The World Bank - Working for a world free of poverty

Open Forum Gender: Getting to Equal

World Development Report 2012

Arab World: A New Social Contract

Blog

My Father’s Ford – A New Model for Cities

Submitted by Dan Hoornweg on Thu, 02/09/2012 - 12:12
On Sustainable Cities

Ford ShowroomMy father is a Ford man he's driven nothing but since 1958. When I was a kid I would go with him every fall to the new models showroom party at Lange and Fetter Ford Motors in Trenton, Canada. I would get a balloon, some cake and maybe get to sit in a new car (spilled the cake on the new seat one year). Since being a kid I’ve always been amazed how car manufacturers manage to come out with yet another new version every year. Some years it would just be the lights that changed, in other years there might be a whole remake of the model, or an entirely new model might be introduced.


Now I’m a boring old man and drive a 2008 Toyota Camry. The back seat’s spacious enough for the girls, and I really would look like a fool with a middle-age crisis if I bought that red Mustang I coveted as a kid. Also, I now work on city issues, and let’s face it: an electric car (where electric generation has low carbon emissions) or a Smart Car is the way to go (after we get a smaller dog). But the way car manufacturers have provided new models every year for more than 80 years is a very important lesson for those of us working on cities.

The stressful condition

Submitted by Berk Ozler on Thu, 02/09/2012 - 11:53
On Development Impact

I came across this piece by Mullainathan and Datta in the Annual Report of the William Kellogg Foundation (HT Marginal Revolution), which is a behavioral economist’s take on the reasons why some parents are less likely than others to undertake actions beneficial to their children. The whole piece is worth your read, but here are some excerpts to set things up:

seToolbelt's Resource Competition has begun!

Submitted by Dougg Jimenez on Thu, 02/09/2012 - 10:34
On Development Marketplace


seToolbelt is pleased to announce the launch of its second competition for original tools and resources for social enterprise! They are looking for innovative, practical, real-life responses to the challenges that arise in social enterprises so that they can help make these original tools available to the wider community of social entrepreneurs.

Does better information lead to better development outcomes?

Submitted by Santhosh Srinivasan on Thu, 02/09/2012 - 10:20
On Governance for Development

The idea that citizens can directly contribute to strengthening the governance and quality of service delivery has been gaining momentum. The recent globabl uprisings, from revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia to the Occupy Wall Street movements here in the US, have highlighted the important role that individuals play in demanding more accountable governments and policies.

Weekly Wire: the Global Forum

Submitted by Kalliope Kokolis on Thu, 02/09/2012 - 10:13
On People, Spaces, Deliberation

These are some of the views and reports relevant to our readers that caught our attention this week.


OECD Observer
Don’t forget corruption


“The crisis should not divert attention from the fight against corruption.  Mark Pieth, Chair of the OECD Working Group on Bribery, talks to Lyndon Thompson about the need to keep the ball rolling.


Mark Pieth is the affable, soft-spoken chair of the OECD Working Group on Bribery. He has held the post for more than 20 years, during which time he also served on the committee charged with investigating the Iraq Oil-for- Food Programme and the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering, headquartered at the OECD in Paris, and most recently as an advisor on the Integrity Board of the World Bank.”  READ MORE

Are Emerging Markets Leading the Way in Job Creation?

Submitted by Otaviano Canuto on Thu, 02/09/2012 - 10:09
On Growth & Crisis

Photo: Wiki Commons User_KozuchWith a few exceptions, industrialized nations are still struggling with unemployment, unable to recover completely from the 2008 economic crisis. In the U.S. things seem to be improving as the unemployment rate fell in January to 8.3 percent, its lowest level since early 2009, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. But all in all, whether it is lack of job opportunities for young people around the world, or that the global economy is not generating as many jobs as needed to keep up with labor force growth, the global job narrative is one of doom and gloom.


Nevertheless, there are reasons for optimism, particularly in the developing world. While major industrialized nations still struggle with unemployment, emerging markets are certainly doing better.


