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February 2011

Worldbank.org China Scavenger Hunt: Help Improve Usability

Margaret Allen's picture

Can you find the GDP of China using the World Bank website in fewer than 4 clicks? We challenge you! 

If you're like many of our website visitors, you probably look for information based on a particular country of interest. And, like many of our visitors, you may find it challenging to find what you need.

The good news is that the World Bank will soon roll out new designs for our "Country" site sections. The China site section will be the first to pilot the new and improved design, with other countries to follow.

Economic development in resource-rich, labor-abundant economies

Justin Yifu Lin's picture

Tackling poverty and inequality through appropriate growth strategies is at the core of the World Bank’s mission. In my view, achieving sustainable and inclusive growth depends on a well-functioning market and to a significant extent also the degree to which government policies facilitate private firms’ upgrading and diversification into industries that are aligned with an economy’s comparative advantages.

To smooth the way and allow this dynamic process to function optimally, we need to answer many questions that are unique to different types of economies. For example, how is it possible to successfully tap a developing country’s comparative advantage when it is rich in resources and has an abundant labor supply?

Show Me Your I.D., Please!

Johanna Martinsson's picture

If someone were to ask you to identify yourself, you would probably reach into your purse, or pocket, and pull out some form of identification.  Without it, one loses some of the basic benefits of living in a society. You cannot open a bank account, purchase a home, or vote, and so on.  Many countries, however, don’t have a functional identification system.  In India, for example, millions of citizens are unable to benefit from social and financial services because they don’t have proper identification.  Also, current welfare databases are plagued with fake names and duplications, entered by corrupt officials. Thus, the country has embarked on a massive identification project that will be one of the largest citizens’ databases of its kind.

Solar Home Systems: Lighting up Bangladesh's Countryside

Naomi Ahmad's picture

Lives no longer interrupted by the setting sun…

We were walking towards the small bridge over the canal. The sun had already set and dusk was gradually fading into darkness. The winter air was quiet and still. Approaching the highest point of the bridge, I could sense the excitement in our quickening footsteps - we were almost there.

The project officials had told us that we could see it all, if we stood and looked out from the highest point of the bridge. So we leaned over the railings and waited, straining to see. But there was nothing – just the fuzzy darkness, gradually thickening and settling quietly on the land. I was left wondering whether we were just on a wild goose chase.

Then down below, a faint light suddenly flickered to life. A bulb was turned on in the darkness. Then another glowed – and yet another! In a few minutes, the area lying below us was glimmering with the tiny dots of faint white light bulbs. And from our high vantage point we could clearly see that the sleepy little rural marketplace - Garjon Bunia Bazaar – had woken up; ready for another evening.

How does migration shape economic and social development?

Elina Scheja's picture

Migration has a profound impact on the lives of the migrant households, but also their societies are shaped by the cumulative effects of labor mobility and consequently remittances. Literature provides interesting insights into the true development impact of migration. Dilip was asked to provide a background document assessing the state of the current knowledge for a roundtable discussion at the Civil Society Days of the Global Forum of Migration and Development 2010 held in November in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. This resulting paper (co-authored with me and Sanket) has since then been revised and recently published as a World Bank working paper.

In the paper we have reviewed a variety of studies representing different aspects of migration in order to distill key messages and new insights. Main observations arising from the survey are:

For a sending country, migration and the resulting remittances lead to increased incomes and poverty reduction, improve health and educational outcomes, and promote productivity and access to finance. Although individual variation exists, the economic impact is primarily and substantially positive. Yet, these gains come at a substantial social cost to the migrants and their families as migration may lead to eroded family structures, children losing parental care, and weaker safety nets. 

People, plots and pixels

Chris Meyer's picture

Photo credit: Max Nepstad

 

If you are in a forest in Ecuador and see indigenous communities standing with an android phone, a measuring tape and a good pair of boots, don’t be surprised. These ‘indigenous forest carbon monitors’ have been trained to collect field data by measuring a 40m x 40m sample plot. They align the center of the square plot with a GPS coordinate associated with the center of a satellite footprint, and measure the diameter of the trees in the plot. Once the measurements of the trees are determined, they are sent via phone to scientists who use satellite images – and now even images available on Google Earth – to estimate the amount of carbon stored in forests.

