The World Bank’s new Education Strategy, Learning for All, invites us to invest early, invest smartly, and invest for all. It proposes fostering a comprehensive view of education – a systems approach strengthened by a knowledge base on what works to improve education systems that can be shared amongst the global community.
Market confidence has been rattled once again following recent election results in France and Greece. However, credit default swaps rates, while up, remain well below their fall 2011 highs. Through March, retails sales have continued strengthening among both developing and high-income economies, although weakness still persists in the Euro Area. |
At the December 2009 Copenhagen climate change conference, Saad Hariri, then Prime Minister of Lebanon, announced his country’s new target for renewable energy: 12% of the national energy mix, to be achieved by 2020. This prompted an intense wind-mapping effort that concluded a year later, with an estimate that Lebanon’s onshore windpower potential is 6.1 gigawatts (GW)—more than a third of current consumption—said Pierre El-Khoury, Manager of the Lebanese Energy Ministry’s Center for Energy Conservation.
El-Khoury outlined Lebanon’s wind-mapping exercise at a Washington workshop on renewable energy resource mapping hosted by the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP) May 9. The Lebanese wind atlas, developed in collaboration with GL Garrad Hassan and Partners, and financed by UNDP and Spain, has identified eight optimal sites for wind farms, of which three will be selected for development. El-Khoury and others cited the government commitment to a target for renewable energy as a “main driver” of the resource mapping that followed.
One of Asia’s fastest growing economies in the last 40 years, South Korea, has emerged as a manufacturing powerhouse that has virtually eliminated poverty. Its resilient economy survived the 2008–2009 financial crises better than almost any other country, but it is far from complacent. Korea spends a bigger percentage of GDP on research and development than Germany, the UK and the US.
Today, Korea is a global champion of green growth with a long-term plan for transitioning to green growth and a focus on exporting green tech, and it is moving away from energy imports and energy-intensive industries. Korea’s journey is not complete, but its progress stands as an inspiration to developing countries wherever they are in theirs.
At the second Global Green Growth Summit, in Seoul on Thursday, President Lee Myung-bak reinforced Korea’s commitment to playing a leadership role on the global stage, restating Korea’s commitment to increasing official development assistance through to 2020 and announcing that 30 percent of that ODA will be green.
Launching our report in Seoul was an excellent opportunity to further strengthen our partnership with Korea and expand our inclusive green growth knowledge base.
“Results-based approaches” (RBAs) to development financing have mushroomed in recent years, partly due to tighter aid budgets, but more in response to a consensus that has emerged at development effectiveness forums in Rome, Paris, Accra and Busan.
RBAs have been adopted in numerous health and water projects, where expansion of access to a service—typically an immunization, an attended birth, a water connection—is the key indicator.
But RBAs are more scarce in the energy sector.
Why? Is the energy sector too complex? Are energy business models too diverse? Is there a results-based model that could work in the energy sector?
When people think of projects around the world to blanket schools with low cost laptops, initiatives associated with the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project often spring first to mind. On a country level, it is the example of Uruguay that is probably most drawing attention from around the world from people interested in learning about how exactly a country can go about providing computing resources to all of its students, and what might happen as a result. Indeed, Uruguay is increasingly a 'must visit' stop for education officials from countries planning for massive investments in technology use in their education systems for the first time, as well as from more 'advanced' countries who have not moved forward as quickly as has in attempting to utilize ICTs to transform the way educational activities are delivered and empower students and communities in new ways. (Just last month, the World Bank sponsored delegations from Armenia and Russia to visit the Plan Ceibal headquarters in Uruguay and learn firsthand about the Uruguayan experience from those who have been leading it.) There is another country whose experience is less well known around the world than Uruguay's, but which is every bit as interesting, but in many different ways: that of Portugal.
Imagine what the world’s leading ocean scientists, policy experts, private sector actors, and activists could accomplish if they united as a single force for ocean health.
We’re about to find out.
Latest business surveys for the Euro Area suggest that the nascent recovery in activity in the region may be shortlived. Recent data suggests that Euro-Area deleveraging has had a negative impact on trade finance, but that trade finance availability should firm during 2012. |
Over the past few days of the World Bank/IMF spring meetings, it’s been exciting to see just how much interest and real commitment there is among the world’s finance ministers to move toward inclusive green growth and sustainable development.
Several finance ministers at the Rio breakfast with Ban Ki-moon, Bob Zoellick, and Christine Lagarde talked about the need for better national wealth measurements that incorporate natural resources. Some were already implementing new forms of natural capital accounting. Others wanted to know more.
They were absolutely clear about two things: They want better methodology, data, and evidence to help guide them on the path to sustainable development, and they see a clear role for the World Bank as a source of that knowledge.
We hope you can tune in live tomorrow, April 20 at 2 p.m. EDT, as government ministers from 40 developing countries are meeting with UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake, UK International Development Secretary of State Andrew Mitchell, Chair of the United Nations Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation His Royal Highness the Prince of Orange, and major donors and water and sanitation sector organizations, to discuss speeding up global access to water and sanitation.
Important developments today:
1. Japanese Yen strengthens as the country’s current account turns to surplus again
2. Japan’s current account returns to surplus in February
Important developments today:
1. Spanish bonds fall on debt concerns, continued rise in unemployment rate
2. US consumers buoy economy.
Important developments today:
1. Financial market volatility is at its lowest since 2007
2. US manufacturing activity remains resilient amid contraction in Eurozone
