Tag Archives: World Bank

Ebola Hampering Household Economies across Liberia and Sierra Leone

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Press release published on the World Bank website.

Latest surveys point to declines in employment, food insecurity, and long-term welfare concerns

WASHINGTON, January 12, 2014—The socio-economic impacts of Ebola in Liberia and Sierra Leone are far-reaching and persistent, according to two new World Bank Group reports. Both countries continue to experience job losses, despite their differing health outlooks. These impacts have not been limited to the areas where infections have been the highest, which points to economy-wide slowdowns. As a result, many households have been forced to take short-term actions to cope, which can have substantial long-term effects on welfare.

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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 →

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.

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Health Systems Strengthening – Democratic Republic of Congo

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The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is one of Africa’s most rapidly growing economies. Since 2010 economic growth has exceeded the average for Sub-Saharan Africa by two percentage points, projected to reach over 10% growth in 2015. However, the DRC has some of the worst health and nutrition indicators in the world and is ranked last (#187) in the 2013 Human Development Report. As such, the DRC is not on track to achieve any of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), especially those related to Maternal and Child Health.

The higher level objective to which this project would contribute is to increase efficiency and effectiveness in the health system in order to improve human development outcomes. Improvements in efficiency and effectiveness, in turn, should boost confidence in these systems and may lead to an increase in overall investment in the social sectors.

Development Objective

The proposed project development objective is to improve utilization and quality of maternal and child health services in targeted areas.

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The IFC

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The World Bank Group, other than providing IDA & IBRD financing to borInternational_Finance_Corporation_Logorowing governments, also has three other pillars. These are the IFC, MIGA and the ICSID. The activities by the MIGA were explained in an earlier post, in this article we are focusing on the International Finance Corporation ( IFC ), the private sector pillar of the WBG. For the first time in the history of the World Bank Group the IFC was the pillar with the biggest budget, financing for more than $22 billion in fiscal year 2014.

The IFC provides financial support through loans and equity financing to its clients and additionally provide advice to unlock private sector investment. For a project to be eligible for IFC support a number of criteria must be met. The project must be located in a developing country that is a member of the IFC, active in the private sector, be technically sound, have good prospects of being profitable, benefit the local economy and satisfy environmental and social standards.

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Capacity Building Sanitation Plan – Vietnam

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The development objective of the TA is to support the Can Tho City Peoples’ Committee and the City’s Department of Construction in implementing the poor-inclusive City Sanitation Plan by providing expertise to develop curricula, guidelines and training programs to increase implementation capacity for the Plan.

Through an assessment of current and future demand for human resources competencies in sanitation in Can Tho the TA will establish a framework and program for delivering capacity building to the city agencies responsible for the planning, coordination and implementation of sanitation services in the city’s urban, peri-urban and rural areas.

See full tender here: Capacity Building Sanitation Plan – Vietnam

Expression of Interest Deadline: 09 February 2015

Health Insurance Subsidy Process Evaluation – Kenya

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The African Health Markets for Equity (AHME) is a five-year project that aims to improve health outcomes through the provision of quality private sector health care targeting the poor in Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana. In Kenya, the AHME project is supporting the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) to design, test, and scale-up the Health Insurance Subsidy Program (HISP) that will serve as a mechanism for the Government of Kenya to subsidize NHIF insurance cover for the poorest households in Kenya.

To supplement a quantitative impact evaluation of the programme, the NHIF plans to carry out a process evaluation. The aim of the process evaluation is to assess programme implementation and provide information that will help implementers determine the degree to which the HISP intervention was implemented as planned (implementation fidelity).

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Going local: a mission to Senegal and Ghana

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By Daan Marks, advisor to the Dutch Executive Director at the World Bank

Traveling always makes me reflect on my life and Daan Markssurroundings. When I travel to Belgium (which is not too often), I realize that the Dutch transportation system is actually pretty good. Now that I live in the US, I have come to realize how efficient the Dutch public sector actually is. Last September I traveled to Senegal and Ghana and it made me realize how privileged I am to have a toilet. It is just a different dimension. The face of extreme poverty, and inequality, is obviously confronting. It is also frustrating to see that mismanagement and corruption put a halt on much needed social and economic development.

The economic perspective

Recent GDP figures show that the economies of Sub-Saharan Africa are generally on the rise (or ‘Africa rising’, as some have dubbed it). I think this picture is somewhat misleading. Given the very low starting point and rampant population growth, African countries need these high growth rates to raise living standards above subsistence levels, while absorbing the growing labor force. My guess is that GDP per capita growth is much less impressive, and that figures on GDP per worker do not show significant productivity growth. Simultaneously, the challenges remain immense: poverty figures are still shockingly high in many countries, the outbreak of Ebola shows the lack of capacity in the poorest countries, conflict and fragility continue to hamper economic development in Mali, Central African Republic and South Sudan and uneven growth and therefore rising inequality are leading to increased social instability.

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