation, transmitting outrage and pushing forward. Maduro jubilantly and aggressively declared himself Venezuela's next president. Already on Monday morning, the CNE, still having failed to publish voting data and with its website out of service, held a ceremony proclaiming Maduro's purported victory.This proclamation predictably detonated protests across the country as frustrated citizens took to the streets. These protests were quite different from previous anti-Maduro protests that were predominantly mobilized by the middle classes and students. Yesterday it was residents of poor and working class districts of the capital Caracas, such as Caricuao and Petare, who took to the streets. At least 16 people have been killed in clashes across the country since the vote Sunday, reported the rights group Foro Penal and a survey of hospitals, according to the Washington Post. At least 750 people have reportedly been arrested.The social base of these protests creates difficult optics for Chavismo — the leftist, revolutionary movement begun by the late Hugo Chávez — and for the government's attempts to portray them as the work of the same violent protesters of 2014 and 2017. However, it's not yet clear that the opposition leadership has a strategy to capitalize on citizen outrage. Instead, they have rightfully focused on their demand that the CNE release the voting data as required by law. They also want to avoid easy accusations that they seek to generate violence. Machado called for the convening of citizen assemblies in the middle-class areas of Caracas. But it is not clear this will overcome a long-term class division in opposition mobilization. The Maduro government responded to international rejection of its election by breaking relations with seven Latin American nations, including Argentina, Panamá, Costa Rica, Peru, Chile, Uruguay, and the Dominican Republic, and ordering diplomatic personnel to leave immediately. The most immediate threat of this move is that Machado's campaign leadership has been operating from the Argentinian Embassy since orders for their arrests were issued in March. In the past, the Maduro government has successfully neutralized opposition leaders by either arresting them or forcing them into exile through campaigns of harassment. It has tolerated Machado's campaign and González's candidacy as part of its search for normalization with the rest of the world and the easing of U.S. and E.U. sanctions. Now that that project seems to be on the rocks, however, the government could well go after them. Yesterday, President of the National Assembly Jorge Rodriguez said that Machado and Gonzalez were fascist leaders who should be in jail.For now, the U.S. has reacted with caution. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said "there will be consequences," but officials have suggested that economic sanctions that were suspended last year in order to encourage the government to conduct a free and fair electoral process will not be immediately restored and that the policy will be reviewed in terms of "overall U.S. national foreign policy interests."What seems clear is that with such high exit costs, Nicolás Maduro and his officials have decided it is better to weather the storm than to hand over power, a decision that could generate more instability and suffering. There have been efforts by the opposition and international stakeholders to negotiate the terms of an orderly transition that would avoid a witch-hunt. It has been the Maduro government that has rejected these efforts in large part because the glue that keeps their coalition together is the idea that the revolution started by Hugo Chávez in 1999 is irreversible. Considering the possibility that this might not be the case could lead to defections. However, having sunk to a new low in international and national credibility as a result of Sunday's election and the way the government has (mis)handled it, perhaps the coalition could be open to renewed efforts at negotiation.

Sunday's presidential election in Venezuela is turning out to be much more significant than many of us anticipated a year ago. Back then it was assumed that President Nicolás Maduro and his coalition — in full control of all branches of government, as well as the armed forces and oil industry, and with U.S. indictments and an open investigation by prosecutors at the International Criminal Court into alleged crimes against humanity hanging over them — would have little interest in risking defeat. On the other side, long divided amongst themselves over whether to participate or abstain in unfair elections, and with a demoralized, exhausted population rejecting them in numbers almost as high as the Maduro government, the opposition coalition seemed poorly positioned to effectively participate in an election. What is more, the leading candidate at that point, María Corina Machado, was the political figure most associated with electoral boycotts. Yet just a year later, Venezuela is headed to an election that, while a far cry from free and fair, looks competitive. Indeed, both sides are predicting that they can win on Sunday.How did this happen? The Maduro government is hungry for international recognition. Maduro and his officials feel like they successfully navigated the death of Hugo Chávez and what they see as an imperialist effort to push them out of power. Having survived these challenges, they now want to consolidate the economy by normalizing with the rest of the world and realize that doing so will require a semblance of a fair election. They have taken the risk hoping that, at a certain point, the opposition would step aside and abstain. The Biden Administration is hungry to get the Venezuela problem behind it, given the country's importance in geopolitics, energy security and immigration. It helped negotiate last year's Barbados Accord by offering sanctions relief in exchange for an electoral framework that, while violated by the Maduro government in many ways since, has importantly contributed to the creation of this moment. Through their own learning process, the opposition has resolutely embraced an electoral path despite those violations. At every turn, when the government used its control over institutions to complicate that electoral path — refusing to allow the electoral authority to organize the primaries, disqualifying Machado's candidacy, refusing to allow the alternative candidate to enroll, arresting campaign workers and activists, and limiting international observation — the candidate and the opposition more broadly, have stepped around the barrier, accommodated to the new terrain, and pressed on. With the substitute opposition candidate, Edmundo González, running ahead of Maduro by twenty to thirty points, according to most serious pollsters, the