Netherlands for the World Bank

Your guide to the World Bank Group

Netherlands for the World Bank

Korea’s response to COVID-19: Early lessons in tackling the pandemic

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The Republic of Korea was one of the first countries to tackle the COVID-19 crisis. Facing a rapid, exponential increase in infections after the first positive case w

Figure 1. Coronavirus cases in Korea (Source: Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters.)

as identified on January 20, the country took decisive action to contain the virus. Although the total number of cases is high, daily increases have been declining steadily from a peak of just above 900 in late February to around 100 by the second week of March (Figure 1). Recovered cases now far outnumber new cases, and deaths have been kept just above 100 as of this writing.

Figure 1.  Coronavirus cases in Korea

Source: Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters.

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World Bank Group Increases COVID-19 Response to $14 Billion To Help Sustain Economies, Protect Jobs

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Focus on private sector and workers spearheaded by IFC to mitigate financial and economic impact of crisis

WASHINGTON, March 17, 2020 — The World Bank and IFC’s Boards of Directors approved today an increased $14 billion package of fast-track financing to assist companies and countries in their efforts to prevent, detect and respond to the rapid spread of COVID-19. The package will strengthen national systems for public health preparedness, including for disease containment, diagnosis, and treatment, and support the private sector.

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eC2: Actuarial modelling of financial losses from Flood Risk in Morocco

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Deadline:  30-Mar-2020 at 11:59:59 PM (Eastern Time – Washington D.C.)floods

The World Bank DRFIP framework aims to strengthen the capacity of governments to take informed decisions on disaster risk finance, based on sound financial/actuarial analysis and to support stakeholders with better risk information for financial resilience. To support Morocco’s Solidarity Fund and more broadly other World Bank clients in need for actuarial modelling of financial contingent liability, the DRFIP seeks to develop a flood risk model for the Moroccan territory (which could eventually be reused to other countries or contexts). This model should allow the estimate of the probabilistic loss distribution for various risk categories or protection scheme beneficiaries, for Morocco as a whole (ground up losses), as well as for FSEC specifically.

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How have women’s legal rights evolved over the last 50 years?

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Today, women have just three-quarters of the legal rights of men. In 1970, it was less womanthan half. The Women, Business and the Law 2020 report presented results from our recent effort to document how laws have changed since 1970. This exceptional dataset has already facilitated ground-breaking research that shows that a country’s performance on the Women, Business and the Law index is associated with more women in the labor force, a smaller wage gap between men and women, and greater investments in health and education. We hope that sharing the data and reform descriptions on our website will lead to more evidence that will inspire policymakers to change their laws so that more women can contribute to economic growth and development.

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Coronavirus and the ‘Pangolin Effect’: Increased exposure to wildlife poses health, biosafety and global security risks

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Everything is connected. shutterstock_794728702_resized

Using the theory of chaos, when a butterfly flaps its wings in New Mexico it has the power to cause a hurricane in China. But there’s hardly anything of the butterfly effect’s randomness in the dominos that keep falling after the emergence of COVID-19 (coronavirus). The explanation that is emerging is in fact more familiar: how human beings’ connected actions can result in dramatic consequences.

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It’s time we invest in healthy food systems for a safer world

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The World Bank Group last week announced it would make available a package of $12 Meta-chicken-COVID-corornavirusbillion — an unprecedented level of financing to help developing countries and businesses cope with the health and economic impacts caused by COVID-19. Much of that support will naturally be reactive, financing immediate measures designed to strengthen our response to a brand-new threat. But some of the financing will also be preventative — as it should be, if we are to learn our lessons from the past and strengthen our collective hand before the next bug hits.

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eC2: Strengths and limitations of satellite-derived soil moisture for drought risk financing

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Deadline:  25-Mar-2020 at 11:59:59 PM (Eastern Time – Washington D.C.) afr-moving-away-from-humanitarian-appeals-to-managing-droughts-in-ethiopia-feature-780x439

The main objective of this project is to support World Bank Crisis & Disaster Risk Finance activities in the area of anticipatory and/or parametric climate risk financing with tailored data- and research-driven approaches applied to promising satellite-derived datasets that have so far not been considered for operational purposes. In the context of the Next Generation Drought Index project, the World Banks Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance program is developing a technical toolbox to guide users at both micro and macro level through the entire process of data selection, index design, calibration, validation and related methods to strengthen sensitivity analysis and historical skill analysis. There is scientific evidence about the added-value of satellite-derived soil moisture products to close critical gaps between rainfall anomalies and the response of the land surface. However, a quantitative and qualitative analysis in 2-3 specific areas of interest is required to identify and explain the individual strengths and limitations of different products that may differ in sensor technology (radar/radiometer/combined), method (remote sensing vs. data assimilation), output variable (surface or root-zone soil moisture, soil moisture-based rainfall estimations), timeliness (annual updates vs. NRT products), revisit period (depending on area of interest) and spatial resolution (<1 km to >25 km). Since anticipatory financing mechanisms that decouple insurance payouts from loss assessments are a priority, the work on soil moisture products should highlight the potential predictive skill of various datasets, whereas the integration of both publicly available and, if available, commercial products in the analysis is encouraged.

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Coronavirus: Reflections of an epidemiologist and public health practitioner

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Not a day passes without us being bombarded by the rapidly evolving medical literature 1107952389_b03648b09d_c(002)and media on the hitherto unknown COVID-19. Rightfully so, as we now have an outbreak with more than 100,000 cases confirmed globally.

Yet, I cannot help but wonder how the general public is dealing with such an onslaught of information, if I, as a trained physician, epidemiologist and a global public health practitioner, find it too much to take in and digest. How do we expect a lay person to sift through it all, separate the chaff from the grain, avoid fear mongering  – No, you do not get COVID-19 if you receive a package from China, or eat in a Chinese restaurant –  and stick with the most relevant information and the essentials for behavioral change? This is ultimately what counts the most:, arming people with the right messaging and instructions for compliance with the science-based best practice. With local community transmission in about 20 countries across several regions of the globe, we must ask ourselves could we have done better? 

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eC2: Key Factors for Successful Development of Offshore Wind in Emerging Markets

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Deadline: 26-Mar-2020 at 11:59:59 PM (Eastern Time – Washington D.C.)

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The scope of the assignment shall cover the major topics that need to be considered by policymakers and regulators when establishing a new market for offshore wind development. These shall include, but not be limited to, the following points:

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To achieve peace and prosperity in the Sahel needs long term international solidarity

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I have recently traveled across the Sahel region from Mali to Burkina Faso to Niger and southern-mauritania-sahelfinally to Mauritania where I addressed the Sahel Alliance General Assembly and the G5 Sahel Leaders’ Summit. During my travels, I met mothers, fathers, engineers, economists, entrepreneurs and community groups. Before arriving in the Sahel, I was at the Munich Security Conference with diplomatic and military leaders.

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