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World Development Report 2012

Arab World: A New Social Contract

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Schools is Good: A Reply to Lant Pritchett

Submitted by Berk Özler on Wed, 01/11/2012 - 18:08
On Development Impact

Lant Pritchett once said to me “Thanks for the comments. As usual they are all very smart and well-informed and I disagree with most.” I feel similarly regarding his very popular piece posted here last week (already one of the top 10 most popular posts in our blog's short history) on how CCTs are forcing children in developing countries into terrible schools. So, here goes a reply…

Dear Lant,

Seeing a child like a state: Holding the poor accountable for bad schools -- Guest post by Lant Pritchett

Submitted by on Tue, 01/03/2012 - 19:24
On Development Impact

In the early 20th century Helen Todd, a factory inspector in Chicago, interviewed 500 children working in factories, often in dangerous and unpleasant conditions. She asked children the question: “If your father had a good job and you didn’t have to work, which would you rather do—go to school or work in a factory?” 412 said they would choose factory work. One fourteen year old girl, who was interviewed lacquering canes in an attic working with both intense heat and the constant smell of turpentine, said “School is the fiercest thing you can come up against. Factories ain’t no cinch, but schools is worst.”   

Paving the way for a greener village

Submitted by Smita Jacob on Wed, 12/21/2011 - 10:21
On Development in a Changing Climate


A tiny green oasis stands out amidst acres of dry arid land. As many as 12 different crops—including a wide variety of pulses, fruits, vegetables, and flowers—as well as a farm pond constructed through the Employment Guarantee Scheme and a vermicomposting pit are all seen on this one acre farm in the drought-ridden village from Warangal district of Andhra Pradesh. Suhasini, a young Dalit woman who decided to experiment with the only acre (0.4 hectares) of land she owned, asserts confidently “Next year, most of this surrounding land would be green as well—the other farmers will definitely follow me.”

Suhasini is one among over 1.2 million farmers across 9000 villages that are practicing a cheaper and more sustainable method of agriculture across 1.2 million hectares in the state, even as more farmers are becoming part of what is termed a farmers’ movement for sustainable agriculture in Andhra Pradesh. The program named Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture (CMSA) is essentially an alternative to the conventional-input intensive-agriculture model. It promotes the use of locally available, organic external inputs—including cow dung, chickpea flour, and palm sap—and the use of traditional organic farming methods such as polycropping and systems of rice intensification (SRI). 

#9: The Role of Social Norms in Achieving Behaviour Change

Submitted by Paolo Mefalopulos on Tue, 12/20/2011 - 10:19
On People, Spaces, Deliberation

Our Top Ten Blog Posts by Readership in 2011


Originally published on July 28, 2011


Recently I attended a course on social norms and social change organized by UNICEF at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Understanding how social norms affect change in practices and behaviours is becoming an increasingly ‘hot topic’ in development discourse, and rightly so I would add. In some of my previous blogs I’ve discussed how in many cases the failure to achieve expected results should be ascribed to technocratic solutions, which are not always understood and agreed upon with local communities. The lack of a clear understanding of the role and mechanisms of behaviour change has been responsible for many development failures. However, developing strict behaviour change strategies might also be not enough to promote change.

Haryana's scarce women tell potential suitors: "No loo, no I do" - Guest Post by Yaniv Stopnitzky

Submitted by on Mon, 12/12/2011 - 19:32
On Development Impact

There are "missing women" everywhere. Parents worldwide, and especially in Asia, have strong preferences for sons over daughters, which causes them to selectively abort female fetuses (Arnold et al., 2002; Lin et al., 2008), to invest preferentially in male fetuses (Bharadwaj & Nelson, 2010), and to provide differential post-natal care to boys versus girls (Dasgupta, 1987). In aggregate, these practices create a population sex ratio with too few women relative to men, as compared to other societies without this discrimination against girls.

Manufacturers of the new ultra-cheap tablet computer from India expect to reach out to millions of new Internet users

Submitted by Elena Kvochko on Mon, 12/12/2011 - 16:59
On Information and Communications for Development

Amid the current popularity of Apple iPad, companies around the globe look for innovative solutions capable to compete with the iPad. UK-based manufacturer DataWind jointly withthe Indian Institute of Technology reached the headlines of major media after announcing a new tablet computer Aakash, which is marketed at the price of $35. On December 8, 2011, the World Bank invited a member of Board of DataWind Sunit Tuli to share more about the features of Aakash.

The Aakash, India's $35 (?) Tablet for Education

Submitted by Michael Trucano on Fri, 12/09/2011 - 18:11
On EduTech - ICT & Education

the tablet: resistance is futileOn 5 October 2011, the Indian Ministry for Human Resource Development announced the launch of a new low cost educational tablet: the Aakash. Developed by the London-based company DataWind with the Indian Institute of Technology Rajasthan, the Aakash has been described by some as potentially heralding a new 'Internet revolution' within India education, doing for educational computing what the mobile phone has done for personal communications over the past decade.  The launch of this product has been accompanied by a great deal of press attention, some laudatory, some less so.  Following on a visit by Indian HRD Minister Sibal in October, DataWind CEO Suneet Singh Tuli stopped by the World Bank yesterday to talk about the Aakash, and more broadly, about sustainable business models to drive the broad adoption of computing and Internet devices in the developing world.


Some critics have noted that this is not the first time such a device has been promised for India, recalling the general hoopla that greeted earlier devices like the Simputer and the $100 laptop (OLPC) project.  What is different this time around, they ask, and why is the government subsidizing the purchase price of this particular gadget?


Unconventional Development – Supporting Home Grown Genius

Submitted by Aleem Walji on Thu, 12/01/2011 - 16:01
On Development Marketplace

Villgro, one of the largest incubators and funders of social enterprises in India, is hosting its annual Unconvention from December 1-3. Unlike other platforms, this event attracts people at the intersection of innovation and social enterprise with a clear focus on social impact and generating replicable models. I will be presenting at a panel discussion on December 3rd called Mainstreaming Your Social Business.

At the World Bank, we realize that public goods cannot be provided exclusively by governments acting alone. Private actors have a clear role to play and not just commercial enterprises. In India as elsewhere, we’re seeing the emergence of enterprises that combine the passion of NGO’s with the efficiency of business to address government and market failures. This is an extremely exciting possibility for the Bank and for our client Governments to consider. How do we encourage these actors to complement the State and how do we harness innovations around public goods to better serve the poor? The Development Marketplace is but one of many programs we support to surface, support, and diffuse innovation. The role of the Bank’s Innovation Practice is to pay attention to what’s going on around us and use the convening power and resources of the Bank to shine a light on innovations in development and scale-up what works.  

Follow me @AlWalji. I’ll be posting on #devmarket, #Innovation,  #alchemix throughout the event.

From more on the Unconvention read the interview of Sucharita Kamath at Vilgro as she describes how the Unconvention will convene different players in the social enterprise ecosystem in India to achieve broad-based social impact.

This article was originally published on http://www.nextbillion.net/. NextBillion is a website and blog bringing together a community in the shared mission of development through enterprise.

Unconvention 2011 Hones in on Landing Top Socent Talent

Since its launch in 2011, Villgro has identified and assisted approximately 2,000 social innovators and positively impacted the lives of more than 360,000 people living in rural India. The organization's strength lies in finding innovators and entrepreneurs, providing skill, development and critical access to networks and other resources necessary to take their innovations to the marketplace. Critical to its continued success is the ability to connect with more homegrown geniuses just waiting to be discovered in every corner of India.

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