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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 »

Poverty Reduction

Empowering young people in Timor-Leste

Submitted by Laura Keenan on Fri, 2011-08-12 11:46

Timor-Leste has one of the youngest populations in the world, with more than three quarters under 30. Opening pathways for young people – allowing them to get an education, find employment and engage in public life – will be critical for building lasting peace and development.


Gender “mainstreaming” — not (actually) lost in translation

Submitted by Patricia Fernandes on Sun, 2011-07-31 20:54

Available in 中文

Changes were made in the way village meetings were run so women would participate more.

Whenever and wherever the Bank supports a project, to “mainstream” gender is one of the goals. The idea is a fairly simple one. Right? Making sure that men and women benefit equally from the poverty reduction activities we support. 

There are a number of tools we produce to help us achieve this—Gender Analysis, Regional Gender Action Plans, County Gender Action Plans, Gender Disaggregated Outcome Indicators, Gender Check-Lists, Strategies and Tool-Kits, etc. So looking at the amount of guidance we seem to need one might be forgiven for thinking this is an exceedingly complex task and for wondering whether in reality (i.e. after that board approval is done and the real work of implementation begins) all of the “gender mainstreaming language” doesn’t get a little lost in translation… 

性别“主流化”–– 执行中不走样

Submitted by Patricia Fernandes on Sun, 2011-07-31 20:52
项目对村民会议的方式做出调整，让妇女更好的参与其中。

版本: English

无论何时何地，实现社会性别“主流化”都是世行支持的发展项目的目标之一。出发点非常简单––确保世行支持的扶贫活动让男女都能平等受益。

 

为了实现这一目标，我们开发了一系列的工具：社会性别分析、区域性别行动计划、国家性别行动计划、按性别分列的成果指标、社会性别检查清单、战略和工具包等等。如此看来，这确实是一项极其复杂的任务，难免让人怀疑 “性别主流化”的种种政策是否能在执行过程中不走样。


From Kerema to Port Moresby: the raincallers and the road

Submitted by Aleta Moriarty on Tue, 2011-05-03 18:23

Roads are not sexy. You don’t see glossy ads pleading for people to sponsor a road. You don’t see the construction of a road moving global audiences to tears. There are no celebrities, concerts, wrist-bands for the road. I guess that is because for most people in the developed world, we take roads for granted.

Recently I spent some time around Kerema, which although only 350 km from the country’s capital, feels as one of the most remote and cut-off places in Papua New Guinea. Kerema is the Gulf’s provincial capital and, with its surrounding villages, it has been cut-off from the rest of the country due to a mere 67 km of mostly un-passable road. Under the Roads Maintenance and Rehabilitation Project, the World Bank has been supporting the Government of Papua New Guinea to restore the road. Today, the Bank’s Board of Executive Directors approved the second phase of this project, which will see the rest of the road restored and paved to a proper national standard.

Far from home in China: conversations with migrant workers searching for opportunities in urban centers

Submitted by Joe Qian on Fri, 2009-10-30 11:23
Quality Control Inspector Jiang Peng walks on scaffolding along the foundation of the water treatment facility.

While traveling through China recently, I had an opportunity to visit the Shanghai Urban Environment project in the emergent suburban district of Qingpu and spoke to a number of workers responsible for the implementation and completion of the project.

As with many infrastructure and urban development projects in China, the speed and magnitude can be astonishing, with hundreds of employees working around the clock to ensure timely completion. Work on the facility runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with construction workers from all over China contracted to work and live onsite until its completion in 2011. Once finished, it will improve water service, coverage, and waste water management in the region which will be essential for sustaining the increasing population and living standards.

A quick look at 60 years of China's development

Submitted by James I Davison on Thu, 2009-10-08 17:18

Last week’s 60th anniversary celebrations marking the founding of the People’s Republic of China seemed to generate a lot of coverage and interest on news and social media websites. Business magazine Fast Company used the occasion to consider 15 different development-related statistics – comparing then to now.

Most of the figures are striking, and the graphic’s triangles illustrate how rapid and staggering the changes have been in China in just six decades. Interesting data (although the magazine doesn't specify its sources) in the infographic include:

  • The average life expectancy has increased from 35 to 73 years old.
  • The rate of illiteracy was 80 percent in 1949 and is 9.1 percent now.
  • The enrollment rate for primary-school children went from 20 percent to 99.3 percent.

Take a closer look at the chart here. (Hat tip to Cool Infographics.)

'Facebook for farmers' brings microloans to people in rural China

Submitted by James I Davison on Wed, 2009-09-16 17:20

The founders of a microfinance website I came across a few months ago are giving an interesting, benevolent twist to social networking. At least, that’s one way of looking at Wokai.org, a non-profit organization benefiting entrepreneurs in rural China.

Wokai has been dubbed by some as a “Facebook for farmers,” yet it may be more comparable to well-known microfinance sites like Kiva, which allow people with an Internet connection to give loans directly to entrepreneurs in developing countries. Wokai, however, focuses solely on impoverished people living in rural China.

Indonesia's 'big bang' decentralization experiment: Helping poor regions spend resources well

Submitted by Wolfgang Fengler on Thu, 2009-08-20 13:40

After five years in Indonesia, my family and I have left this wonderful country and moved to Kenya. The last five years have been excellent years for Indonesia. The economy stabilized, growth resumed and services started to improve, although modestly and not in all areas. Indonesia still remains an underrated country, but this may change. Indonesia has only mildly been affected by the global crisis. After holding its second direct presidential election, where more than 100 million Indonesians cast their votes, the country can expect another five years of political and economic stability, and possibly some improvements in the business climate.

In my last blog on Indonesia, I’d like to focus on Indonesia’s decentralization experiment, which was put in place ten years ago and made effective on January 1, 2001. Indonesia’s decentralization was a by-product of its democratization after the dismantling of Suharto’s “new order” regime.  Indonesia then implemented one of the most ambitious decentralization programs of modern times, radically transferring responsibility and financial resources to lower levels of government. My colleagues Bert Hofman and Kai Kaiser coined the phrase “big bang decentralization” (pdf). Even though decentralization makes sense in a country covering three time zones and more than 17,000 islands, many were skeptical about this experiment, particularly in the central government.

Mongolia's growing shantytowns: the cold and toxic ger districts

Submitted by Dave Lawrence on Wed, 2009-07-08 15:06

Children breathe thick, toxic smog from thousands of stoves in Ulaanbaatar's ger districts, which are home to 60 percent of the city's population.

There’s no capital city anywhere in the world with a housing problem like Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Imagine a city of one million people. Then imagine 60 percent of them living in settlements without water, sanitation or basic infrastructure, often in traditional Mongolian felt tents, known as gers. Then imagine these people relying on wood- or coal-burning stoves for cooking and heating, with fuel costs eating up 40 percent of their income. Then imagine the discomfort of having to get up in the middle of the night when it’s -35 degrees Celsius to go to the bathroom – outdoors.

Worst of all, imagine you and your children breathing the thick, toxic smog from thousands of stoves 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Unfortunately, this is not imagination, this is the real situation for over a half million people living in the ger districts of the capital. Not a pretty picture.

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 11:46

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.