According to the new edition of Job Trends, released by the World Bank today, emerging economies continued their slow but steady job recovery in the third quarter of 2011. We are talking about countries like Brazil, China, Mexico and Turkey. But they are not the only ones. Across Eastern Europe and Central Asia, as well as in East Asia and Latin America, the employment picture has been improving over the past year in the 23 developing countries included in our global sample.

Cleaner Bricks for Better Air Quality in Dhaka

Submitted by Maria Sarraf, co-authors: Lelia Croitoru on Wed, 02/08/2012 - 17:23
On End Poverty in South Asia

Dhaka. Chittagong. Khulna. Just a handful of cities where construction is booming. In Bangladesh, the construction sector is driven by a single fuel: bricks. But making bricks is not neat. It is messy and backbreaking. In Bangladesh, most bricks are manually made from mud, and then burnt in kilns. Workers have to use hammers to break up tons of coal every day. Then they carry the coal on their shoulders to the ovens used to fire bricks. There are more than 4,500 traditional kilns in Bangladesh that operate this way.

The country’s capital, Dhaka, is surrounded by more than 1,200 kilns. Most kilns operate only 6 months during the year (between November and April). Because more than 90% are located in low-lying areas which experience flooding during the rainy season. During the 6 months of operation, Dhaka becomes one of the most polluted cities in the world. Every day, the chimneys blow black smoke that clouds the city’s sky. The smoke is dense and contains fine particulates, which are very damaging to health. They cause no less than 20 percent of the premature deaths related to urban air pollution in Dhaka. 

How long can the country afford to make bricks in this way? The current status is by no means sustainable. To make 100,000 bricks, one needs to burn 20 tons of coal, which has high sulfur content. China, the world’s leading brick producer, uses only 6 tons of coal to make the same amount of bricks. China’s experience suggests that adopting cleaner and more energy-efficient technologies is key to success.

Creating a level playing field

Submitted by Wolfgang Fengler on Wed, 02/08/2012 - 14:41
On Africa Can end poverty

Throughout the slums of this world, poor children are dreaming of becoming football stars and playing in the World Cup. Some of them from Kibera—Kenya’s largest slum—had a shot last weekend, when the International School of Kenya hosted the third “Mini World Cup”.


The event involved more than sixty teams made-up of Kenyan and international children from all walks of life. Two teams from Kibera made it to the top eight teams of the tournament, keeping their dream alive to win the “Cup” in one of the next years. The great thing about football is that all teams, no matter what their social background, have an equal opportunity to win. They start on a level playing field, and they all play by the same rules. When the final whistle blows, there is no reason why one of the teams from Kibera should not lift the Mini World Cup next time, just as Ghana’s Black Stars overcame Team USA in the 2010 World Cup, despite the huge disparity in wealth between the two nations.


In economic development, the equivalent of having a level playing field is equality of access to basic services.

Fotopedia, World Bank App Showcases Photos of ‘Women of the World’

Submitted by Olivier Puech on Wed, 02/08/2012 - 11:20
On Inside the Web



During the 2011 World Bank Annual Meetings, we decided to give the highest visibility to the topic of gender equality in connection with the World Development Report 2012.

The report details the need of the world to close the big gender gaps that exist in order to pursue a path of true development for many countries. There is global progress, for example, in education.

But in other metrics, the data on gender equality is appalling:

Worldwide, women make up the majority of unpaid workers. And violence against women is still widespread.

Watching People As They Walk

Submitted by Sina Odugbemi on Wed, 02/08/2012 - 10:39
On People, Spaces, Deliberation

If you have ever spent time on any major campus, you will be familiar with what I am about to describe. The architects of the campus will usually have laid out paved walkways for pedestrians to use as they move from one building to the other. These prescribed walkways are designed to protect the carefully maintained lawns that major campuses also tend to have, urging pedestrians to refrain from walking on the often gorgeously manicured lawns. If you are familiar with campuses, you also know that people tend to ignore the prescribed walkways. They move around the campus in ways that makes sense to them, even if that means carving ugly footpaths through carefully gardened lawns. The controllers of the environment try to forbid the use of footpaths, but they usually give up after a while. Hence, part of the story of a well-used campus is the network of footpaths, distinct from paved walkways, that sprouts over the years…and remains well-trodden with a stubborn, almost riotous, insistence.

footermenu