Working in public health brings me close to the stories of brave patients and dedicated medical staff. Very often we also conduct quantitative and qualitative assessments of case studies. In recent years, our work in Malaysia engages a public health concern that has gripped the world – HIV. Our findings have given us hope of winning the fight against the disease.
Malaysia sebuah negara yang cukup cemerlang bersandarkan pelbagai ukuran pencapaiannya, begitu menurut Growth Commission, yang mengetengahkan Malaysia sebagai antara ekonomi paling pantas membangun di dunia. Malaysia telah beralih daripada sebuah ekonomi berpendapatan rendah dan berorientasikan pertanian kepada ekonomi moden yang berteraskan perdagangan, malah bakal mencecah status ekonomi berpendapatan tinggi dalam hanya beberapa tahun saja lagi. Dari sudut pandangan kasar pakar ekonomi, rata-rata menganggap Malaysia sedang pesat membangun. Pertumbuhan tercatat tinggi, yakni pada 5.9% tahun lepas dengan unjuran setinggi 5.4% tahun ini, sedangkan inflasi pula rendah, iaitu hanya 1.8% setakat Mei 2018. Pendapatan juga tercatat tinggi, bahkan bakal melepasi nilai AS$12,055 yang menandakan Malaysia telah berjaya keluar daripada perangkap status pendapatan sederhana.
Malaysia is a remarkable country by many metrics, highlighted by the Growth Commission as one of the world’s fastest growing economies. It has transformed itself from a low-income, agriculture-oriented economy, to a modern, trade-oriented one that is on the cusp of reaching high-income status within the next few years. To most economists, especially those looking from the outside, Malaysia appears to be doing very well. Growth is strong, at 5.9% last year and projected at 5.4% this year. Inflation is low, at just 1.8% in May 2018, and incomes are high, approaching the magic US$12,055 threshold that marks an exit from the middle-income status that so many see as a trap.
Di seluruh sektor ekonomi digital di Indonesia, baik perusahaan teknologi raksasa maupun yang lebih kecil mengeluhkan sulitnya menemukan bakat digital. Obert Hoseanto dari Microsoft Indonesia menjelaskan: “Sulit sekali mendapatkan karyawan. Kami menerima ratusan lamaran untuk program magang kami tetapi kami hanya dapat menerima 5 orang.”
Para lulusan pendidikan ilmu komputer juga merasa kesulitan untuk memenuhi keinginan atasan mereka. “Saya hanya menggunakan 30% dari ilmu yang saya pelajari di bangku kuliah saat saya bekerja dulu. Sisanya adalah learning by doing,” kata Natali Ardianto, dari tiket.com, sebuah perusahaan start up Teknologi, Informasi dan Komunikasi (TIK) yang berkembang pesat.
Dalam upaya membahas kesenjangan keterampilan ini, Kementerian Koordinator Bidang Perekonomian menyelenggarakan sebuah lokakarya yang juga didukung oleh Bank Dunia untuk memperolah masukan dari sektor swasta, pakar pendidikan, dan praktisi global.
Across the digital economy in Indonesia, both IT giants and smaller companies have the same complain: digital talents are hard to find. Obert Hoseanto, an Engagement Manager from Microsoft Indonesia, said the company recently contracted only five people for an internship program, out of a pool of hundreds of applicants.
But those applying for jobs are also struggling, with many realizing the difficulties of meeting the needs of their employers. Natali Ardianto is learning the ropes at tiket.com, a thriving start-up, “by doing”, he said. “Only 30% of the curriculum of my education was useful for the company I joined,” he explained.
A recent workshop held by the Coordinating Ministry of Economic Affairs and supported by the World Bank strived to develop a better understanding of this skills gap, by bringing in insights from the private sector, education experts, and global practitioners.
In the infrastructure domain, “price” is a prism with many façades.
An infrastructure economist sees price in graphic terms: the coordinates of a point where demand and supply curves intersect.
For governments, price relates to budget lines, as part of public spending to develop infrastructure networks.
