March 2009

'There can be no public without full publicity in respect to all consequences which concern it.  Whatever obstructs and restricts publicity, limits and distorts public opinion and checks and distorts thinking on social affairs.  Without freedom of expression, not even methods of social inquiry can be developed.  For tools can be evolved and perfected only in operation; in application to observing, reporting and organizing actual subject-matter; and this application cannot occur save through free and systematic communication.'

John Dewey, The Public & its problems (1954)

Can blogging transform societies? More provocatively, can it speed up the process of development? We're about to find out: the African Bloggers Conference will be taking place in Nairobi this August. This will be the first of what the organizers are hoping will become an annual event. And they're looking for sponsors. Hello, Bill Gates? Are you listening? The antics at the TED2009 conference were fun, but this is your chance to support homegrown change.

(Thanks to Giulio Quaggiotto for the pointer.)  

Mr. Robert Zoellick, The World Bank President, is delivering a Reuters NewsMaker speech tommorrow, Tuesday at 10 a.m. in London. The event will be streamed live from the World Bank's homepage, where also a transcript will also be posted.

As part of the event, Mr. Zoellick will take questions from online readers. To participate, you can submit a question on Reuters' website.

On the trip back to the base of PT Weda Bay Nickel after our two days in the Aketajawe-Lolobata National Park, we flew over the operating nickel mine at Tanjung Buli owned by publicly listed PT Aneka Tambang, but which has been operated since the opening in 2001 by a subcontractor.

What we saw seemed to be oil discharges just offshore, notable soil erosion in the coastal zone below the mine site, streams of mud coursing down the slopes, all with no apparent mitigation structures in place (see below for a short video). Such high levels of runoff have apparently been noticed before (see version translated to English by Google). When we were back in the North Maluku provincial capital of Ternate, we met with the Head of the Provincial Environment Impact Assessment Agency (BAPEDALDA) and showed him this short film. He and his staff were very concerned and explained that they had more than 100 mines in the province to attend to and felt that having this film available on the internet might make their work easier.

How much additional foreign aid will it take to prevent the global financial crisis from becoming an economic, social, political and human crisis in Africa?

As my co-authors and I tried to point out in an earlier study of the additional aid needed to reach the Millennium Development Goals, this is not the most important question. Much more important are: (i) what developing country governments can do, and (ii) how the additional resources will be spent. Nevertheless, as world leaders gather for the G-20 summit outside London, the magnitude of additional resources to the world’s poorest continent will be discussed.

From Raj Nallari and Indira Iyer's lecture notes.

Urbanization and Poverty

Currently an estimated one third of all urban residents are poor, which represents one quarter of the world’s total poor. Many of these are in small cities and towns where the incidence of poverty tends to be higher than in big cities. With continued urbanization, however, the numbers of the urban poor are predicted to rise and poverty will increasingly be more an urban phenomenon.

The incidence of urban poverty, or the share of poor as a proportion of the urban population, is highest for South Asia (35 percent) and Sub Saharan Africa (40 percent) as shown in the table below. Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and ECA have the greatest proportion of urban poor relative to the total poor, as a result of the high urbanization rates in these regions. The urban poor account for 66 percent and 50 percent of the total poor in these two regions. Overall, MENA has the lowest incidence and share of urban poverty. Urban poverty incidence is notably lower in East Asia and the Pacific (EAP), Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ECA) and Middle East and North Africa (MENA) than the other regions reflecting initial conditions.

Urban Poverty Estimates 2002

(using $1.08/day and $2.15/day poverty lines in 1993 PPP values)

Source: Ravallion, Chen and Sangraula. 2007.

Note: The headcount index represents the proportion of the urban population below the poverty line. The urban share of the poor represents the proportion of the urban poor of the total poor.

With more than the first hints of spring here in DC in the form of my childrens spring break holiday, daffodils and green shoots including weeds in my flower beds!  I am able to step off my busy professional schedule at IFC to read ‘The End of Poverty’ by Jeffrey Sachs, reflect and blog again. With the wonder of spring literally upon me (I need to get mulching later) I am moved to reflect on agriculture everywhere which is really a very delicate balancing act between nature and human intervention.

If you have a question for World Bank President Robert Zoellick, now is your chance to ask. Reuters is collecting questions online, and Zoellick will be responding in a speech next Tuesday. Just follow this link and add your questions to the comments section. (For the Web 2.0 savvy, you can also use the #askwb tag on Twitter.)

The global 2009 Development Marketplace competition is now open! This year the DM aims to find and support innovative approaches and technologies that help us to prepare for and respond to the immediate and potential impacts of climate change. We have already begun accepting applications. For more details visit our website at www.developmentmarketplace.org. The submission period closes May 18, 2009.

This is a great opportunity to find support for your idea in Climate Adaptation. For the first time, we have also opened a special window for Indigenous Peoples – to promote Indigenous Peoples communities’ and organizations’ development of innovative ways to conserve agriculture, land, water and soil management practices. Apply now and spread the word!

With the buzz from this year's influential TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference (9-13 February) now starting to fade, I thought it might be interesting to re-visit some of the highlights from past conferences on topics related to ICT and education.  While presentations at the conference cover a wide variety of topics, some 'TEDtalks' provide quite illuminating, and sometimes quite provocative, glimpses and insights into how technology *might* be used in various innovative ways to enhance education in the future.  I am regularly amazed at the number of times that people in ministries of education all around the world ask me about something they first learned about through TED. While we were, yet again, not in attendance this year, the conference organizers have done the wonderful (and laudable!) job of making available the 'TEDtalks' through the TED web site for free.

In case you weren't able to join World Bank economists and regular bloggers David Dollar and Louis Kuijs earlier today in a live online chat, a transcript from the in-depth discussion is available here. David and Louis spent an hour and a half answering more than 30 questions about the recently released China Quarterly Update economic report, as well as topics ranging from foreign trade, health care reform and the long-term impact of the financial crisis on China's economy.

Also, recently on the blog David wrote about the data behind the Bank's recent economic report in, "Reading tea leaves for signs of China's recovery," and Louis wrote about the policy choices facing the country in, "China and stimulus packages: the best way to respond to more bad news?"

Do you have any follow-up questions about the report or China's economy? Submit them in the comments section below.