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Sustainable Communities

Completing the storytelling ‘circle’: a VR project goes home

Tom Perry's picture
Development organizations & NGOs need powerful stories to help people connect with their work. Yet how do communities feel after their stories have been shared?

After leading the production of a climate change Virtual Reality production in Fiji and returning it to communities, Tom Perry, the World Bank's Team Leader for Pacific Communications, shares his thoughts.

5 điều cần làm để chấm dứt ô nhiễm nhựa

Anjali Acharya's picture
Also available in English



Que hút bằng nhựa là một trong những chất thải bằng nhựa hàng đầu trong các đại dương, và chúng không thể tái chế được. © Kanittha Boon/Shutterstock
 
Các báo đưa nhiều tin buồn. Một con cá voi hoa tiêu đực bị chết và dạt vào bãi biển ở Thái Lan vì đã nuốt 80 túi nilon; hình ảnh về những con rùa mắc trong 6 cái vòng nhựa, một con cá ngựa nhỏ xíu cuộn đuôi vào một cái tăm bông bằng nhựa. Các sản phẩm nhựa trôi dạt hàng ngày trên các bãi biển toàn thế giới – từ Indonesia đến bờ biển tây Phi, và các con kênh trong các thành phố ngày càng tràn ngập chất thải nhựa.

Nhưng cả thế giới bắt đầu chú ý đến điều đó và các nước, các doanh nghiệp, người dân, cộng đồng đã bắt đầu hành động. Từ cấm, đánh thuế các sản phẩm nhựa dùng một lần đến đầu tư vào thu gom rác thải và các chính sách làm giảm số bao bì bằng nhựa và dọn vệ sinh bãi biển. Chúng ta đang cố gắng cai nghiện thói quen dùng nhựa, làm cho cuộc sống và hành tinh lành mạnh hơn.

纪念世行贷款汶川地震灾后重建项目的难忘岁月

Yi Shi's picture
Also available in: English
作者(左3）与同事、世界银行专家在项目现场。摄影：华玛雅/世界银行


十年，对活着的人们而言，意味着游子回家的路会越来越近；但对于逝去的人们而言，他（她）在亲人的心中却越走越远……恰逢汶川地震十周年之际，我写下此文记忆参与世行贷款汶川地震灾后恢复重建项目历时八年的工作经历，感恩在这场深刻影响中国和撼动世界的自然灾害中为灾后重建付出心血和努力的人们。

Wenchuan Earthquake, ten years on: Building back stronger

Yi Shi's picture
Also available in: 中文
Photo：Mara Warwick/World Bank

It’s been ten years since the Wenchuan Earthquake struck China, leaving an everlasting scar on ravaged land, but also revealing the strong and unyielding will of the Chinese people.

Tackling a known unknown: How post-disaster aid can provide what people really need

Markus Kostner's picture
Photo: Patrick Barron (World Bank)

Within a few weeks of the disaster, the tents, half a dozen of them, were lined up along a creek where houses with bamboo walls and nipa roofs had once stood. They were brand new… and empty. They had been provided to survivors of Nargis, the cyclone that killed an estimated 140,000 people in the Ayeyarwady Delta of Myanmar in one night in 2008.
 
However, despite these provisions, the cyclone survivors preferred to stay in makeshift huts they had built on the other side of the village path with any materials they could find. The tents were too flimsy, they said, and could fly away if another storm kicked up.

Sometime thereafter, they packed the tents neatly and stored them with other items they had also received and never used: sleeping bags much too warm for the monsoon climate, and gasoline stoves where no gasoline was sold.

Better forecast, better preparedness – investing in improved weather services

Adeline Choy's picture

Sun or rain? Most of us rely on the daily weather forecast to know what to wear or whether to bring an umbrella. However, for millions of people living in flood prone areas, timely and accurate forecasts, as well as early warning, can impact more than just clothing choices –they can help minimize flooding impacts.
 
Floods are the most frequent and damaging among natural hazards. Between 1980 and 2016, floods led to economic damages exceeding US$1.6 trillion, and more than 225,000 people losing their lives. Compounded by rapid urbanization and climate change, these losses will likely increase, especially in fast-growing countries.

Mongolia, despite a scattered population, works to make every voice heard

Amarbayasgalan Dorj's picture
Also available in: Mongolian

With only 2 people per square kilometer, Mongolia is one of the most sparsely populated countries on earth. While that can make public service delivery daunting, improving health and education outcomes is possible if we include citizens in the decision-making process.

The country is taking steps to ensure this: Its second Open Government Partnership National Action Plan outlines specific measures to improve transparency, public accountability and citizen participation. With the World Bank and the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation, the government is also working to mainstream social accountability to empower the poor and vulnerable segments of Mongolian society.

An annual summit brings together pieces of the infrastructure puzzle

Jyoti Shukla's picture

On Thursday, April 5, the World Bank-Singapore Infrastructure Finance Summit will take place – the eighth time that the World Bank, the Government of Singapore, and the Financial Times are partnering to hold this annual event.
 
The Summit has gone from strength to strength each year, and helped pave the way for the many infrastructure-themed events across the reigon. This year, as Singapore’s chairing of ASEAN brings its ministerial meetings to the city-state, finance ministers from across Southeast Asia will join the Summit, and their presence underscores the importance they attach to sustainable infrastructure development.

Risk of sea-level rise: high stakes for East Asia & Pacific region countries

Susmita Dasgupta's picture
Home and boats on the water. Photo: ©Curt Carnemark/ World Bank

Sea level is rising, and the rise in sea level will continue beyond the year 2100, even if greenhouse gas emissions are stabilized today.  Expected to rise by at least one meter during this century according to the current scientific consensus, sea levels may even rise by three meters by 2100, in light of the new evidence on ice-cliff instability of the Antarctic.
 

For new evidence on ice-cliff instability of the Antarctic and its implications for the magnitude and time-phasing of global sea-level rise, see
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature17145
http://www.nature.com/news/antarctic-model-raises-prospect-of-unstoppable-ice-collapse-1.19638
https://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/antarctica-doomsday-glaciers-could-flood-coastal-cities-grist-eric-holthaus/  
 

Dangers of sea-level rise include but are not limited to:

  • land loss from the permanent inundation of low-lying coastal areas;
  • intensification of inundation from cyclonic storm surges;
  • loss of critical coastal wetlands, for example mangroves; 
  • progressive salinization of soil and water.

“新加坡又如何呢？”——全世界最佳公共住房项目的成功经验

Abhas Jha's picture
Also available in: Mongolian
English

Photo of Singapore by Lois Goh / World Bank

随着第九届世界城市论坛在吉隆坡的召开，各国政府在实施《新城市议程》过程中努力解决的难题之一是如何规模化提供优质经济适用房，后者是可持续发展目标11——构建可持续城市和社区的一个关键内容。
 
我从前在拉美地区从事经济适用房相关工作过程中，我们持续向世行借款客户提出的一条意见是：政府部门自身建设和提供住房并不是个好主意。相反，用（已故）世行知名经济学家史蒂文·梅奥的话讲，我们应该使住房市场发挥作用。对此意见，世行借款客户一般会回应说，“那新加坡又如何呢？”，此时我们会说，新加坡案例很独特而且不可复制。

[更详细了解世界银行参加世界城市论坛的相关情况]
 

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