Blogs

Can industries take flight in conflict situations?

Can industrial interventions in conflict areas, such as the West Bank, improve prospects for future generations? (Credit: delayedgratification, Flickr Creative Commons) The World Bank is actively expanding its portfolio in the world’s most troubled conflict zones. This invites the question: What can the Bank accomplish in countries riven by conflict? I would flip this question around and ask: What steps are needed by the country to rebuild itself?

Whenever I have asked in-country practitioners (whether Bank staff or local NGOs or journalists) what the country really needs, the answer I have heard most often has been: “Jobs.” Get them good jobs, higher incomes, and break the vicious trap of poverty and violence, is the common refrain.

Promoting Financial Inclusion: Is Mobile Money the Magic Bullet?

Recent innovations in mobile money services have significantly improved the access to financial accounts where Mobile money is just one part of the financial inclusion equation (Credit: imtfi, Flickr Creative Commons) individuals can use their mobile phones to make person to person (p2p) mobile money transfers and pay bills. In countries such as Kenya, Uganda and the Philippines where the adoption of mobile money services has been hugely successful, it has served as important mechanism to replace cash dominated transactions with an effective non-cash payment method.

In such environments, to a large extent cash is in the process of being displaced, however, the financial inclusion needs of the users have only been addressed in a narrow sense. Full financial inclusion by definition requires that the users of the financial accounts not only have access to payment services but also have the ability to save and have access to other financial services.

Why should governments care about improving their payment programs?

In Portuguese

In Spanish

Regardless of a country’s stage of economic development, their governments make payments to, and collect payments from individuals and businesses. Financial resources are also transferred between government agencies. These flows cover a wide range of economic sectors and activities, and in most cases, the overall amount of such flows is significant – normally ranging between 15% to about 45% of the GDP. Pensioners can benefit from safer, efficient and more transparent payment programs. (Credit: World Bank)

However, only 25% of low-income countries worldwide process cash transfers and social benefits electronically and this percentage is only slightly higher for public sector salaries and pensions—and this has considerable cost implications. By going electronic, governments can save up to 75% on costs, a significant amount in an era of stretched resources.

What’s Next for Mobile Money?

In recent years, mobile money has attracted sustained attention in ways that few other mobile services have. And for good reason: from East Africa to Pakistan, the Philippines and elsewhere, mobile money services are growing and diversifying into fields such as savings and insurance. Kenya-based M-PESA remains the global leader, and the benefits from increased market efficiency, consumer risk-sharing and third party utilizations are significant. But mobile money can no longer be considered an isolated phenomenon, and as it matures, a variety of new challenges and benefits will influence its developmental potential.

Mobile money is changing the financial landscape around the world. What's next? (Credit: Flickr Creative Commons, Gates Foundation)

Although it is notoriously difficult to make predictions about such a fast-moving and wide-ranging industry, in the new edition of Information & Communication for Development 2012, we highlight some emerging issues in mobile money that will likely become relevant in the upcoming years.

Some lessons from privatizing national airlines

As a boy growing up in Africa, I always assumed that every country had its own airline. To me, a national airline was just another way a country defined itself, along with its flag, national anthem, and currency. Ghana Airways, which my family often flew (we lived in Kumasi), was a perfect example, with the red, gold and green colors of its national flag painted on every plane. They looked proud and elegant, a perfect symbol of statehood. Does privatization help keep airlines in the sky? (Credit: Matt Hintsa)

Big data for development: Beyond Transparency

For the development community, the focus on ‘data’ has been very much on open data: making public where aid dollars are being spent. This is no small task, and I welcome the rise of platforms and initiatives such as The World Bank’s Mapping for Results, DFID’s Project Map, aidinfo and the International Aid Transparency Initiative. Transparency about aid is very important - it raises public awareness of development work, it enhances accountability among both the givers and receivers of aid, and it can drive out waste, bureaucracy and corruption. Big data can give insight into development challenges, such as nutrition in India. (Credit: Wen-Yan King, Flickr Creative Commons)

But we can do much more with data. Big business already gets this: companies from Tesco to Facebook have been using the data they collect to gain valuable insight on their users and drive efficiency for years. It’s time for governments and the third sector to catch up. In many cases these groups, such as microfinance organisations, local government and community health centres, already collect plenty of data, but don’t make much use of it.

Need to buy Treasury Bills and Bonds? There's an app for that!

OK, not exactly an App, but investors in Kenya will soon be able to buy T-bills and bonds offered by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), as agents of the Treasury, through their mobile phones (with or without a bank account)!

Buying T-bills and bonds through your mobile phone? It's possible! (Credit: kiwanja, Flickr Creative Commons)

This innovative project, led by CBK, with the support of the World Bank, is known as Treasury Mobile Direct. It will aim to extend the use of mobile technology beyond money transfers and broaden the choice of savings products for retail investors. Potential investors will only need a mobile phone line and a subscription to a mobile money service, which will enable telecoms operators open an electronic account with the Central Securities Depository (CDSC) or CBK on their behalf. These accounts are a requirement if you wish to invest in Government debt. The service will include purchase, interest payment and redemption of securities (short-term paper and bonds) through the mobile platform.

Bringing together earth-friendly products and South Africa's poor

Forget about flying cars and wristwatch phones—innovators Will green innovations such as solar cookers be embraced? And by whom? (Credit: infoDev) today are more likely to be tackling solar lamps, cleaner cookstoves, energy-efficient housing and water filters. Such products promise the tantalizing combination of steady jobs, better lifestyles, and a cleaner planet…but for whom, exactly?

The big challenge is making sure that those opportunities reach the more than a billion people living in poverty. Recently infoDev teamed up with the Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship global practice, the World Bank Country Office in Pretoria, and the Gauteng government’s The Innovation Hub to run four workshops on low-income communities’ needs, attitudes and perceptions about climate technology products.

Lessons from a Start-Up Nation

I recently visited Israel to learn about various programs and Researchers are helping Israel succeed in the field of innovation. (Credit: Flickr Creative Commons, IsraelMFA) tools used to support Israel’s innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem. It is well known that innovation and entrepreneurship are two pillars of the Israeli economy and a source of global leadership.

The educational visit was arranged byMATIMOP, the government agency of the Office of the Chief Scientist (OCS) under the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor. It included visits to incubators, technology transfer offices, research institutes, universities and the OCS. We had the opportunity to interact with both directors and beneficiaries of various support programs, and to learn about day-to-day operations, programs, management, and the role programs played in beneficiaries’ lives and businesses.

Promises and Progress: Sustainable Tourism Development and Rio+20

‘Despite the presence of scores of heads of state, Rio+20, as the summit is known, was expected to produce the weakest imaginable commitment to greening the global economy’ - The Economist June 2012

Not the most optimistic of starts to the third global summit on sustainable development…

Why the doom and gloom? As followers of the sustainable development agenda will know, skepticism and fatigue have plagued these international negotiation processes for many years. Whilst progress has been demonstrated on many fronts since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, the meetings themselves can be reduced to endless semantic debate on terminology and tit-for-tat fidgeting - producing weak final documents.

Rio+20 was no exception. Has tourism turned sustainable? (Flickr Creative Commons, StormeTX)

The final Outcome document emerging from the last world summit (the 2002 World Summit of Sustainable Development) outlined five, rather weak commitments specifically for the tourism sector. Ten years on – has there been any progress?

Blogs

Pages

You are here

RESOURCES FOR