Jim Rosenberg's blog

The twists and turns of the global economy have been the focus of conversations in board rooms, backyards and everything in between since 2008. A new dialogue has emerged about the future – including how to protect the very poorest, create economic opportunity and ensure equality. Amid this, the upcoming Spring Meetings will convene a conversation on several of these themes, including social safety nets, job growth, access to finance and gender equality.

During past meetings, the Bank has opened the doors for public participation through Open Forums on the food crisis and on gender. This spring, we’re turning a part of that conversation over to the public in a new way. We’re asking leaders from the fields of health, finance, technology and more to take questions in a series of live video interviews starting April 18 – via World Bank Live and on Facebook and Twitter.  We’re calling it “5 Questions, 5 Minutes.”

Here’s how to get involved:
Visit http://live.worldbank.org to peruse the participants already lined up. Several of the interviews will be conducted in multiple languages, including Arabic, French, Japanese and Spanish. You can submit a question right now.

Here’s a preview of some of the interviews:

• Ramzia Aleryani |Chairwoman, Yemeni Women Union
• Interview with Carol Civita |Philanthropist, Fundação Victor Civita, Brazil
• Interview with Michael Elliott | President and Chief Executive Officer, ONE
• Kristalina Georgieva |European Commissioner for International Cooperation
• Corazon "Dinky" Juliano-Soliman | Secretary, Department of Social Welfare and Development, Philippines
• Betty Mwangi | General Manager, Financial Services, Safaricom, Kenya

Coverage starts April 18 - watch the interviews live or replay them in our video archive.

During the meetings, you’ll find live blogs and chats on several World Bank events, in addition to our 5 Questions live stream.  Join the conversation on our live chats, on Twitter or on Facebook.  On Twitter, you can participate directly with the hashtag #wblive.

The live video stream will wrap up on April 21. Anything you missed will be available to replay – and we’ll be listening  to see which issues and topics that our audience wants to hear more about in the future.

So what are you waiting for? Ask now, share with your friends.

It’s 2011. Today, there is global recognition of women’s rights. More girls go to school, rapidly closing (and in some cases, even reversing) the gender gap in education. There has been a sharp decline in fertility rates.

Yet worldwide, women make up the majority of unpaid workers. Only 15% of landowners and one in five lawmakers in the world are women. One out of every 10 births are by mothers ages 15-19, almost all of them in developing countries. Violence against women is still widespread.

It’s time to increase women’s economic opportunity and their voice in decision making.  It’s time to think EQUAL.  You care about getting to EQUAL.

You can begin by sharing your experience. Are men and women equal where you live? Take the poll.

On September 20-21, 2011 the World Bank is hosting our third Open Forum, a global conversation to look at what changes are needed in the world for women and men to be equal.

Get involved:

TAKE THE POLL Do men and women have equal rights?

SUBMIT IDEAS & VOTE about ways “to get to equal”. 

PARTICIPATE IN THE 24-HOUR GLOBAL CHAT FORUM beginning Tuesday, September 20th. The chat forum will be hosted by gender activists, entrepreneurs and academics. Sign up for a reminder

WATCH THE LIVE DEBATE on Wednesday, September 21st at 10:00 EST.  The ideas that get voted up will be debated by experts.

SPREAD THE WORD to your network:

• Write a blog post or news story about gender equality and the Open Forum
• Send an email to your colleagues, community, network, and friends. Ask them to take the poll. 
• Post one of the images below on your website with a link to the Open Forum
• On Twitter or Facebook?  Tell the world “It’s time to #thinkEQUAL". Here are some sample posts:

Investing in women: A tried & tested way to fight poverty. Let’s #thinkEQUAL http://thinkequal.worldbank.org via @worldbank

#thinkEQUAL. It makes economic sense. Not investing in women limits a country’s potential. http://thinkequal.worldbank.org via @worldbank

Women arnd the world talk abt what EQUAL means. Add your voice. http://thinkequal.worldbank.org #thinkEQUAL via @worldbank
 
Do you #thinkEQUAL for women and girls? What abt where you live? Take the poll http://thinkequal.worldbank.org via @worldbank

What does EQUAL mean to you? Take the #thinkEQUAL poll http://thinkequal.worldbank.org via @worldbank 

Are men and women EQUAL where you live? Take the #thinkEQUAL poll http://thinkequal.worldbank.org via @worldbank

It’s time to #thinkEQUAL for women and girls. Share your ideas, join the Open Forum Sept 20-21. http://thinkequal.worldbank.org via @worldbank

It’s 2011. Do men and women have equal rights? It's time to #thinkEQUAL - take the poll! http://thinkequal.worldbank.org via @worldbank

What does EQUAL mean to you? Submit your ideas http://thinkequal.worldbank.org via @worldbank

Do you #thinkEQUAL for women and girls? Take the poll! http://thinkequal.worldbank.org via @worldbank

Women make up the majority of unpaid workers in the world.  It’s time to #thinkEQUAL http://thinkequal.worldbank.org via @worldbank

It’s 2011. And only 15% of the world’s landowners are women. It’s time to #thinkEQUAL http://thinkequal.worldbank.org via @worldbank

Globally 358,000 women died during pregnancy and childbirth in 2008. It’s time to #thinkEQUAL http://thinkequal.worldbank.org via @worldbank

Only 19% of parliamentarians in the world are women. It’s time to #thinkEQUAL http://thinkequal.worldbank.org via @worldbank

Rising and volatile food prices are causing pain and suffering for poor people around the world, driving 44 million people into extreme poverty in recent months. On April 14-15, 2011 we are hosting our second Open Forum, a global conversation to look at the problem and possible solutions to overcome the food crisis.

