<!– <!– /sites/all/themes/blogs/templates/header/js/jquery-1.4.4.min.js –>One of my favorite songs when I was growing up was John Lennon’s “Imagine.” A few months ago, UNICEF created a project around it to highlight the plight of millions of refugee children. Now, as the year draws to a close, I couldn’t help but imagine a world with high-quality, affordable, sustainable, well-maintained, infrastructure services for everyone.
What does it mean to be a ‘sustainable city’, and which cities around the world
are best at it? A new index sets out to find the most successful from a list of 100 cities. The ranking from Arcadis, a design and consultancy firm, and the Centre for Economic and Business Research, assesses the sustainability of cities based on three dimensions. The ranking also highlights the pressure cities are under – from population growth to natural disasters.
The stat is appalling: 1 in 3 women worldwide have or will experience intimate partner 
violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime.
Although it may take the form of domestic violence, gender-based violence is not merely a personal or family matter. Associated with certain societies’ social norms and many other risk factors, such violence leads to severe social and economic consequences that can contribute to ongoing poverty in developing and developed countries alike.
Agriculture is at the heart of addressing poverty in Africa. I was reminded of that during my recent trip to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where different stakeholders had gathered to explore how to transform smallholder agriculture for growth. The recent End Poverty Day activities in Africa, which focused largely on agriculture, was also a reminder of how central the sector is to ending poverty and boosting prosperity. Indeed, the different stakeholders I work with on a daily basis—which includes African governments, development partners, civil societies, the private sector and farmers—all agree: Agriculture is important to the future of Africa.
On November 2, 2016 the Netherlands Enterprise Agency organized an event focused on 
procurement at the World Bank Group in cooperation with the Netherlands’ Embassy in Washington, DC. The procurement event was geared to Dutch companies and organizations who have experience bidding for World Bank funded projects. The sessions were organized to address specific aspects of and bottlenecks in the WBG procurement process. During the interactive sessions the Dutch private sector shared their experiences and their tips and tricks in doing business with the World Bank.
We can share the following presentations:
Article published on http://www.worldbank.org on November 17, 2016.
Women today represent about 50 percent of the world’s population and, for the past two 
decades, about 50 percent of the labor force. Yet there are stark differences in the outcomes they achieve: Women are only half as likely as men to have a full-time wage-earning job. The women who do have paid jobs earn as much as one-third less than men. Fewer women than men are involved in trade or own registered companies. And women are more likely to work in low-productivity activities or informal employment.
Deadline: 21-Nov-2016 at 11:59:59 PM (Eastern Time – Washington D.C.)
The Tourism, Gender and Competitiveness survey is a World Bank initiative to evaluate the impact of the non-all-inclusive versus all-inclusive tourism models on youth and female employment and potential spillover effects to associate sectors such as agriculture in two pilot countries: St. Lucia and Grenada.
WASHINGTON, October 25, 2016 – 
A record 137 economies around the world have adopted key reforms that make it easier to start and operate small and medium-sized businesses, says Doing Business 2017: Equal Opportunity for All, the World Bank Group’s annual report on the ease of doing business.
The new report finds that developing countries carried out more than 75 percent of the 283 reforms in the past year, with Sub-Saharan Africa accounting for over one-quarter of all reforms.
Netherlands for the World Bank 
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