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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 »

Rural

Solomon Islands: Bringing agriculture and infrastructure services to rural island communities

Submitted by Edith Bowles on Tue, 2009-08-11 11:15

The expense of operating outboard motor boats means that visits to each community are few and far between.

In December 2008, I spent two and a half days traveling around the Solomon Islands with officers from the government’s Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, which is implementing components of the World Bank’s Rural Development Program (RDP) in Western Province. Jointly funded by the EU and Australia, RDP is the World Bank’s biggest project in Solomon Islands.

In December, the project was just beginning to get going in the provinces. The agriculture workers were looking to the RDP to help restore agriculture extension services. Practically speaking, this means purchasing small boats, outboard motors, fuel, or rehabilitation of offices. At the Ag offices, I was told about the series of dead outboard boat motors lining one wall – including provenance and whatever series of incidents had rendered them inoperable.

Zai jian – Goodbye – See you again: a look back on China's progress upon leaving the World Bank

Submitted by David Dollar on Thu, 2009-07-02 10:46

This is my last week in the World Bank, after working at the institution for 20 years, the last five as country director for China and Mongolia.

A few weeks ago I had the unique opportunity to camp out on top of the Great Wall, which was a fitting exclamation mark at the end of my five years as the World Bank's China Country Director. It was a cloudy, drizzly day as we started, but then cleared up and turned into a lovely evening. The large group of kids we had with us slept in one of the guard towers along the wall, but I and a few others opted to sleep under the stars. The next morning opened with some mist, but then turned into a spectacular blue day. Some long-term Beijing residents hiking with us noted that they couldn’t recall ever seeing the countryside so green.

Beijing’s dry climate sets a limit on how green and blue it’s ever going to get, but the improvement over five years is noticeable and is one of the two most striking achievements of China in this period. In many cities, air pollution has declined as a result of policies that include banning the use of coal in inner cities, strengthening public transportation, discouraging car use (gasoline now costs 50% more than in the U.S.), moving heavy industry out of inner cities, and more stringent enforcement of environmental regulations.

Inquiring minds: Cambodian students worry about their country's future

Submitted by Stéphane Guimbert on Thu, 2009-06-25 16:00

It's been a very enriching experience to listen to the reactions of these 1200 or so college students.

Over the past couple of weeks, thanks to my colleagues Saroeun and Sophinith, I have traveled to various universities in Cambodia to present the findings of the World Bank’s growth report for the country. It's been a very enriching experience to listen to the reactions of these 1200 or so students. It was also nice to see the dynamism of these universities and these students.

Most interesting was the focus of their questions. Although the report is focused on medium- and long-term trends, many questions were about the impact of the global economic crisis. My answer: Cambodia is very exposed to the crisis given its openness and reliance on foreign investment, and despite the strong resilience of its rural economy.

There were also many questions about extractive industries. The answer is in Chapter 5 of the report: there remain considerable uncertainties about the potential in oil and gas and in mining, with in fact practically no major proven commercially viable reserve so far.

Making rural life a little less vulnerable for Mongolian herders

Submitted by David Dollar on Tue, 2009-06-23 14:17

Better materials and student participation characterize the READ schools project. (photo by Prateek Tandon)

Mongolia’s extreme climate was brought home to me again last week as I went with our World Bank team on a retreat about an hour and a half out of the capital city Ulaanbaatar. Wednesday afternoon was hot and summery, but on Thursday a cold front brought extreme storms that knocked out power and left a dusting of snow on the hills around UB. The life of the rural population, mostly herders, is inherently vulnerable in this extreme environment. Yet a number of projects supported by the World Bank have reduced this vulnerability somewhat in recent years.

Traveling around the countryside now I am struck by the fact that – for better or worse – my Blackberry keeps me connected most of the time. One of our innovative projects has offered subsidies, which private phone companies have competed for, to expand coverage in the countryside. The economics of cell phones is such that a one-time subsidy to erect towers will enable private companies to offer connectivity on a commercial basis.

Remarkable progress, remaining vulnerability among China's poor

Submitted by David Dollar on Tue, 2009-04-07 23:01

China's share of population living below the poverty line declined from 65 percent at the beginning of economic reform in 1981 to 4 percent in 2007.

At the height of the recent boom the U.S. household savings rate dropped to zero: the average American family saved nothing from its annual income of more than $38,000 per person. In China, by contrast, poor rural families earning less than $200 per person save 18 percent of their meager income. This is one of the striking findings of the World Bank poverty assessment released today.

The poverty study uses a wealth of household survey and village-level data to tell a fascinating story of progress and vulnerability. The progress is remarkable: the share of the population living below the World Bank's consumption poverty line for China declined from 65 percent at the beginning of economic reform (1981) to 4 percent in 2007. The pace of poverty reduction varied over these 26 years. One of the periods of most rapid poverty reduction has been the boom time since China joined the World Trade Organization. Poverty declined from 16 percent in 2001 to 4 percent in just six years.

