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From Water Pumps in Cambodia to Global Social Enterprise Support

Dougg Jimenez's picture

Combining the experience of running the DM2006 award winning social enterprise: Ideas-at-Work (IaW), the knowledge acquired with the Global Social Benefit Incubator (GSBI) program (2007), and her recent completion of an MBA (2012), Angelique Smit decided to found the Social Enterprise Support initiative, a network group that provides support and advice to fellow social entrepreneurs in a variety of areas.

Created after intense consultation with social entrepreneurs about their support needs in their path to build successful business models, Social Enterprise Support (SE-Support) emerged as a place where social entrepreneurs from all over the world find fellow social-minded entrepreneurs for a sounding board, bouncing ideas, brainstorming or advice.

Ghana: Making Cities ‘Smarter’ Through the Use of ICT

Erratic and sporadic water supply, clogged drains, sickened children and unhealthy lives – these are the everyday challenges Janet Adu faces, living in Turlako, a suburb of Accra.  Her story is captured in this video and is a vivid reminder that poor sanitation in Ghana accounts for 70 percent of out-patient attendance and 25% of under-five mortality for children. With Ghana’s cities growing at an unprecedented 3.2 percent annually, living conditions for the urban poor like Janet Adu are deteriorating rapidly.

Cirque Du Soleil: Protecting the Long, Quiet River

Guy Laliberté is the Founder of Cirque du Soleil and the President of One Drop, a non-profit striving to ensure that water is accessible to all. One Drop is one of the many innovative organizations the World Bank is proud to partner with in pursuit of this goal.

Today, water is the star. Once a year, we celebrate it, we sing its praises, we think about it. Once a year, we pause to consider the ominous and worrying statistics. Then the curtain falls and we move on. On to another show, another issue to be brought to light.

For African Youth, Informal Sectors Jobs Are Normal

Ravi Kumar's picture

Available in Español, Français

Youth Forum Breakfast, Abuja, Nigeria. Photo: Bamidele Emmanuel Oladokun / World BankYouth Forum Breakfast, Abuja, Nigeria. Photo: Bamidele Emmanuel Oladokun / World Bank

In 2011 African heads of state met in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, for the African Union Summit. It was held under the theme: "Accelerating Youth Empowerment for Sustainable Development." The main aim of the gathering was to deliberate on Africa's youth which is growing faster than any other continent. More than 200 million people in Africa are between ages 15 through 24.

“Africa is the youngest continent. The current youth of Africa are not only important for Africa but also for the world,” said Shantayanan Devarajan, Chief Economist for the World Bank’s Africa region. Young people are usually the ones who lead innovation and are a source of labor force of any economy, Devarajan added.

The Importance of Detecting TB Early

Miriam Schneidman's picture

As we enter the second year of the “Stop TB in my lifetime” campaign, it is time to take stock of where we are and look at the key priorities for attaining this worthy goal.  Beyond the banners urging the world to stop this curable disease are the faces of those afflicted by tuberculosis or whose lives were cut prematurely short. These faces remain etched in my memory and reinvigorate my drive to stop TB.

Water Cooperation at the National Level: The Case of Kenya

Dr. Robert Kibugi is a Legal/Institutional Expert for Ministry of Water and Irrigation in Kenya and a lecturer at the Centre for Advanced Studies in Environmental Law and Policy (CASELAP), University of Nairobi.

Legal and institutional changes in the Kenyan water sector are not new; the current water law was enacted in 2002. The law introduced extensive changes and reforms, including a separation between water resource management and water services that allows specialized agencies to perform the tasks.

This resulted in creation of the Water Resource Management Authority (WRMA) to manage and regulate water resources, and the Water Services Regulatory Board (WASREB) to regulate water services. The latter regulates the functions of Water Services Boards (WSBs), responsible for developing infrastructure, and those of water service providers (WSPs), which are primarily utilities that purchase water from WSBs and sell to consumers. Beyond water services and resources, the areas of water storage and irrigation, which address harvesting and productive use of water, were not part of the 2002 reforms.

New Ways to Measure Heat on Earth's Surface Could Revolutionize Agricultural Water Management

Julia Bucknall's picture

Yesterday, on the eve of World Water Day, NASA and the United States Geological Survey released the first images from the thermal imaging band of its latest launch of the LANDSAT satellite. The satellite will begin regularly producing data on May of this year. Why does that matter? It is the latest improvement in a technology that, in my opinion, has the power to revolutionize water management around the world.

Calling All Sanitation Hackathon Enthusiasts: Top 10 Finalists Announced

Sanitation Hackathon Team's picture

 

After months of coding away during the Sanitation Hack@Home challenge, 10 teams of hackers were selected as finalists. The Hack@Home challenge is part of the Sanitation Hackathon, a yearlong process that included a global event in December where dedicated programmers worked on apps geared at addressing the global sanitation crisis, namely the 2.5 billion people who lack access to adequate sanitation.

Stopping the Carnage on the Roads: a Multisectoral Challenge

Patricio V. Marquez's picture

During a trip to South Africa last week, I was saddened to read this newspaper headline:  “24 people killed, 14 seriously injured, and 44 with minor injuries after bus smashed into a mountainside.” The bus was bringing people back to Cape Town's township of Khayelitsha from a church gathering in eastern Mpumalanga—most of the occupants were women and children.

For Water and non-Water Wonks: A World Water Day 2013 (not comprehensive) Reading List

Given that World Water Day, March 22, is not even underway in a large part of the world, at the time of this writing, the amount of World Water Day coverage is no small thing. Here is how World Water Day (eve) has unfolded across the World Bank’s social media and websites.

Weekly Wire: the Global Forum

Kalliope Kokolis's picture

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

Mashable
Will Killing Google Reader Increase Global Censorship?

“After Google unceremoniously announced it would be killing Reader later this year, much of the outraged response focused on its use in the U.S.

But there's a whole other aspect to the service: for thousands of users around the world, it's one of the few ways they can get around their country's censors.”  READ MORE

Lessons Learned from Water Cooperation in the Nile Basin

Gustavo Saltiel's picture

This year’s World Water Day (March 22) focuses on cooperation around water, so it’s a good time to reflect on lessons that those of us working on cooperation in international waters can learn from the experiences and accomplishments in water cooperation in the Nile Basin.

How to Build Local Government Accountability in South Africa? A Conversation with Partners

Duncan Green's picture

This is what a good day visiting an Oxfam programme looks like. I skim the interwebs (and this blog) to put together some thoughts on a given issue from our experience or what others are writing (‘the literature’). Then sit down with local Oxfamistas and partner organizations (who are usually closer to the grassroots than we are) to compare these bullet points with their reality. Last Friday, it was ‘how can NGOs build the accountability of local government.’ My ten minutes covered:

1 River Basin, 9 Countries, 1 Vision

Amal Talbi's picture

World Water Day 2013 Logo

1 basin, 9 countries, 1 vision was in a brochure of one of the Council of Ministers meeting of the Niger Basin. The first time I saw that brochure I smiled as I right away thought about 9-1-1, the emergency telephone number used to respond to emergency circumstances in North America. It made me think about the numerous challenges that the Niger Basin faces.

This large Basin of 2 million square kilometers with a complex hydrology, running through nine countries, including its central part in the Sahel, has significantly untapped potential (agriculture, energy, etc.) that represents high stakes for large groups of communities, environmental degradation, and frequent water shocks (drought and floods). The Basin territory is also home to numerous political challenges, including instability and terrorism activities as highlighted by the ongoing events in Mali. Quite daunting when you look at it from this perspective, and it does give a sense of urgency.


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