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East Asia & Pacific is facing some great development challenges today: urbanization, protection of the environment, the need to find renewable energy sources and many others. This site wants to create a conversation around those important issues. More »

recovery

Indonesia: A return to Aceh amidst hopes for peace and prosperity

Submitted by Dini Djalal on Tue, 2012-03-27 10:18

Juga tersedia di Bahasa

My first trip to Aceh was in August 1998, four months after the resignation of former President Soeharto. It was the height of Indonesia's pro-democracy Reformasi movement, and many journalists thought that travel permits were still required, as it had been for decades. My friend and I were venturing as 'tourists'. In many villages, the legacy of repression remained: razed houses, shuttered schools, and households run by widows. Poverty was unavoidable; violence and economic growth are often incompatible.

Samoa after the disaster: The wave of fire and the kid called Tsunami

Submitted by Aleta Moriarty on Thu, 2012-03-22 23:00

In June 2009 Samoa was the set for the popular TV program Survivor. It was a fantastic choice. It is one of those picture-perfect places–shady palms, trees dripping with fruit, blossoming hibiscus, all framed by powder sand beaches. It is a vastly understated paradise.

A few months later, the country was once again centre stage. This time for something utterly distressing and heart-breaking as the country embarked on the harrowing search for real life survivors after they were struck by a powerful tsunami on 29 September 2009.

Galu afi means “wave of fire” and is the traditional Samoan word used to describe a tsunami. It describes the force that gains momentum as the wave generates and the sheer destruction that it brings to bear. That is what happened here.

In Queensland, no great barrier to flood recovery

Submitted by Henrike Brecht on Thu, 2011-05-05 15:56

The New Year was not so happy in Queensland, Australia. In December 2010 and January 2011, floods swept across the state and at the beginning of February 2011, cyclone Yasi, a category 5 storm, struck near Cairns. Dozens died, hundreds were evacuated, thousands were affected and an excess of US$15 billion of damages were caused. A state of emergency was declared in all but one of the 75 councils. Seventy percent of the state was impacted; an area five times the size of the United Kingdom. 

Rebuilding paradise – Samoa's recovery from the 2009 tsunami

Submitted by Tobias Haque on Thu, 2011-04-21 15:44

On the surface, the pace of life in the Pacific island country of Samoa is slow. Island time. That’s an impression that’s reinforced when touring the idyllic string of resorts and beach fales (small timber and thatch tourist cottages, often without walls and open to the tropical breeze) along the South East coast of Upolu, Samoa. You can watch the heat rise in a haze across the ridiculously tranquil blue waters and golden sands, as coconut palms wave, and tourists enjoy a weekend drink in the seafront restaurant of the locally-owned and recently rebuilt Tafua beach fales.

Two years after the Sichuan earthquake: still working "black and white, five plus two" on disaster recovery

Submitted by Eleanor Dougoud on Wed, 2010-05-12 14:48
Remembering May 12, 2008 - a boy in Weima Town looks at the Town’s rebuilding plans with the construction going on around.

Today is the second anniversary of the Sichuan - Wenchuan disaster, two years since the 8.0 magnitude earthquake hit six provinces in China, killing more than 68,000 people and affecting an area roughly equating to 60% of Texas, or 80% of France. It is these rough calculations that have stuck in my mind for the last two years, since the Bank started working with the government of China on an emergency recovery loan. The immensity of the task being undertaken in reconstructing the 4 million homes destroyed, restarting livelihoods and restoring hope for the 15 million people affected is very difficult to comprehend. 

The resilience of the people affected is incredible, as is the continued dedication and drive of those working in the reconstruction and recovery program in the affected area. The team in Sichuan on the government side coined a term during a Bank mission: “black and white, five plus two” when they talked of how they were still working day and night, weekdays and weekends. Every mission since we remember it and joke about it, but it has a sincere and valid reality behind it.

Why has developing East Asia led the global economic recovery?

Submitted by Ivailo Izvorski on Tue, 2010-04-06 23:30

Only a few expected in late 2008 that East Asia would lead the world economy out of the crisis. Skeptics pointed to the continued dependence of the region on exports to advanced economies. And skeptics and believers alike were predicting that all countries in the region would rethink their growth models to focus more on domestic demand rather than exports and investment.

What a difference a year and a half makes. East Asia has recovered from the economic and financial crisis, with output, exports and employment mostly at pre-crisis levels. Leading the global economy, real GDP in developing East Asia is set to grow 8.7 percent in 2010, up from 7 percent in 2009, according to the World Bank’s East Asia and Pacific Update report launched today (and of which I’m the lead author, full disclosure here). The projected growth rate for 2010 is almost a percentage point higher than our own forecast made six months ago, and is higher than the 8.5 percent expansion recorded in 2008.

