Syrian Arab Republic

Technology works for getting poor people’s problems fixed – we just have to get it right

One of the encouraging signs that I pick up whenever I travel is the difference that technology is making to the lives of millions of marginalized people. In most cases it’s happening on a small, non-flashy scale in hundreds of different ways, quietly improving the opportunities that that have been denied to remote communities, women and young people for getting a foot on the ladder.

And because it is discreet and under the radar I dare as an optimist to suggest that we are at the beginning of something big – a slow tsunami of success. Let me give you some reasons why I believe this.

In World Bank art exhibition, artists unpack displacement stories

Installation shot of Unpacked, a mixed media sculpture by Mohammad Hafez and Ahmed Badr. © Bassam Sebti/World Bank — Installation shot of *Unpacked,* a mixed media sculpture by Mohammad Hafez and Ahmed Badr. © Bassam Sebti/World Bank

As the World Bank Group strengthens support for refugees, internationally displaced people, and their host communities, the World Bank Art Program curated a multi-dimensional art exhibition entitled, Uprooted: The Resilience of Refugees, Displaced People and Host Communities to contribute a unique perspective. This exhibition showcased the creative voices of those artists touched by the refugee crisis, or those artists who were refugees themselves.

Artist Marina Jaber from Iraq. © Bassam Sebti/World Bank — Artist Marina Jaber from Iraq.

The Uprooted exhibition included a visual art exhibition and musical performances featuring over 30 artists from places such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Colombia, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Central African Republic, Burundi, and Guinea. The artists produced works that questioned the impact of transience in individual lives and entire communities of people.

One capstone of the exhibition was the construction of a shed intended to evoke the shelters found in places such as the Azraq Refugee Camp in Jordan. For the exhibition, the shed was enhanced with murals on its sides. Each mural was done by the hand of a different artist – Suhaib Attar, an artist from Jordan and son of Palestinian refugee parents, Marina Jaber from Iraq, a country with millions internally displaced people, Diala Brisly, a refugee from Syria, and Didier Kassai from the Central African Republic, a country in which violence and war have forced hundreds of thousands into displacement.

What drives the radicalization of foreign terrorist recruits?

A lack of economic opportunities in countries located closer to the Syrian Arabic Republic is among the factors explaining Daesh recruiting successes

The world has experienced a dramatic increase in the number of terrorist attacks since 2000 and especially since 2011. More than 100 countries were affected in 2016, with OECD countries suffering the highest number of casualties since the 9/11 attacks. The transnational nature of terrorism has become more salient with the emergence of multinational terror groups such as Al-Qaeda or, more recently, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS or Daesh, its Arabic acronym). The United Nations estimates that more than 25,000 foreign fighters went to the Syrian Arab Republic and Iraq between the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011 and September 2016 to fight for either Daesh or the Al-Nusra Front.

April 2018 global poverty update from the World Bank

In April, PovcalNet revised the World Bank’s global and regional poverty estimates from 1981 to 2013. The next major update of global and regional poverty estimates is scheduled for October 2018, when the global poverty estimates for the reference year 2015 will be released. This will coincide with the launch of the next Poverty and Shared Prosperity report (the 2016 Poverty and Shared Prosperity report can be found here).

Let’s work together to prevent violence and protect the vulnerable against fragility

Participants from 90 countries and 400 organizations joined the 2018 Fragility Forum to explore development, humanitarian and security approaches to fostering global peace and stability. © World Bank

Last week, in a gathering of governments and organizations at the World Bank-hosted 2018 Fragility Forum, the international community took an important step forward in fighting fragility by sharpening our understanding of it, hearing directly from those affected by it and thinking collectively through what we must do to overcome it.

We all agreed, acting on a renewed understanding of fragility and what it means to vulnerable communities represents an urgent and collective responsibility. We’ve all seen the suffering. In places like Syria, Myanmar, Yemen and South Sudan, the loss of life, dignity and economic prosperity is rife. With more than half of the world’s poor expected to live in fragile settings by 2030, we can’t end poverty unless we promote stability, prosperity, and peace in these places ravaged by conflict and crisis.

The invisible door: Three barriers limiting women’s access to work

Women’s labor force participation worldwide over the last two decades has stagnated, and women generally earn less than men. (Photo: Tom Perry / World Bank)

How can we Press For Progress —the theme of International Women's Day 2018— to improve women's opportunities at work? Despite progress on women’s health and education in the past few decades, the gender gap on access to jobs has remained a stubborn challenge.

Migration: The future depends on our actions today

Around 250 million migrants currently live outside their countries of birth, making up approximately 3.5 percent of the world population. Despite the widespread perception of a global migration crisis, this ratio has stayed remarkably stable since the end of the Second World War and lags well behind other major metrics of globalization – international trade, capital flows, tourism etc. A more remarkable statistic is that refugees, at around 15 million, account for 6 percent of the migrant population and only 0.2 percent of world population. In other words, we can fit all refugees in the world in a city with an area of 5000 square kilometers – roughly the size of metropolitan Istanbul or London or Paris – and still have some space left over.

Cities of Refuge: Bringing an urban lens to the forced displacement challenge

Also available in: العربية | Español | Français

Cities of Refuge — Photo credit: Mohamed Azakir / World Bank

The Syrian conflict has reached the grim milestone of becoming the largest displacement crisis since World War II, with over half of the country’s pre-war population having left their homes since 2011—a particularly sobering statistic as we observe International Migrants Day on December 18, 2017 today.

For many of us, the Syrian crisis brings to mind images of refugee families blocked at European borders and sprawling humanitarian camps. Yet the majority of those fleeing the violence have remained in cities inside Syria and in neighboring countries, in the hopes of reaching safety, and accessing better services and jobs.

—and it is not confined to Syria, but a reality across many countries affected by conflict in the Middle East and beyond.

Syrian refugee children’s smiles shine again in Istanbul

Nothing is more satisfying than putting a smile on a child’s face. It is especially true when the child has been a victim of war.

The viral image of the three-year-old Syrian boy, Aylan Kurdi, whose dead body was quietly lying on the beach captivated us. Kurdi’s loss of the chance to flee to a safer life invigorated us to act. We decided to help refugee children adapt to their new lives when arriving in a new country.

And so, our team from the World Bank Youth Innovation Fund (YIF) partnered with Small Projects Istanbul (SPI), a Turkish non-profit organization, to help 20 Syrian children find some happiness and joy in Turkey after fleeing their war-torn country.

YIF provides an opportunity for young employees of the World Bank Group to design, implement and evaluate development projects in client countries focusing on innovation, efficiency and impact on development.

After submitting a proposal to the YIF Proposal Competition, and winning, our journey began. Our project, Turkish Language, Mentorship and Psychological Counseling Program, aimed to support these children to effectively integrate with the local society, develop self-confidence, and have access to education while living in Turkey.

Syrian world wrestling champion helps refugee youth through sports

Amir Awaad was dreaming of gold. The 18-time national wrestling champion trained all his life to represent his native Syria at the Olympics. His dream turned into fantasy when Amir had to fight outside the arena—this time for his life. A year after the war broke out in Syria, Amir, his wife, and three young children fled to Egypt. They settled in Alexandria, where Amir opened the Sports Academy Syria in 2016. Its purpose is to bring together refugee and asylum-seeker youth from 12 different countries to cope pyscho-socially with the traumas they left back home. The method? Intense and proactive training in contact and ball sports.

Syrian Arab Republic

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