Last month, Oxfam International released a new policy paper (Our Land, Our Lives) that looked at large-scale farm land acquisitions in the developing world, along with the role of the World Bank in facilitating some of the transactions as an investor and/or advisor to national governments. According to Oxfam, Africa has borne the brunt of […]
In a time of political, social, and economic turmoil, the focus on global health has blurred slightly. We’ve made great gains against polio, malaria, HIV, and a number of other diseases in the past decade, but there is, as always, much to be done. With tensions high across the Middle East and Europe, an election […]
As I wrote in the recent post, The Joy and Burden of Motherhood, “The greatest joy of motherhood is seen as the sheer gift of bringing a life into this world and helping to shape them from the moment of birth and then to watch them grow into a happy, productive and successful member of […]
United States President Barack Obama announced today that he was nominating Dr. Jim Yong Kim for president of the World Bank. This was a surprise to almost everyone, as Dr. Kim is not a traditional pick by any means: a medical anthropologist and physician, current president of Dartmouth College, co-founder of the non-profit Partners in Health […]
How can we best ensure that development assistance reaches those who need it most? Here are six building blocks.
by Stephenie Foster In the next two years, the world’s population will reach seven billion people. Today, approximately 925 million people, or 16 per cent of the developing world’s population, are chronically hungry due to extreme poverty. Despite some progress in alleviating hunger in 2010, world food prices rose 15 per cent between October 2010 […]
Christina Figueres and Ban Ki-moon (Reuters) COP 16 winds up at the end of this week. It is not the blockbuster that Copenhagen was last year – and that’s no surprise. All the foofaraw from last year has been replaced by a bit more focus and many fewer expectations. There are far fewer people as […]
There is yet more headline news on the renewable energy front. On offshore wind, I’ve been noting some of the positive developments in several of the last posts. Go-ahead for wind to generate 70,000 jobs in Britain is the word from the FT. General Electric, Gamesa and Siemens all announced plans to build big new […]
The flood in Pakistan promises to soon make a dire situation intractably tragic. Aid money promised by international donors is trickling into the ground, and more often than not, isn’t reaching the neediest of the millions of victims of this two-week long catastrophe, People are fighting and looting over food and the cramped conditions in […]
I’ve received a few requests recently for my data sources, so I thought I’d highlight Eric Green’s latest post at Change.org. Here, he has compiled an excellent list of data sources for global health. In particular, he highlights the open data initiative at the World Bank, which was launched last Tuesday, compiling more than 2,000 […]
The World Bank, quite rightly, has devoted a tremendous amount of time and money on water projects in recent years, according to the “NY Times” here. I highlighted World Water Day at the blog a few weeks ago and noted then some of the many critical shortfalls in clean water and proper sanitation that beset […]
Perhaps —no, undoubtedly — only the World Bank would host an event to discuss the fiscal systems different countries have to divide oil and gas revenue. The conference, held in Washington DC by the Bank’s Oil, Gas and Mining division, concludes today. While some systems are unitary (like, on balance, Indonesia), many today are federal. […]
“People Want Action on Climate Change” – That’s the conclusion of a poll out this week that was commissioned by the World Bank and carried out by WorldPublicOpinion.org. The press release says “People signaled they would support public measures to limit greenhouse gas emissions and step up adaptation measures.” The report on the poll, Public […]
The World Bank is sponsoring this global competition to find the best “100 Ideas to Save the Planet.” The 100 ideas on display now at the World Bank headquarters in Washington were chosen from among 1,755 proposals. From Argentina to Vanuatu, there are some wonderful ideas: bioculture to enhance the value of maize in Mexico; […]
In the past couple of weeks, the International Crisis Group, which monitors and comments on conflict situations around the world, has been focusing on the African country of Chad. Chad is neighbor to Sudan and starting point of what had been one of the most anticipated oil pipelines in history. ICG’s recommendations ask Chad’s government […]