Recap: Compliance Event

The Netherlands Enterprise Agency and the World Bank Group held a joint event on

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Compliance and Integrity on February 1st, 2019 in The Hague. The event focused on taking a practical approach and shedding some light on specific issues and questions. The World Bank explained the major do’s and don’ts when working with the Bank and what it means to be under investigation.

The event was well attended and well received by the audience which comprised mainly of the Dutch private sector. The insights and openness of the participants helped the audience understand the issues that arise and more importantly how to proceed in those cases.

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Introducing the new representative at the Inter-American Development Bank: Bjorn Kuil

On August 1st Bjorn Kuil started as Senior Counselor at the Board of the Inter-American bjorn kuilDevelopment Bank, having previously held the position of senior policy officer at the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs since October 2013.  “Throughout my career in the public and private sector I’ve come to realize that finance can leverage relationships, mitigate risks, and plays an important catalytic role. It has become my mission working towards sustainable, inclusive economic development as this is an indispensable part of efforts to combat poverty and improve global living conditions in line with the Sustainable Development Agenda. When looking at all the challenges facing the world, including inequality, population migration, and climate change, there is a clear role for development finance in nearly all of them.”

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Sint Maarten launches recovery project opportunities website

In 2017 Sint Maarten was violently hit by hurricane Irma which prompted the Dutch government to provide funds to help with the recovery. The Dutch government contributed 550 million euros of which EUR 470 million placed in a trust fund, managed by the World Bank Group. Since the inception of the trust fund we have been reporting on the project developments and the opportunities arising for the private sector.

The government of St. Maarten has now officially launched a website dedicated to jobs and opportunities funded by the trust fund for the recovery efforts. Below the list of current opportunities which can be found at https://nrpbsxm.org/. 

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This is What it’s All About: Boosting Renewable Energy in Africa

This story is part of a series that will run ahead of the third edition of the One Planet Renewable-energySummit which will take place in Nairobi, Kenya, on March 14, 2019. The Summit will bring together global leaders, entrepreneurs, international organizations, and civil society, to help accelerate and focus attention on climate investments in line with the Paris Agreement objectives. The Summit will focus on promoting renewable energies, fostering resilience and adaptation and protecting biodiversity in Africa. Follow #OnePlanet for live updates and tune in live on March 14.

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The jobs challenge is bigger than ever in the poorest countries

Over the next decade, close to 600 million people will be looking for jobs, mostly in the The West Africa Agricultural Productivity Program (WAAPP) - Ghanworld’s poorest countries. The South Asia region alone will need to create more than 13 million jobs every year to keep pace with its demographics. In Sub-Saharan Africa, despite a smaller population, the challenge will be even greater—15 million jobs will need to be created each year.

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The ticket to a better ride: How can Automated Fare Collection improve urban transport?

In both developed and developing countries, a growing number of cities are relying on fr-navigo-pass-paris-emily-jackson-flickr_0automated systems to collect public transport fares and verify payment. Far from being a gimmick, Automated Fare Collection (AFC) can bring a wide range of benefits to local governments, transport planners, operators—and, of course, to commuters themselves.

The recent Transforming Transportation 2019 conference paid a great deal of attention to the applications and benefits of AFC, which have been at the heart of many World Bank and IFC-supported urban mobility projects.

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Innovations in satellite measurements for development

Combinatorial innovation is driving innovation in satellite-based economic 1*RyJ8BUGJ-wjbiQzjUiOASwmeasurements at unprecedented resolution, frequency and scale. Increasing availability of satellite data and rapid advancements in machine learning methods are enabling a better understanding into the fundamental forces shaping economic development.

Why satellite data innovations matter

The desire of human beings to “think spatially” to understand how people and objects are organized in space has not changed much since Eratosthenes — the Greek astronomer best known as the “father of Geography” — first used the term “Geographika” around 250 BC. Centuries later, our understanding of economic geography is being propelled forward by new data and new capabilities to rapidly process, analyze and convert these vast data flows into meaningful and near real-time information

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Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics 2019 Multilateralism: Past, Present, and Future

The Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics (ABCDE), organized by the archived-image-Bretton-Woods-Conference.jpg World Bank’s Development Economics (DEC) Vice Presidency, is one of the world’s best-known series of conferences for the presentation and discussion of new knowledge on development. The conference aims to promote the exchange of cutting-edge knowledge among researchers, policymakers, and development practitioners.

The next conference will take place on June 17–18, 2019 at World Bank Headquarters in Washington, D.C. The theme of the conference will be “Multilateralism: Past, Present, and Future”. The 2019 ABCDE conference will be part of a series of events scheduled to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Bretton Woods conference.

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This is What it’s All About: Protecting Biodiversity in Africa

This story is part of a series that will run ahead of the third edition of the One Planet untitledSummit which will take place in Nairobi, Kenya, on March 14, 2019. The Summit brings together global leaders, entrepreneurs, international organizations, and civil society, to help accelerate and focus attention on climate investments in line with the Paris Agreement objectives. The Summit will focus on promoting renewable energies, fostering resilience and adaptation and protecting biodiversity in Africa. Follow #OnePlanetSummit for live updates and tune in live on March 14.

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Setting up early warning and response systems to prevent violent conflicts and save lives

As highlighted in the UN-World Bank report Pathways for Peace: Inclusive Approaches to guineaPreventing Violent Conflict, the number of violent conflicts has increased since 2010, thus raising the question of how violence and its escalation can be prevented. Conflict prevention mechanisms exist. Let’s take a look at Early Warning and Response Systems (EWRS), but first, what is early warning and early response?

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