Utility managers view price as a decision: the amount to charge for each unit of service in order to recover the costs of production and (possibly) earn a profit.
But for most people, price comes with simple question: how much is the tariff I have to pay for the service, and can I afford it?
My admiration for hummingbirds began in my native Brazil. The hummingbird’s flight patterns may seem a mystery as they shift from one flower to the next. But hummingbirds are immensely purposeful, agile, and proficient pollinators – among the most hard-working members of many thriving ecosystems. And they can be found from Alaska to the southernmost regions of South America.
The Bank’s efforts to transfer knowledge, germinate ideas, and catalyze change sometimes put me in mind of the hard-working hummingbird. My visit to the World Bank’s Global Knowledge and Research Hub in Malaysia last year is a case in point. As I learned about the Bank’s partnership with Malaysia and the origins of the Hub, I was struck by the broader relevance for our work with upper middle-income countries, and our efforts to share global lessons and leverage knowledge to maximize financing for development. The visit sparked three main observations.
Di antara 29 negara dan ekonomi kawasan Asia Timur dan Pasifik, kita bisa menemukan beberapa sistem pendidikan paling sukses di dunia. Tujuh dari sepuluh pencetak rata-rata nilai tertinggi pada tes yang dapat dibandingkan secara internasional seperti PISA dan TIMSS berasal dari kawasan tersebut, di mana Jepang, Korea Selatan, Singapura, dan Hong Kong, Tiongkok secara konsisten selalu berada di antara yang terbaik.
Namun, yang lebih penting, kita juga menemukan bahwa kinerja yang hebat tidak terbatas pada sistem sekolah di negara-negara berpenghasilan tinggi kawasan ini. Sistem sekolah di negara berpenghasilan menengah seperti Vietnam dan Tiongkok (khususnya provinsi di Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, dan Guangdong), meskipun memiliki PDB per kapita yang jauh lebih rendah, memiliki nilai lebih baik daripada rata-rata negara OECD. Terlebih lagi, nilai dari Tiongkok dan Vietnam menunjukkan bahwa kinerja siswa miskin tidak tertinggal. Siswa dari kuintil berpenghasilan terendah kedua memiliki skor lebih baik daripada rata-rata siswa OECD, bahkan peserta tes paling miskin pun mengungguli siswa dari beberapa negara makmur. Namun demikian, seperti ditunjukkan grafik di bawah, negara-negara lain di kawasan ini belum mencapai hasil yang sama.
Among the 29 countries and economies of the East Asia and Pacific region, one finds some of the world’s most successful education systems. Seven out of the top 10 highest average scorers on internationally comparable tests such as PISA and TIMSS are from the region, with Japan, Republic of Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong (China) consistently among the best.
But, more significantly, one also finds that great performance is not limited to school systems in the region’s high-income countries. School systems in middle-income Vietnam and China (specifically the provinces of Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Guangdong) score better than the average OECD country, despite having much lower GDP per capita. What is more, scores from both China and Vietnam show that poor students are not being left behind. Students from the second-lowest income quintile score better than the average OECD student, and even the very poorest test takers outscore students from some wealthy countries. As the graph below shows, however, other countries in the region have yet to achieve similar results.
Islamic finance has the potential to play a crucial role in supporting the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In the face of significant financing needs for the SDGs, Islamic finance has untapped potential as a substantial and non-traditional source of financing for the SDGs.
The growth of Islamic finance has been rapid at 10-12% annually over the past two decades. By 2015, the industry had surpassed US$1.88 trillion in size. Islamic finance has emerged as an effective tool for financing development worldwide, including in non-Muslim countries, and may prove to be an important contributor towards realizing the SDGs.
The Third Annual Symposium on Islamic Finance was held in Kuala Lumpur in November 2017, co-organized by the World Bank Group, Islamic Development Bank, International Center for Education in Islamic Finance (INCEIF) and Guidance Financial Group to explore the potential contributions that Islamic Finance can make to achieving the SDGs.
