Women driving the Middle East and North Africa forward, one business innovation at a time
Our continued belief in the enormous resourcefulness, resilience and sheer drive of young Arab women has yet again been reconfirmed.
Gender
Our continued belief in the enormous resourcefulness, resilience and sheer drive of young Arab women has yet again been reconfirmed.
Three things we need to know about “SOGI”
May 17 is the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, or IDAHOT.
Why should we care about IDAHOT? Because sexual orientation and gender identity, or SOGI, matters.
Here are three things we need to know about SOGI:
First, SOGI inclusion is about zero discrimination.
Despite some legal and social progress in the past two decades, LGBTI people continue to face widespread discrimination and violence in many countries. Sometimes, being LGBTI is even a matter of life and death. They may be your friends, your family, your classmates, or your coworkers.
What happens when business training and capital programs get caught in the web of intrahousehold dynamics?
Two weeks ago, I blogged about a new paper by Arielle Bernhardt and coauthors which looked at the idea that when women receive a cash infusion from a program, they may give it to their husbands to invest in their business.
The unheard voices of women caregivers for people with mental illness
Thirty-year old Vijaya (name changed) spent 10 years of her life not talking to anybody. Her parents were daily wage laborers, scraping together a sparse living in India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu. Unaware of any treatment, and afraid of being stigmatized or shunned by their community, they did not disclose their daughter’s illness to anyone. Instead, Vijaya suffered in silence, confined to the house, and hidden from public view.
It was only when the Tamil Nadu government’s Mental Health Program (TNMHP) reached out to their community that Vijaya’s life underwent a dramatic change. After six months of working with the program’s community facilitators, Vijaya’s parents took her for treatment, and within a year, the young woman began interacting with others more frequently.
Poor mental health places a huge burden on individuals, families, and society. From developed countries to emerging market economies, mental disability – ranging from common mental disorders such as depression to severe mental illnesses and retardation – has profound impacts on people’s economic and social well-being.
As cited in “Out of the Shadows: Making mental health a global development priority” in 2010 alone, depression cost an estimated US$800 billion in lost economic output. What’s worse, these costs are expected to double by 2030.
Celebrating 15 Years of reengagement in Afghanistan
Shortly after the Soviet invasion in 1979, the World Bank suspended its operations in Afghanistan. Work resumed in May 2002 to help meet the immediate needs of the poorest people and assist the government in building strong and accountable institutions to deliver services to its citizens.
As we mark the reopening of the World Bank office in Kabul 15 years ago, here are 15 highlights of our engagement in the country:
- Tags:
- Sustainable Communities
- #ResilientAfghanistan
- Youth
- Water
- Urban Development
- Transport
- Trade
- Social Development
- Public Sector and Governance
- Private Sector Development
- Poverty
- Migration and Remittances
- Law and Regulation
- Labor and Social Protection
- Information and Communication Technologies
- Health
- Governance
- Global Economy
- Gender
- Financial Sector
- Environment
- Energy
- Education
- Disasters
- Conflict
- Climate Change
- Agriculture and Rural Development
- South Asia
- Afghanistan
Introducing #LACfeaturegraph blog contest - A chance to voice your views on poverty & inequality
Are you a student or a young professional passionate about development and data? Do you care about poverty and inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)? Then this blog contest is for you.
Regular readers of this space will know by now that we have run a periodic blog series - #LACfeaturegraph – that highlighted a particular data point from our LAC Equity Lab data portal and analyzed critical development issues across the region. Now this is your chance to be a part of this effort. You, too, can use the data from the LAC Equity Lab and come up with a blog entry that addresses some of these issues. Through the contest, we are looking for original, well-written posts whereby participants can share their perspective on poverty and equity issues in the LAC region and also recommend plausible public policy interventions.
The winner of this blog contest will get his or her entry published as part of the #LACfeaturegraph series. The winner will also have the opportunity to visit the World Bank Group headquarters in Washington D.C. at a later date to participate in a poverty event. Blog entries will be accepted for a month – from May 15, 2017 to June 15, 2017.