Haiti earthquake: Out of great disasters comes great opportunity

Submitted by Abhas Jha on Mon, 2010-01-18 01:33
A collapsed building in Port-au-Prince. Photo by IFRC/Eric Quintero under a Creative Commons license.

The scale and magnitude of the earthquake in Haiti has shocked, saddened and horrified us all. But there is a silver lining to this great tragedy. Looking back in history, great natural disasters are often a catalyst for huge, positive change.

The great fire of London in 1666 led to a massive rebuilding effort, better building regulations and, in the end, a safer, cleaner city that maintained the medieval street plan that is still visible, to some extent, today. The Wall Street Journal has an interesting discussion of how the impact of the 1755 earthquake in Lisbon led to the creation of a new metropolis with earthquake-proof buildings, wide thoroughfares and a sewer system. The massive reconstruction financing required after the great fire of Copenhagen of 1795 led to the creation, in 1797, of Kreditkassen for Husejere i Kjøbenhavn (The Credit Association of Copenhagen homeowners), the precursor of modern mortgage markets.

East Asia & Pacific: Risks to economic recovery from the return to business-as-usual in developed countries

Submitted by Ivailo Izvorski on Wed, 2010-01-13 11:57

The prediction season is in full swing, and prognosticators have, as usual, appended the warning that economic forecasts at this stage are subject to exceptional uncertainty.  Such exceptional uncertainty is always with us when looking ahead – there is always a fork in the road, no matter what the circumstances are. 

The nuance this year is that, while the recovery in East Asia will depend on prospects for the rest of the world, notably in the advanced economies, the outlook for those economies hinges on policies to address the causes of the financial crisis. Thus far, it’s clear that very little has been done to redress the regulatory issues that led to a near meltdown of the global financial system – while the rebound from the financial and economic crisis has been substantially stronger than anticipated only months earlier.  And these developments explain why opinions differ on the future path of regulatory reforms and their impacts.

Recovering from storms Ketsana and Parma in the Philippines: the importance of people's voices in recovery and reconstruction

Submitted by Dave Llorito on Mon, 2009-12-14 18:15
A recently released Post-Disaster Needs Assessment tells of big numbers: total damage and losses following typhoons Ketsana and Parma was US$4.3 billion.  (Photo by Nonilon Reyes)

My mind raced back to the remote town of Balangiga in Eastern Samar, as the Philippines government, development partners and the private sector were discussing the findings of the Post-Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) in a recent dialogue in Makati City.

The PDNA—prepared by a team of local and international experts from the government agencies, private sector, civil society and development partners—tells about big numbers: total damage and losses following two typhoons, Ketsana and Parma, was US$4.3 billion. And resources needed for the Philippines to pick up the pieces and eventually get back on its feet is equally big—more than US$4.4 billion (pdf). There were discussions about how the PDNA could serve as a framework for recovery and reconstruction, but my mind kept telling me that one of the key principles to effectively address floods and disasters in Metro Manila and other parts of Luzon—on top of the required resources, processes, and governance reforms—lies in the experiences of residents of that remote town in the Visayas Islands.

In Thailand, finding the way back into growth: Step 1, switch the supply chains back on

Submitted by Frederico Gil Sander on Wed, 2009-11-04 13:35

As part of its regular monitoring of the corporate sector in Southeast Asia, the World Bank economic team I am part of in Thailand has been working on a short case study of supply chains of Japanese multinational companies (MNCs) in the electrical and electronics (E&E) industry. We wanted to hear directly from firms about how the crisis affected them, how they were able to adjust so quickly to the drop in demand, what the rebound looked like, and what were the prospects going forward to upgrade along the value chain. I have learned a great deal from these interviews, and have become convinced that supply chains are central to understanding the current crisis in Thailand and East Asia more generally.

Some facts: the crisis had a disproportionate impact on manufacturing. In Thailand, manufacturing represents about 40 percent of GDP, but contractions in manufacturing value added have accounted for about 75 percent of the contraction of headline GDP. Within manufacturing, the auto and E&E industries account for the bulk of the contraction. Most of the output in those industries is exported, and more than three-fourths of the decline in Thai exports during the crisis was due to falls in shipments from the auto and E&E industries. My conclusion is that the magnitude of the crisis in Thailand has been driven primarily by these two industries.