Grazing in a nature reserve the only choice for herders in Xinjiang Uighur region of China

Submitted by Tony Whitten on Thu, 2009-03-05 15:26

Just before Christmas my colleagues Judith Schleicher and Zeng Jun joined me on a visit to Lake Aibi in order to visit Kokobasto, a Kazakh nationality village situated north of the lake and within the Lake Aibi Nature Reserve in China's far north-western Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. When I last visited the village (as mentioned briefly in my rant about goats and an accompanying YouTube film), I was told that herders from the high summer pastures to the north came down to Kokobasto during the winter along with their livestock.

I had wanted to meet them and discuss herding practices, even though it was a particularly cold and bleak time of year.  In fact those shifting herders no longer come to Kokobasto, and my following YouTube film documents some of the meetings we had with a selection of the 250 inhabitants who live permanently in the village.

The villagers feel part of Tuoli County, Tacheng Prefecture, to the north, and they have their livestock grazing permit from there. But they actually live and herd their livestock in the nature reserve, which lies wholly within Jinghe County, Bortala Prefecture.

Indonesia: Women in Nias have entrepreneurial spirit

Submitted by Nia Sarinastiti on Tue, 2009-03-03 14:46

Women entrepreneurs in Nias, Indonesia, describe how they manage community loans and expand business ventures.

In the many trips I've taken with the World Bank’s Indonesia Country Director, Joachim von Amsberg, I've always admired how indigenous locals interact with expatriates. I think from the curiosity of whether an expatriate really would like to engage with them and understand their needs, you can actually see the sparkle in their eyes to pose many questions.

In our visit to Hiliweto village of Gido district of Nias, the mission team visited the home of one of the women's group leaders to chat with informal women entrepreneurs on how they manage their community loans and expand their business ventures. At first, the group was reluctant to even answer a question, but Joachim broke the ice by agreeing to have the women ask about him – for example, where he comes from, married or not, children, etc. As the discussion went into a more relaxed mode, we asked what specific program benefits them the most. They all hailed microfinancing. Getting small loans is a common problem in Indonesia because credit is difficult to obtain from banks without having any collateral as a guarantee.

Landing in Gizo: Understanding the Solomon Islands

Submitted by Edith Bowles on Tue, 2009-02-03 16:00

The country is often dismissed as the Pacific's failed state, yet conversations with community members and officials reveal clear visions of what a state can provide in terms of services and a role in community life.

The Gizo airport in Solomon Islands has no parking lot, because there is no road – only a jetty out into the lagoon. It took me several minutes and a walk around the solitary airport building to work this out, by which point my plane had already headed back to Honiara, the country’s capital.

The Gizo airstrip, reportedly built for a visit by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in the 1970s, occupies the entire length of the island of Nusatupe – as a quick look at Google Maps confirms. It is located picturesquely, if ultimately somewhat inconveniently, about two kilometers from the provincial capital island of Gizo. As I was beginning to wonder how I was going to make my way to Gizo, a team from the Government’s Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock fortunately pulled up in an outboard motorboat.

In December, just three months after my arrival in the Solomon Islands to serve as the World Bank’s country manager, I chose Western Province for my second trip out of Honiara. One of the main goals in my first year on the job is to visit each of the nine provinces to begin gaining some understanding of this small but complex country.

Pacific Islands could benefit from cooperative approach to farming

Submitted by Evelyn Ng on Tue, 2008-12-30 14:36

One thing villages in Pacific Island countries can do is to organize the farmers to cultivate the land of participating farmers collectively, increasing manpower and thus improving productivity.

In some Pacific Island countries, such as Fiji, Solomon Islands, Samoa, and Vanuatu, land is fertile and suitable for growing a variety of tropical fruit, vegetable, and root crops. The majority of these populations rely on subsistence agriculture and fishing as their economic mainstay. In some islands, the women and children work the farm while the men fish for the day’s catch. In other islands, the men tend the farm while the women sell the surplus crops in nearby markets.

Land development for commercial agriculture is limited in most of these islands due to issues surrounding communal ownership of land. Take an example of a small farming village in the rural areas near the capital city of Fiji. This village consists of seventy households, of which sixty live below the national poverty line. The head of each household has the right to cultivate a portion of the communal land to feed his family.

After the Sichuan earthquake: Where will people live?

Submitted by Mara Warwick on Thu, 2008-06-26 13:36

Approaching the mountains from the Chengdu plain along the main road to Beichuan County, red banners with large white characters expressing support for the earthquake victims and thanks to the rescuers, are strung across the road, as if creating an arbor for all to pass through.  Driving up this road doesn’t feel safe, even now, six weeks after the quake.  The steep slopes of the mountains on both sides of our vehicle loom above us.  Huge boulders are scattered everywhere on the mountain sides, landslides are all around, and I cannot stop thinking about the description given by a group of tourists of the moment the quake struck: “the mountains exploded as if hit by a megaton bomb”. 

Leigu Township is utterly devastated.  None of our team have ever seen anything like it.   Most of the town is rubble and the buildings that remain will have to be brought down; everything will have to be built again.  The smell of decomposing trash is in the air as we walk through the eerie quiet of ruined streets.  Photos do not do justice to this experience because they cannot express what it feels like to have such devastation all around.  If this were a war zone, I could believe it, but to think that this happened through a force of nature, and all this damage occurred in 80 seconds, is almost beyond my imagination.