Monthly Archives: January 2015

eInstitute Webinar Series: Urbanization and Economic Growth in China

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The World Bank’s eInstitute Webinar Series presents a webinar on urbanization and economic growth in China.

Structural change and reforms have been a key driver of rapid growth in China: over the last decades China specialized into new industries, its people moved to new locations and firms adapted to new global markets. But China’s urbanization and economic growth is at a crossroads. Gains from spatial reallocation of resources are set to decline and exports can no longer be a driver of economic growth. Because urbanization is one of the most important enabling processes in growth, making it work well is critical.

More information about the webinar and speaker Karlis Smits at eInstitute.

To register, please visit the eInstitute registration page.

IFC publishes Good Practice Note on Improving Animal Welfare

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On December 31, 2014, the IFC published its latest Good Practice Note on Animal Welfare, a revision of the 2006 Good Practice Note on Animal Welfare. Input was provided by, amongst others, the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, Atradius Dutch State Business – Export Credit Agency, and the Office of the Netherlands Executive Director.animal welfare note

This Good Practice Note contributes to IFC’s continued commitment to supporting clients in a responsible and forward-looking approach to traditional livestock production (dairy, beef, broiler chickens, layer chickens, pigs, and ducks) and to aquaculture in intensive and extensive systems to, among other things, help producers access and maintain entry to high quality and value market segments. Continue reading →

Call for nominations to select 7 new members of the WB Civil Society Consultative Group on Health, Nutrition and Population

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Public notice:

The World Bank Group recognizes the critically important role that civil society plays in policy dialogue, service delivery in global health and development. We are pleased to open the call for nominations to select 7 new members of the World Bank Group’s Civil Society Consultative Group on Health, Nutrition and Population (WBG-CSCG-HNP or the Group). Continue reading →

Sahel Women’s Empowerment and Demographics Project

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The development objective of the Sahel Women’s Empowerment and Demographic Dividend Project for Africa is to increase women and adolescent girls’ empowerment and their access to quality reproductive, child, and maternal health services in selected areas of the participating countries, including the recipients’ territory, and to improve regional knowledge generation and sharing as well as regional capacity and coordination. Continue reading →

Towards Universal Health Coverage – Blog by Onno Ruhl & Somil Nagpal

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Blog by Onno Ruhl, Dutch national and World Bank Country Director in India, and Somil Nagpal, Senior Health Specialist. This blog was published on December 16, 2014 on the World Bank website.

Scaling up public health investments alone will not suffice. It will be equally critical to improve accountability.

On Friday, 12 December, for the first time the world celebrated universal health coverage day. On this day two years ago, the United Nations unanimously endorsed a resolution urging governments to ensure that all people can access healthcare without financial hardship.

Until now, most people in India have dug deep into their pockets to pay doctors, pharmacies and diagnostic centres. Paying in this manner—or out-of-pocket spending, as it is called—has been the norm for a long time in India but this is not how most of the world pays for healthcare. In most other countries, including some less developed ones, out-of-pocket spending is far less common than we think. It is far more likely that people pay their medical expenses in some organized manner, such as through tax-financed healthcare or some form of health insurance.

Continue reading →

Cheap technology to tackle corruption – Blog by Tony Verheijen

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Blog by Tony Verheijen, Dutch national who is currently World Bank Country Director in Serbia, and previously Sector Manager of the Public Sector and Governance department in South Asia. This blog was published on December 15, 2014 on the World Bank website.

“Greetings! Sir, we purchased a property worth 11,000 Euros. We paid a tax for the purchase of 800 Euros and paid a bribe of 400 Euros for property registration”.

Citizens from the Pakistan Province (state) of Punjab – population of over 100 million citizens – send numerous SMS messages similar to this to Shahbaz Sharif, Chief Minister of Punjab, on a daily basis. Messages are then processed and consolidated feed-back on government services is posted on a public dashboard for everyone to see. But, more importantly, they provide Punjab’s administration (and the Chief Minister himself) with real time data about the delivery, quality, and efficiency of various public services. The key is, of course, that Sharif and his government follow up on the information they gather: fixing service delivery problems where they arise, rewarding bureaucrats for the good work and/or punish them for the lousy one.

Continue reading →

Royal HaskoningDHV wins major contract coastal protection Bangladesh

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Source: Press release by Royal HaskoningDHV.

International engineering and project management consultancy Royal HaskoningDHV has signed a €10.5 million contract with the Bangladesh Water Development Board for engineering consultancy services to protect Bangladesh’s vulnerable coastal zone, home to millions of people.

The next six yearsRoyalHaskoningDHV will be responsible for the detailed design, construction supervision and project management support of hundreds of kilometres of embankment to protect 17 coastal polders and its inhabitants and their livelihoods from natural disasters and climate change. The total project area is some 1,000 square kilometres.The contract is part of the World Bank financed Coastal Embankment Improvement Project, Phase-1 (CEIP-1) of the Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Continue reading →