The World Bank - Working for a world free of poverty

Views menu

Syndicate content
Making development work for all

About us

About us

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 »

Urban Development

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

Submitted by Joe Qian on Fri, 2009-10-30 10:23
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.

More Vietnam in pictures: fighting and mitigating natural disasters

Submitted by Claudia Gabarain on Fri, 2009-10-16 13:59

As advanced by my colleague James a few days ago, here's a second slideshow on natural disasters in Vietnam, this time showing prevention and mitigation measures put in place across the country. Again, the photos are striking. And the actions, varied and ingenious.

 

Vietnam in pictures: The human toll of natural disasters

Submitted by James I Davison on Wed, 2009-10-14 16:02

Some of my colleagues in the Vietnam office of the World Bank, working with Sai Gon Tiep Thi newspapers, recently organized a photo contest and exhibition on the topic of natural disasters. I thought I’d share some of the finalist entries, which are remarkable in their composition and relevance. It’s important to note that these pictures are not related to the disasters that have hit several East Asian and Pacific countries in recent weeks. Nevertheless, I highly recommend taking a few minutes to click through the pictures below, which focus on the human toll of natural disasters in Vietnam. Check back in a couple days for more photos from the same contest.

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

Submitted by Dave Lawrence on Wed, 2009-07-08 14:06

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.

Video: Getting commuters onto bikes in the Philippines

Submitted by James I Davison on Mon, 2009-05-11 15:48

A couple weeks ago, blogger Chris Pablo wrote here about a project designed to get more people in the Philippines riding bicycles by creating and designating separate bike paths in Marikina City, a medium-sized city at the eastern edge of Metro Manila.

Chris writes:

The project, which started in 2001, seems to have achieved its demonstration effect. From a survey done in 2006, the share of bike trips to all trips in the city increased to 9.5%, from 4% in 1999. Bicycle ownership also grew.

The short World Bank-produced video below gives another look at the successful project:

Bangkok's Skytrain an example of the good infrastructure and services Thailand needs

Submitted by Pichaya Fitts on Mon, 2009-05-04 10:57

It takes me just a few minutes to get to my office roughly two kilometers away. Before the Skytrain came along, the very same journey could take anywhere between 15-45 minutes.

At 2:30 p.m. on a weekday, the Skytrain in Bangkok, Thailand, was still pretty crowded. I squeezed myself into a small space near the doors, waiting to exit at the next stop. Suddenly, a cheery sound of music wafted through the air before a woman, standing not far from me, shouted a "Hello" into her tiny cellular phone.

"I'm on the train, two stops away from you," she told the caller. "Will get there in a heartbeat."

That got me thinking. Getting somewhere in a heartbeat was – at least until 1999 – a luxury no Bangkokian could afford (unless they owned a private helicopter). I remembered when this city's traffic jams topped the list of things that would come to mind when people thought of Bangkok. (The next down in that list would probably be air pollution, but that's a subject for a later discussion!).

Facing traffic and pollution, Philippines city invests in bicycles

Submitted by Chris Pablo on Thu, 2009-04-30 13:54

During the Martial Law years in the Philippines (1970s to early 1980s), there was a story widely shared (discreetly) about a popular TV variety show host who was made to ride the bicycle all day in a military camp. According to accounts, he apparently displeased the rulers at the time for making a quip about the government's running slogan that goes, "sa ika-uunlad ng bayan, disiplina ang kailangan."Loosely translated, it means, "for the country to progress, discipline is what is needed."

What the TV host jokingly proclaimed was – "sa ika-uunlad ng bayan, bisikleta ang kailangan" ("what the country needs for progress is the bicycle"). True or not, the story fascinates me to this day. First, because some people just can't take a good joke. More importantly, because I thought the TV host must be a real visionary! He may have foreseen the traffic and pollution conditions some 15 years in the future and the need for cheaper alternatives for mobility.

Changing the world (map), one dataset at a time

Submitted by James I Davison on Wed, 2009-02-18 13:34

If you are a visual learner like me, or you just happen to like nifty animated maps, a site called SHOW World may be worth spending an afternoon coffee/tea break or two to check out. Similar to the popular WorldMapper collection, this site displays a lot of data from a number of sources (including, apparently, the World Bank) in map form. On an Excel spreadsheet, the information would just look like numbers or a boring old graph. But this site, as SHOW World puts it, offers "a new way to look at the world by resizing countries on the map according to a series of global issues."

The site appears to be adding new datasets to compare, but as it stands you can compare countries on everything from urban populations and CO2 emissions to even Internet usage.

The embedded map below enlarges countries with higher gross domestic product, shrinking those with smaller GDP. Click the center of the map to resize it (or check it out here).

 

(hat tip information aesthetics)

Empowering the poor: Helping urban slums to help themselves

Submitted by Chris Pablo on Fri, 2008-11-07 17:20

The poor need to be empowered, and solutions have to be designed by them. Community organization, a difficult yet key element to successful slum upgrading, is often successfully carried out.

In a country where half of the population lives in urban areas, one would expect colonies of slums (arguably called “informal settlements”) strewn across almost every town with high population densities. The picture is not a far cry from reality, at least in the context of the Philippines, perhaps the fastest urbanizing country in Asia. But even if the country has seen incredible growth over the years, there is hope things can turn around -- and the feeling is not baseless.

I started working on slum upgrading five years ago in several cities across the major island groups of the Philippines. The challenges may differ from one village to another, but seldom do I get the feeling of hopelessness in the slum communities. Most know the root of the problem -- lack of the skills and education needed for gainful employment. They strive to bring their kids to school to address a long-term solution to the problem of poverty. For now, though, near-term solutions are necessary to alleviate poor living conditions of the urban poor.

Through kids’ eyes, a view of road safety

Submitted by James I Davison on Mon, 2008-11-03 10:22

More than 1,600 children from around the world participated in a photography project, designed in part to educate children about traffic safety.

I was surprised to learn recently that the second leading cause of death among children aged 10-14 in this world has nothing to do with disease or lack of access to health care. Traffic accidents result in the death of more than 500 children every day, according to the World Health Organization. More than 85 percent of accidents happen in the developing world, where most children killed or hurt are pedestrians.

An organization called Safe Kids Worldwide reached out to educate children on pedestrian safety with an interesting project called Photovoice: Children’s Perspective on Road Traffic Safety. The project put digital cameras in the hands of more than 1,600 young students in seven countries -- including China, Korea and the Philippines.