Breaking ground in gender parity in Bangladesh’s primary schools
Going through the narrow streets of Savar, you are surrounded by homes and shops on both sides - doors opening for business, the smell of heated oil in the pan, and the wait for the morning rush hour to begin. Then you spot the uniformed children: in pairs, in threes or walking solo to school. Among them you see many self-assured young girls, equal in numbers, with their heavy bags and tight braids. Some are being escorted by their mothers and siblings, and some are being dropped off by a mode of transport. But everyone is excited to come to school.
As part of the government led Third Primary Education Development Program (PEDP3), the Dhorendra Government Primary School in Savar – about 2 hours from the nation’s capital – is an example of how Bangladesh has made remarkable gains in ensuring access to education in the past two decades. The program, initiated in 2011, covers Grades I through V and one year of pre-primary education. It aims to enhance the quality of education in Bangladesh, and reduce disparities in access and learning.
More than 70% of donor partner financing is linked to results achieved on the ground and disbursed after meeting program targets associated with a set of key indicators. These indicators represent critical reforms, and cover a subset of the government’s program for primary education. The program is a good example where the government and donor resources are well harmonized, according to co-Task Team Leader Saurav Dev Bhatta.
As a result, the country’s net enrollment rate at the primary school level has increased from 80 percent in 2000 to above 90 percent in 2015. Furthermore, the percentage of children completing primary school is close to 80 percent. With nearly 6.4 million girls in secondary school in 2015, Bangladesh is among the few countries to achieve gender parity in school enrollment, and have more girls than boys in the secondary schools.
Scaling up inclusive innovations: 10 lessons for donors
Only a small fraction of women in rural India have a bank account, reinforcing existing gender inequity. Without access to financial services, women miss out on government benefits, like cash transfers. Alternative for India Development (AID) delivers financial products to women and other underprivileged populations through a unique business model. In partnership with the government and commercial banks, AID established more than 600 Common Service Centers that serve as one-stop delivery points to financial and government services. In just three years of operation, AID opened 200,000 deposit accounts, one-third of which belong to women. Thanks to these accounts, underprivileged populations was able to receive pensions, government subsidies and access free savings accounts.
AID is just one of a large and growing number of businesses that combine profits with impressive development results. These businesses are known as social enterprises, and the innovations they develop play a critical role in providing life-improving goods, services, and employment to hundreds of millions of poor people. Social enterprises can be distinguished from other public and private organizations by the fact that they pursue social objectives through commercially viable business models and are independent from the government.
In his recent blog, World Bank Group President Jim Kim urged the development community to partner with social enterprises to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. This will require a different approach to scaling results of successful social enterprises, their inclusive innovations, and business models. In a recent Brookings Working Paper we reviewed the literature and experience with scaling up social enterprise innovations and summarized lessons for how scaling up can be best managed. Here we briefly explore the main implications for external donors.
Pakistan youth can be the future they want to see
The first day of the Digital Youth Summit in Peshawar saw corridors and rooms crowded with entrepreneurs and digital gurus from across the world looking to map out Pakistan’s digital future.
These young and enthusiastic innovators are helping to redefine the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) as an emerging technology hub, and providing substantive skills and resources for Pakistan’s youth to take advantage of digital opportunities. At the summit – sponsored by the World Bank with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa IT Board and many other partners -- these students, entrepreneurs, enthusiastic young women and men are accessing trainings, announcements, and various forms of support to unlock new possibilities to realizing their potential.
The market for digital entrepreneurship is a multi-billion-dollar industry, growing at a rapid rate and is thirsty for young talent. These opportunities represent a shift in how we think of development—bringing the creativity and passion of tech-savvy young innovators to the forefront of social and economic change. The youth of Pakistani are well placed to be in the driver’s seat of this vibrant future.
Money for her or for him? Unpacking the impact of capital infusions for female enterprises
In a 2009 paper, David McKenzie and coauthors Chris Woodruff and Suresh de Mel find that giving cash grants to male entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka has a positive and significant return, while giving the same to women did not. David followed this up with work with coauthors in Ghana that compared in-kind and cash grants for women and men. Again, better returns for men (with in-kind working for some