opposition is optimistic. Opposition rallies have generated massive turnouts across the country. But the government also projects confidence, asserting that its own polling and "big data" give it an 8-10 point lead. Neither is necessarily off base.The pollsters showing a huge opposition advantage have significantly missed in their electoral predictions since 2017, in almost every case overestimating the opposition vote. Why? First, nearly eight million Venezuelans have emigrated since 2014, leaving a population whose characteristics nobody really understands since the last census dates to 2011. In fact, only the government has a really accurate picture of the population using the data it collects from its electronic "Fatherland Card," which is required to obtain a range of government benefits. Moreover, measuring the population's preferences is not the same as predicting the vote; simply adjusting for "likely voters" is not enough. Of course, voter mobilization is an accepted part of electoral democracy, and the (ab)use of official resources for voter mobilization has always been part of the game in Venezuela. But under Chavismo, it has reached extraordinary heights, including not just the use of official vehicles and government institutions, but also the creation of "puntos rojos," the checkpoints where people are supposed to register the fact that they voted.In a context where most voters lack confidence in the secrecy of the vote this can mobilize and even swing votes to the government. In some cases, government employees have reportedly been obliged to send their supervisors pictures of the paper vote emitted from the machine. These and other manipulations can have a seriously distorting effect. There are many other abuses. Changes in voting centers — oftentimes to places where opposition voters feel unsafe — can cause confusion, frustration and fear. Add to this the millions of Venezuelan voters abroad who have been disenfranchised by requirements that they have residency in their host countries and a valid Venezuelan passport — requirements that exist nowhere in Venezuelan law. In addition, for the opposition, having an "outsider" candidate like Machado complicates mobilization of voters and poll witnesses, which depends on parties and leaders in the interior — many of whom she has spent years ridiculing as government collaborators. Now she and Gonzalez depend on their machinery. Despite evidence that the opposition made substantial progress in this regard, such coordination has yet to be tested and likely pales in comparison to the government's well-oiled machine. While both sides project confidence in the result, their actions belie their smiles. Journalists and influencers around the opposition campaign have worked to discredit and shut down any discussion of polling error or that the government could win at the voting booth. The campaign seems determined to infuse their followers with absolute confidence in victory that will generate maximum outrage if the result is adverse.The Maduro government, for its part, has slowly sculpted a terrain in which these elections will have the least observation possible. In May, they withdrew their previous invitation to the European Union to observe the election. The EU observation effort would have been the most extensive professional outfit. The Carter Center will be there with a much smaller mission, and the UN will be sending only two or three experts. The electoral council has accredited only one national observation organization with experience and only half the credentials they solicited. An unprecedented number of digital news sites within Venezuela have been blocked. In any case, if there is fraud it should be obvious. The electronic machines have been audited by experts from both sides. This does not mean that fraud is impossible, only that it will be clearly detectable. Election day irregularities at the voting centers will be documented by poll witnesses. One possible scenario would be long delays in announcing the results — something that with electronic machines should be available quickly. Extended delays will suggest that the government is losing and is figuring out what to do. The government may try to disqualify results from certain centers, candidates or parties to ensure Maduro comes out on top. Or it could concede defeat. Despite all it has to lose, this scenario is not impossible. Even if it loses the presidency, Chavismo will still control the other branches of government, and there are five long months between the election and the investiture in January 2025, during which agreements could be forged.International engagement has already had a decisive impact and will be central to any positive outcome. U.S. engagement of both the Maduro government and the opposition has helped keep them in the electoral game. But perhaps the timeliest inputs came from the region. In March, when alternate candidate Corina Yoris was not allowed to register as a candidate, President Lula da Silva of Brazil and Gustavo Petro of Colombia criticized the Maduro government. That surprising intervention likely led to the government allowing Gonzalez's candidacy to proceed.How should international stakeholders respond? If the opposition prevails, it should be encouraged to show moderation and inclusiveness since that is the only way a smooth transition could happen. If it loses, it should be encouraged to document real issues and not just stick with broad or vague claims of fraud. Whatever the opposition does, it should not be pressured to recognize the government's victory in what has not been a free and fair election. The opposition has so far followed leading research on authoritarian transitions that suggests it is better to participate in unfair elections than boycott them. In the best of circumstances, such participation can lead to a "stunning" outcome that ousts an authoritarian leader. Even if not, participating in an election still exerts pressure on an authoritarian government, forcing it to play the political game with the risks it always entails. It also generates opposition mobilization and momentum. However, requiring those who participate in an unfair election to then recognize the result undermines this logic — a logic that could well continue to be important in the future.If the vote goes against the government, there will be a huge role for diplomacy, making sure that Chavismo need not fear a witch hunt. There have been multiple proposals floated by a former Chavez minister, human rights groups, and the Colombian government. Some of these contain ideas that are mutually incompatible. But all of them understand the need for transition without retribution and can provide inputs for diplomats to forge an agreement with Venezuela's political actors.