Labor and Social Protection

What can Bangladesh do to deliver more and better jobs for everyone?

Bangladesh woman working in flourescent lamp section — Bangladeshi woman works in the flourescent lamp section of SEED Bangla Limited. Photo Credit: World Bank

Bangladesh has made remarkable progress toward ending poverty and sharing prosperity with more of its people. As recently as 2000, about one in three Bangladeshis lived in extreme poverty based on the national poverty line; today, this has fallen to 13 percent. The poorest 40 percent of the population also saw positive per person consumption growth. Like in most countries, a key reason was broad-based growth in earnings. With more than 20 million people still living in extreme poverty and many workers with insecure jobs, Bangladesh cannot be complacent. It needs faster economic growth that can deliver more and better jobs for everyone.

The Future of Work: The number of jobs is not the only thing at stake

Photo of computer lab. Technology is a great job-creating machine. But will these new jobs be better or worse? — Technology is a great job-creating machine. But will these new jobs be better or worse? (Photo: John Hogg / World Bank)

Most of the discussion about the future of work focuses on how many jobs robots will take from humans. But this is just a (small) part of the change to come. As we explained in our previous blog, technology is reshaping the world of work not only by automating production but also by facilitating connectivity and innovation. The changes that digital technology is introducing in the price of capital versus labor, the costs of transacting, the economies of scale, and the speed of innovation bring significant effects in three dimensions: the quantity, the quality, and the distribution of jobs. Let’s see them in detail.

A housing policy that could almost pay for itself? Think retrofitting

Photo by Laura Avellaneda-Cruz via Flickr CC

The demand for decent, affordable – and safe – housing for growing urban populations is a nagging problem for financially strapped governments throughout the developing world. According to McKinsey & Co., a third of the world’s urban population – 1.6 billion people – will be hard pressed to obtain decent housing by 2025.

Housing policymakers, however, have undermined their capacity to increase the supply of good housing, quickly, by strapping themselves inside the myth that it is always better to build new homes rather than strengthening existing ones.

In Colombia, for example, 98% of all housing subsidies fund the acquisition of a new house or apartment; almost nothing goes to retrofitting existing homes to withstand the forces of nature and the tests of time.

While new construction may be a more attractive way to create schools, hospitals, and other public infrastructure, housing is a bigger, more pressing and complicated problem that may have a simpler solution: Bringing existing housing up to a decent standard of safety through retrofitting.

It’s not only a more efficient way to deploy limited government subsidies, but also a strategy to leverage these public funds with another private source in reach of governments: homeowners.

Counting the uncounted: 1.1 billion people without IDs

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An estimated 1.1 billion people worldwide cannot officially prove their identity, according to the 2017 update of the World Bank's Identification for Development (ID4D) Global Dataset.

Identification matters

How do we prove who we are to the people and institutions with whom we interact? Imagine trying to open your first bank account, prove your eligibility for health insurance, or apply for university without an ID; quality of life and opportunities become severely restricted. An officially-recognized form of ID is the key enabler – critical not only for exercising a wide range of rights but also for accessing healthcare, education, finance, and other essential services. According to the World Bank Group’s latest estimates, this is problematic for an estimated 1.1 billion people around the globe.

Addressing this most basic barrier was the rationale behind the international community’s decision to set target 16.9 in the UN Sustainable Development Goals: “to provide legal identity for all, including birth registration” by the year 2030. It was also the impetus for the World Bank Group’s launch of the Identification for Development (ID4D) initiative in 2014.

In order to work effectively towards this ambitious goal, governments and development partners need to understand the scale of the challenge – and every year the World Bank Group updates the ID4D Global Dataset to do just that. Using a combination of publicly available data (e.g. birth registration coverage rates from UNICEF) and self-reported data from ID agencies, we estimate the population without an officially recognized ID in 198 economies. In addition, we collate relevant qualitative information such as details on the agencies and ministries responsible, and the prevalence of systems which are digital (now introduced in 133 economies, but not necessarily with full coverage in each).

How is Medellin a model of urban transformation and social resilience?

Although it was known during the 1980s and most of the 1990s as the most violent city of the world, the city is putting those years behind by working toward building a more inclusive, vibrant, and resilient city.

The city of Medellin has successfully implemented an integrated and multi-sector approach that has included a combination of violence prevention programs and a deep commitment of its people to build a prosperous, inclusive and livable city. For that reason, the experience of Medellin in integral urban transformation and social resilience attracts intense interest from other cities around the world.

