Claudia Gabarain's blog

Floods are the most frequent among all natural disasters. In 2010 alone, 178 million people globally were affected by floods. More than 90 % of the global population exposed to floods lives in Asia.

Last week the World Bank's Chief Economist for the East Asia and Pacific region took questions on the economic prospects for the region during a one-hour live chat. Soon after the release of the latest East Asia and Pacific Economic Update, Bert Hofman took the chance to directly address some of the questions you and others submitted in advance and during the live chat. 

As a follow up event to the recent release of the Bank'slatest East Asia and Pacific economic update, our lead economists spent around 1 1/2 hours this Tuesday answering your questions on the findings of the report, and other economic issues. Looking at the length of the transcript of that chat and the variety of topics covered, it almost constitutes another economic report by itself (!).

Vikram Nehru and Ivailo Izvorski discussed how countries can address inequality, the destabilizing effects of excessive capital inflows, the crucial role of more and better higher education in the region, the prospects for improving the lives of the rural poor, whether China's stimulus package "saved the world" (in one questioner's words), and in what way the many foreign trade agreements in the region resemble "a spaghetti bowl" (in our Chief Economist's words). Take a look here and, you have any questions of your own, reply to this blog entry: either Vikram or Ivailo will reply.

A couple of weeks ago the Bank released its half-yearly economic assessment of developing countries in the East Asia and Pacific region. The report confirmed the robust recovery of the region's economies overall, but flagged a number of emerging risks, particularly around the return of large capital inflows and appreciating currencies.

The Chief Economist for the region, Vikram Nehru, and the Lead Economist Ivailo Izvorski will be live online in just a few hours, November 2 at 10 a.m. EST (14:00 GMT and 10:00 p.m. Beijing time) to answer your questions on the issues presented in the report. It's always better to submit a question in advance to have a better chance of having it answered, so do send your questions --and/or follow the live chat-- here.

Big news: the World Bank has launched an open data site with more than 2,000 financial, business, health, economic and human development statistics. Until now, most of this had been available only to paying subscribers. Not only that, but the site and indicators are also available in French, Spanish, and Arabic --with 330 indicators initially, but set to grow.

For those who need a little background and more info to understand just how big this move is, check out this story (also in Chinese) that explains the potential and impact of making this data free. For data geeks and developers, just dive right in and enjoy.

Ivailo Izvorski, the Lead Economist for the East Asia & Pacific region of the World Bank (and our latest blogger, below this post), and Vikram Nehru, Chief Economist for the region, held a live online chat a couple of days ago where they answered a good number of questions about China's currency, GDP forecasts, free-trade agreements, and structural reforms, among others. It's a good read that brings the findings of the latest East Asia & Pacific Economic Update closer to the questions many of you have. Take a look at the chat transcript and, if you have any other questions, pose them to Ivailo through his latest blog entry.

A bunch of software programmers get together, listen to a list of desired projects formulated by aid, emergency, and development experts that would help tackle issues related to disaster relief, work for two days and the result is eleven applications that will allow users to easily report their status in the event of a disaster, locate family, provide data needed by emergency responders, or that will automatically process aerial images taken by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), among others.

Presentation of the microUAV image registration system (photo courtesy of Todd Huffman under a Creative Commons license).

This is what happened at the first "Random Hacks of Kindness" event in San Francisco, a hackathon that served as the basis of a global community of developers and subject matter experts that will work on development and reconstruction issues. The idea originated at a Crisis Camp barcamp held at the World Bank in Washington DC last May, when representatives from Google, Microsoft and Yahoo agreed that some matters supersede competitive concerns and decided to cooperate and mobilize developer communities to create software that is openly shared with the international community to have a real impact on the field. The Bank led the partnership and it now includes NASA and SecondMuse as well.

Almost like an audience-customized appendix to the World Bank's East Asia and Pacific Update November 2009, the live online chat held last Thursday by the regional Chief Economist, Vikram Nehru, and the lead author of the report, Ivailo Izvorski, answered a good number of questions in detail.

From diversifying Cambodia's economy to the right moment to suspend governments' stimulus packages, Vikram and Ivailo also touched on the effect of a weak US dollar in East Asian economies, on the challenges to generate domestic growth in export-dependent economies, and on the risks of inflation and asset price bubbles in the region, among others. Take a look at the transcript.

As advanced by my colleague James a few days ago, here's a second slideshow on natural disasters in Vietnam, this time showing prevention and mitigation measures put in place across the country. Again, the photos are striking. And the actions, varied and ingenious.

Ateneo de Manila University Disaster Response Group, photo courtesy of L.A. Lomarda under a Creative Commons license.

Some of the big-name, international agencies and NGOs are already mobilizing to assist the victims of typhoon Ketsan (Ondoy) in the Philippines, and donation sites have been set up by the local Red Cross, UNICEF, and the World Food Programme.

I asked a few of my colleagues in the Manila office to list some local aid organizations, and I share their suggestions here with you. Churches in the Philippines are very active at a grass-roots level, so their presence in this short list should come as no surprise: