End Poverty in South Asia
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Sri Lanka

How to Upgrade Housing in Informal Settlements?

Parul Agarwala's picture

According to recent estimates, South Asia is facing a shortage of 38 million housing units, largely affecting low and middle-income households. It comes as no surprise that informal settlements, slums and squatters are growing in all major urban centers across Asia to supplement the demand from urban poor. India alone has 52,000 slums inhabited by 14 percent of its total urban population. Almost, 50 percent of total population in Karachi, i.e. 7.6 million persons, lives in Katchi-Abadis. Bangladesh has 2,100 slums and more than 2 million slum dwellers in Dhaka. Even in Afghanistan, 80 percent of residents in capital city, Kabul, live in informal settlements.

National Identity Cards: Adding Value to Development

Rajib Upadhya's picture

In addition to permanent centers, NADRA has a fleet of vans that it uses to register Pakistanis living in remote areas.Considering the costs, it was never obvious to me how investments in a national identity program might add development value in a resource-crunched country like Nepal with so many competing priorities. It clicked when a senior official at Pakistan’s National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) said, “The national identity program has allowed us to construct one big family tree of all Pakistani nationals. It is helping Pakistan establish a relationship between each member of our extended family and to redefine our obligations to one another — state to citizen and citizen to citizen.”

Youth Have the Answers!

Mary Ongwen's picture
Also available in: Español | العربية | Français

A woman walks down a busy street in Nepal

All it took was an invitation to open the floodgates. More than 1,200 South Asian youth responded to our call to share ideas on how to end gender-based violence in the region. The judges had the difficult task of picking 10 winners from about 60 finalists, but there were many more great solutions submitted. Here are some of my personal favorites that were not selected.

Les jeunes ont les solutions!

Mary Ongwen's picture
Also available in: English | Español | العربية

A woman walks down a busy street in Nepal

Une simple invitation a suffi à provoquer une avalanche de réactions. Plus de 1 200 jeunes d’Asie du Sud ont répondu à notre appel, en nous faisant part de leurs solutions pour lutter contre les violences sexistes dans leur région. Le jury a eu la tâche délicate de désigner 10 lauréats parmi les quelque 60 finalistes, mais bien d’autres propositions de qualité ont été soumises. Voici quelques-uns des messages qui m’ont le plus touchée, mais qui n’ont pas été retenus.

الشباب لديهم الإجابات!

Mary Ongwen's picture
Also available in: English | Español | Français

A woman walks down a busy street in Nepal

كل ما كان لتبادل الأفكار حول كيفية وضع حد للعنف القائم على نوع الجنس في المنطقة. وتولي المحكمون المهمة الصعبة المتمثلة في اختيار 10 فائزين من بين حوالي 60 متسابقاً ومتسابقة وصلوا إلى النهائيات، ولكن كان هناك العديد من الحلول العظيمة التي تم تقديمها. وفيما يلي بعض من المشاركات المفضلة لي بشكل شخصي والتي لم يتم اختيارها.مطلوباً هو دعوة لفتح الباب على مصراعيه. فاستجاب أكثر من 1200 من الشباب من جنوب آسيا لدعوتنا 

¡La juventud tiene las respuestas!

Mary Ongwen's picture
Also available in: English | العربية | Français

A woman walks down a busy street in Nepal

Bastó una invitación para abrir las compuertas. Más de 1.200 jóvenes de Asia meridional (i) respondieron a nuestro llamado y compartieron ideas sobre cómo poner fin a la violencia de género en la región. Los jueces tuvieron la difícil tarea de escoger a los 10 ganadores (i) de entre alrededor de 60 finalistas, pero llegaron muchas más fabulosas soluciones. Aquí están algunas de mis favoritas que no fueron seleccionadas.

Connecting Cities for Growth

Parul Agarwala's picture

The emergence of mega-regions, as metropolitan areas merge to form a system of cities, has demonstrably contributed to growth in the developed countries. With South Asia experiencing one of the highest urbanization rates, connecting cities presents opportunity to mobilize people, goods and services, and develop supply chains over larger spatial areas. However, this also implies unraveling overlapping commuting patterns, economic linkages, social networks, multiple jurisdictional boundaries- which add to the complexity of decision-making for policymakers and practitioners.

Why I Love Technology

Jeggan Rajendram's picture

"Phones today are more powerful than computers I used as a kid, apps become increasingly awe-inspiring and problems are solved everyday using technology."

Technology excites me so much I get goosebumps just thinking about how cool it is, and how much cooler it will be with every passing year.

When we started the first daily deals company in Sri Lanka, we took the risk of starting a large scale online business in Sri Lanka and it wasn't without its problems. Many questions came up; isn't the internet penetration too low? Isn't credit card penetration too low? Wouldn't people be afraid of buying things online?

Everybody is an Innovator

Thrishantha Nanayakkara's picture

Join Thrishantha and other experts on the World Bank Sri Lanka Facebook page on April 2nd at at 4PM Colombo Time for a live chat on innovation!

One day, I was driving in a remote town in Sri Lanka, when I saw this encouraging scene. A few school kids were playing cricket on a rainy day, and they had made a wicket out of three umbrellas. It might look simple, but a very powerful message about innovation is hidden right there. An innovator in my view is somebody who practices to ask two simple questions: 1) is there a better way to do this, or simply, is there a way to do this? 2) why did it happen that way? The second question is driven by the curiosity to learn the rules of nature, while the first question is driven by a very healthy attitude to get things done by exploiting the rules of nature. The kids who used the three umbrellas for a wicket simply asked if they could find something in their environment to serve the purpose of a wicket. Quite subconsciously, these kids, by embedding in nature, by walking barefooted on mud, grass, and sand, have mirrored natural laws of nature in their brains, that provided them with the basis to change the utility of an umbrella to a stump of a wicket. Therefore, in my view, best innovators are those who are active outside the classroom as well as in the classroom and laboratories.

Think Big, Start Small

Ismail Radwan's picture

Join an online discussion with Ismail on Tuesday, April 2nd at 8-11AM on the World Bank's South Asia Facebook page to ask questions and learn more about his experiences.

The Dalai Lama once said - that if you ever feel you are too small to make a difference then try sleeping in a room with a mosquito. And the same goes for business. Every big business starts as a small business. General Electric was at one time the world's biggest company and it started with a simple but revolutionary idea - the invention of the incandescent light bulb in 1878 and the vision of just one person Thomas Edison.

Walmart started with a single store in 1945 and is now the largest private employer in the world. Starting with one store and the idea of making lots of cheap goods available all over the US, Walmart has created more than 2 million jobs. And of course more recently we have lots of examples in the technology and innovation space Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Ebay, Dell and Facebook. All are multi-billion dollar companies that started out in a single room, a basement or garage with a simple idea shared at first by a one or two people.

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