 

These communities can efficiently traverse terrain that is typically inaccessible to foreign technicians. The result is better forest carbon density maps that can determine changes in the amount of forest carbon present over time.

 

With the cutting and burning of trees contributing to about 15% of global carbon dioxide emissions, any realistic plan to reduce global warming pollution sufficiently – and in time to avoid dangerous consequences – must rely in part on preserving tropical forests.

 

A critical part of ensuring that the rate of deforestation is decreasing - and the part where skeptics are most vocal - is monitoring, reporting, and verifying (MRV) the area and density of forests. The MRV process measures the amount of carbon stored in a forest, and also helps make sure that further deforestation and degradation do not occur. It also requires both modern technology and old fashioned boots on the ground.

Microcredit, microsavings…but what about micropayments?

Why is the term microfinance still used by so many as if it were synonymous with microcredit? Credit is only one form of finance. All the more thoughtful commentators on the Andhra Pradesh crisis agree that debt should not be the only financing option available to poor people.

In a recent blog post, my colleague Jake Kendall and I explained how the Financial Services for the Poor team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation focuses on savings because it’s an option that everyone should have and because we felt donors have neglected it in the past.

But there is another service that has received even less attention from the microfinance community: payments. When is the last time you were at a microfinance conference and someone mentioned the payment needs of the poor with any degree of passion? And why do academic researchers devote so little attention to it?

Prospects Weekly: Crude oil prices surge to $119/bbl...

The spread of social unrest and violence to Libya (which supplies Europe with almost 12% of its imported oil) caused a spike in Brent crude oil prices to $119/bbl in intra-day trades on February 24. A quick pass-through to petrol users and industry is possible; and, if sustained, the price hike could dampen global growth by 0.2 to 0.3 percentage points in coming quarters. Domestic credit flows within developing countries are recovering, with credit expanding at a 12.2% annualized pace on average in November. For high-income economies, credit is also rebounding, but at a 5% annualized rate is well below pre-crisis growth of 10.5%. Grounded in strong U.S. performance, retail volumes for high-income economies were growing at 4.5% in the final quarter of 2010 (3m/3m, saar).
Oil prices surged following the escalation of violence in Libya and ongoing demonstrations elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa. As threats of crude oil supply losses mount, prices have soared, with Brent closing at $112/bbl on February 23, up 11.6% over the prior week (hitting intra-day highs of $119/bbl on February 24). WTI is also up, but much lower at $96.50/bbl. Libya’s exports amount to just 2.5% of global oil trade, but are particularly important for Europe, accounting for 11.7% of total oil imports there. The IEA reports that as of February 24, as much as 40% of Libyan oil output has been shut down; though OPEC has stated that it will make-up any shortfall. The immediate supply threat for Europe is also mitigated by high crude stocks (66 days of forward consumption, vis-à-vis a 5-year average of 60 days). But if sustained, these oil price hikes could dampen global growth, with back-of-the envelope calculations suggesting a reduction of 0.2% to 0.3% in world growth over a 2-year period.  
Global domestic credit grew 9.9% in Q4-2010 (median, q/q, annualized), led by credit expansion among developing countries. Broadening of the global recovery has led to higher capacity utilization and strenghtening demand for credit, which has also been supported by improving bank and borrower balance-sheets. The revival in credit growth among developing countries has been been most pronounced in Sub-Saharan Africa, where credit posted median growth of 28.9% in the three-months ending November. In contrast, Europe and Central Asia (where banks were hit hard in the crisis) lags, with a median increase of 12.5% over the period. Among OECD countries credit growth remains relatively subdued, but in the United States it has firmed to 3.9% in Q3-2010 (latest available) the strongest pace since the onset of the crisis.  
High-income retail sales revive in fourth quarter on U.S. advance. Retail spending remains a key driver for industrial production, and during most of 2010 was a pillar of support for the Japanese and U.S. economic recoveries. Following a falloff in sales volume growth toward the middle of 2010, a moderate rebound has since carried growth momentum to 4.5% by November (3m/3m, saar), slightly above its 3.8% long-term average. The revival, however, is almost wholly due to stronger performance in the United States, where retail volumes surged to 12% (q/q, saar), the strongest since 1992, grounded in improved job and income growth. In contrast, sales dropped sharply in Japan and Germany (down 6.3% and 8.3%, respectively) in the fourth quarter (q/q, saar). And a number of Euro Area economies (Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Netherlands) also saw negative outturns, as government incentives dried up, or asuterity measures were instituted or intensified.  