We have begun soliciting ideas to help put food first for the world’s 1 billion hungry people, and have seen an enthusiastic response. The online chat segment of the discussion will start at noon EDT on Thursday, April 14, and engage a global audience in multilingual chats lasting 24 hours. Experts and global ambassadors who care about the issue will be moderating the chats; answering audience questions and engaging them on the various facets of the food crisis problem.

Help us create awareness for this important issue and the event itself. If you care about food security, consider:

• Writing a blog post about putting food first
• Embedding related videos
• Stealing our tweets
• Posting to Facebook 
• Blasting an email to your colleauges, friends, and

Food Crisis info:
Food prices are highly volatile and rising. Prices have soared 29% in just a year, and are now just shy of their peak during the 2008 global food crisis. Every day almost 1 billion people go to bed hungry. Every minute 170 people become desperately poor simply because food is too expensive. Since last year, wheat prices have increased by 79%, rice by 17%, and maize by 73%. Food has never been so expensive.

The recent food price hikes have driven about 44 million more people into poverty. Poor harvests and weather wrecking havoc on crops have played a role in driving up prices. Some people blame speculation on agricultural commodities or a lack of investment in agriculture as key factors behind high food prices and high price volatility. Whatever the reasons, it’s clear hunger is on the rise. We need to find solutions to put food first and ensure everyone has enough nutritious food now and in the years to come.

Get involved:
1) Submit ideas to overcome the food crisis and put food first for the world's 1 billion hungry people at http://www.worldbank.org/openforum
2) Sign up for a reminder to join the global chat forum about the food crisis. Begins Thursday, April 14th at 16:00 GMT (12:00 pm ET).  Get your time
3) Watch the live webcast of experts discussing your ideas on Friday, April 15th at 14:00 GMT (10:00 am ET) Get your time
4) Spread the word using twitter hashtags #foodcrisis and #wblive

Twitter & Facebook ideas:

Rising food prices are causing pain and suffering for poor people around the world http://bit.ly/putfoodfirst #foodcrisis #wblive

Share ideas, debate solutions for the #foodcrisis at http://bit.ly/putfoodfirst Live chat Apr. 14-15.

Food prices pushed 44m people into extreme poverty. Debate solutions Apr. 14-15 at http://bit.ly/putfoodfirst #wblive

Everyone deserves nutritious food - #fighthunger and debate ways to end the #foodcrisis. http://bit.ly/putfoodfirst #wblive

Put food first: every day almost 1b people go #hungry. Debate solutions, share ideas at http://bit.ly/putfoodfirst #wblive

Tweets with names, for example::
Join @josettesheeran @Calestous @TomArnoldCEO @mattfrei @Loarie to debate #foodcrisis 4/14 http://bit.ly/putfoodfirst #wblive

Tweets with orgs, for example:
Join @wfp @concern @Calestous @wbclimatechange @bread4theworld to debate #foodcrisis 4/14 http://bit.ly/putfoodfirst #wblive

 YouTube videos:

English 60 sec promotional video
English 30 sec promotional video
English "What's your solution?" video
Spanish 60 sec promotional video
French 60 sec promotional video
Arabic 60 sec promotional video

Useful links:
Alias: http://www.worldbank.org/openforum
English page: http://live.worldbank.org/open-forum-food-crisis
Spanish page: http://envivo.bancomundial.org/foro-abierto-crisis-los-alimentos
French page: http://live.banquemondiale.org/lutte-contre-faim
Arabic page: http://live.albankaldawli.org/open-forum-food-crisis
Social media link: http://bit.ly/putfoodfirst
Meet the Experts: http://live.worldbank.org/open-forum-food-crisis#meet-the-experts
Submit your idea: http://live.worldbank.org/open-forum-food-crisis#submit-your-idea

This week I’m at the Mobile World Congress, the annual jamboree for some 50,000 people from 200 countries whose livelihoods are focused on the device you probably wake up with, carry everywhere with you, and are more likely to miss than even your misplaced or stolen credit card: your mobile phone. I’m here because more than half of social media activity globally happens via mobile handsets and because if people from Mashable, Twitter, FourSquare and Google are turning up at the same place at the same time, it’s probably worth checking out. 2011 is signaling the full-on dominance of mobile web, internet, and social media in the mobile space.

There’s much to be in awe of here. In just the past 48 hours I’ve played with the 3-D handset on offer from LG, and seen a friend based in Nairobi brandish a $50 Huawei smartphone with Google’s operating system, Android (note that in the U.S., the typical Android handset costs north of $500 without subsidy from a mobile operator).  And for the two billion or so people globally who probably can’t afford even a $50 handset, there was welcome news Monday when a firm called Gemalto announced that it had crafted what I’d call a poor man’s version of Facebook, housed on a SIM card and using SMS to send and receive data between handsets and Facebook servers. This means Facebook, which already reaches 600 million people, will potentially be available to almost anyone on the planet with a mobile device.

Though I work full-time on social media for the World Bank, my career started in public broadcasting. “Radio is the modern version of oral tradition,” a former journalism professor of mine would say, likening radio to the way in which people have communicated for years: using stories, narratives, to connect, to break down complex ideas into concrete pieces. That line resonated with me, summing up the power of radio to connect people using the shared experience of a broadcast.

Radio was – and still is - one of the most intimate forms of media ever created. It comes right into our homes, our cars, our showers (if you are lucky enough to have a shower). I’d wager that in any city in the world, people spend more time with the radio than they do any other form of media.