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This week (May 29 to June 2, 2017), representatives from more than 35 cities are in Medellin sharing different methodologies and experiences with respect to security, coexistence, and resilience. This “Medellin Lab” is the first living laboratory program in Colombia, organized by Medellin’s International Cooperation and Investment Agency (ACI), the World Bank, USAID, and the Rockefeller foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities network.

In this video, Santiago Uribe, the Chief Resilience Officer (CRO) of the City of Medellin, as well as the World Bank’s Senior Director Ede Ijjasz-Vasquez (@Ede_WBG) tell us a bit more about the experience of the Medellin Lab and .

In Cali, Colombia, social inclusion is key to reducing violence and building resilience

Today, the term "resilience" has many definitions and encompasses a multitude of dimensions beyond natural disasters.

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The 2011 World Development Report positioned security as a critical development issue and pointed to the importance of strengthening institutions and governance to provide citizen security, justice, and jobs is crucial to break cycles of violence. Similarly, the World Bank’s flagship report on social inclusion, Inclusion Matters points to the importance of empowering people by transforming institutions to make them more inclusive, responsive, and accountable.

In Cali, Colombia, violence prevention is one of the main aspects of the city’s Resilience Strategy, which recognizes the importance of social inclusion in reducing violence and improving quality of life of the city.

In this video, Vivian Argueta, the Chief Resilience Officer (CRO) of the City of Cali, Colombia, and World Bank Senior Director Ede Ijjasz-Vasquez (@Ede_WBG) discuss Cali’s resilience strategy and its focus on violence prevention.

The Middle East, version 2.0.

Let’s be honest. The Middle East and North Africa is burning, and in some areas it is literally burning. Conflict and fragility have long warped what once was the cradle of civilization and the inspiration for the many inventions we can’t live without today. However, in the midst of that fire hope rises, a driver of change that is transforming the ugly reality into a bright future.

After I fled the war in Iraq in 2006, I was pessimistic about what the future was holding for that region. Year after another, the domino-effect of collapse became a reality that shaped the region and its people. Yet, fast-forward to 2017, I have witnessed what I never thought I would see in my lifetime: the new renaissance in the Middle East and North Africa.

I have just recently come back from attending the World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa at the Dead Sea in Jordan. This year, the Forum and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, partnered to bring together 100 Arab start-ups that are shaping the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

There, the positive vibe was all around; no negativity, no pessimism. Instead there was a new sense of optimism and enthusiasm, hunger for change, and the will to take the region to a whole new future, away from conflict and the current norm of pessimism.

Can technology reshape the world of work for developing countries?

Automation, connectivity, and innovation will together determine how world of work will look in both developed and developing countries. (Photo: Sarah Farhat / World Bank)

The Future of Work was not only the first topic of this year’s G20 Labor and Employment Ministerial Meeting, it's also white hot in today’s blogosphere. Yet most pieces portray a developed world perspective with an emphasis on robots, and how they are taking the jobs away, and skills development as the key policy response. But what does the rapid technological change mean for global poverty and inequality? How does it affect the world of work in developing countries?

New Zealand has much to offer the world

New zealand - World maps on line — New Zealand Map. Photo Credit: Academia maps GeoAtlas

When people think about New Zealand’s most famous son, Sir Edmund Hillary, they mostly think about the quiet Auckland bee-keeper who conquered Everest in 1953.

Of course, there’s much more to the man. He raised money for the Sherpa communities in Nepal that built schools, hospitals and much more. His commitment to the people of South Asia was also reflected in his successful term in the 1980s as New Zealand’s High Commissioner to India.

As the most senior New Zealander in the management of the World Bank, I have come to appreciate Sir Edmund’s commitment to the people of South Asia and believe it shows how much New Zealand can offer the world. This will not only make the world a better place but can also help New Zealand too.

A perspective on jobs from the G20

Factory workers in Ghana — When talking about the Future of Work, it is important to go beyond discussing robots and changes in employer-worker relationships; these might not be the primary labor market problem that low-income countries face. *(Photo: Dominic Chavez/World Bank)*

On May 18-19, the G20 Ministers of Labor met in Bad Neuenahr, Germany to discuss and adopt their annual Labor and Employment Ministerial Meeting (LEMM) Declaration advocating for "an integrated set of policies that places people and jobs at center stage." In this, the meeting did not shy away from some of the more thorny issues to reach the overarching goal of fostering "inclusive growth and a global economy that works for everyone." It focused on the much-feared future-of-work, the longstanding challenge of more and better employment for women, better integration of recognized migrants and refugees in domestic labor markets, and ensuring decent work in the international supply chains.

Labor and Social Protection

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