Download the Prospects Weekly as PDF here.

Padma Bridge: Connecting People to Prosperity in Bangladesh

South Asia's picture

The Padma Bridge is expected to unlock the potential and transform the lives of nearly 30 million Bangladeshis living in the country's Southwest region. By reducing distances to major urban centers like Dhaka by almost 100km, the bridge will facilitate regional trade, reduce poverty while accelerating growth and development in the country as a whole.

“The construction of the bridge would fulfill the long-standing dream of the people of the Southwest region to have a permanent crossing over the Padma River,” said World Bank South Asia Vice President Isabel Guerrero.

For more information, read the Feature Story and Press Release.

Building Evidence on School Accountability

Ariel Fiszbein's picture

How to make schools accountable for results is a hot issue in both rich and poor countries. The debate is often highly charged and ideological -- witness the discussions in Washington DC around the reforms promoted by former Chancellor Michelle Rhee.  It is thus refreshing when new and rigorous evidence is used to bring some light into the debate. 

Building on over six years of hard work by World Bank teams working across several countries and regions, Barbara Bruns, Deon Filmer and Harry Patrinos have produced a major volume entitled Making Schools Work: New Evidence on Accountability Reforms. 

Making Schools Work is part of the new Human Development Perspectives book series that will launch early next week. An initiative of the Human Development Network, the series will present key research in the field of human development. By linking evidence to policy, publications in this series will help developing countries and their partners get more mileage and impact out of their investments in human capital.

Migration and Remittance News Roundup (Feb. 25, 2011)

Ani Silwal's picture

Education & Technology in 2025: A Thought Experiment

Michael Trucano's picture

thinking big thoughtsIn many places around the world, the costs associated with investments in educational technologies are perceived to be prohibitive (and often higher than one may initially calculate).  That said, there are few places where such investments are not under active consideration.  

On this blog, I have criticized 

"the often singleminded focus, even obsession, on the retail price of ICT devices alone, which is in many ways a distraction from more fundamental discussions of the uses of educational technologies to meet a wide variety of educational goals in ways that are relevant, appropriate and cost-effective." 

I have also wondered,

"What are the costs of not investing in ICT use in education? Can we afford them?"

Reasonable people can and will disagree about what the associated costs are for ICT/education initiatives -- as well as how to calculate them, and what these costs might/should be, relative to other potential uses of scarce funds (teacher and administrative salaries, books, school infrastructure, health and feeding programs for students, etc.)

Reasonable people can also disagree on what the impact to date of such investments has been -- a frequent topic here on this blog.

But let's leave aside such discussions and debate for now. 

As part of engagements in various countries, I sometimes propose the following 'thought experiment' to provoke policymakers to take a step back (or two -- or five!) and think more broadly about why they are looking to introduce ICTs in their schools.  As part of this process, I present the following scenario:

Let's assume that, by 2025, *all* hardware and software costs related to the use of information and communication technologies to support learning were zero.

How might this change the way you consider the use of ICTs to support the goals of your education system?

If we removed considerations of cost from the equation, how might we conceive of the use of technologies in education? Would our approach then be consistent with our approach today?

 

What Role Does Civil Society Play in Economic Development?

Sabina Panth's picture

I recently came across a fascinating initiative where civil society organizations have played a lead role in building public-private partnerships in economic development activities.  The USAID-sponsored Education for Income Generation (EIG) program has brought together local, national and international partners in galvanizing disadvantaged youth to partake in income generating activities toward increasing economic activities and peace building process in post-conflict Nepal. 


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