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Unleashing private investment in renewable energy

Korina Lopez's picture
Angus McCrone, Jin-Yong Cai, and Rune Bjerke discuss renewable energy. © Franz Mahr/World Bank


More than 700 million people live in extreme poverty around the world. If that number seems daunting, then consider this: 1.1 billion people – more than three times the population of the United States – live without electricity.

So it goes without saying that ending energy poverty is a key step in ending poverty itself. And world leaders agree – a sustainable development goal just for energy was adopted last month. It emphasizes the role of renewable energy in getting us to the finish line of reaching sustainable energy for all by 2030. What will give us a big boost in that race? Private financing.

Women in mining share pain and unite for change

Rachel Perks's picture
National Conference on Women in Mines - DRC

I recently joined over 150 women who work in the mining sector of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) at a conference sponsored by the World Bank. This was the first national conference ever held in the DRC to discuss women-specific issues in the sector and what can be done to improve their well-being.  

Many topics were discussed over the course of the three days. Some of the most compelling came from the personal testimonies shared by the women themselves. For instance, to generate understanding of the challenges these women face, a video showed girls as young as 12 years of age pounding quartz to extract gold. A woman may gain up to 2,000 Congolese Francs per day for this work, which is about US $2. Many women at the conference showed callouses on their hands from continuous years of arduous labor. This is but one example of the impacts suffered from the most physically taxing jobs occupied by women in the artisanal and small-scale mining sub-sector.

Four ways governments are making girls’ lives better

Alua Kennedy's picture



As the International Day of the Girl Child is coming up on October 11, it reminds us of an important role governments can play to help girls lead their own lives. Investing in girls’ empowerment is a smart way to invest in a country.
 
Check out these four videos about how governments of Liberia, Senegal, India and Burundi are working to empower girls in their countries. 

Child marriage: A persistent hurdle to health and prosperity

Quentin Wodon's picture



On this Sunday, October 11, the world marks the International Day of the Girl Child. While the day is an opportunity to advocate for girls’ rights across many sectors, one persistent, pernicious issue deserves renewed attention:  the high prevalence of child marriage.

What Can the Asian Tigers and Latin Pumas Learn From Each Other?

Danny Leipziger's picture

The global landscape these days is not a pretty one: collapsing commodity prices, weak demand in the OECD economies and a pronounced slowdown in many emerging markets, unpredictable capital flows affecting exchange rates, and a noticeable slump in world trade. This is clearly not a good time to be a Minister of Finance!
 
This is the panorama that surrounds the IMF World Bank Annual Meetings in Lima, October 8-10. The weak global picture is heavy on diagnostics of what is troubling many developing countries, but less robust on the side of policy solutions. In Lima, this will be one of the key topics of discussion during a high-level debate on “Balancing sustainable growth and social equity”.

The secret to India's success on rooftop solar PPPs? Satisfying stakeholders' needs

Pankaj Sinha's picture
When our team at IFC got the mandate in 2010 for a PPP to set up a 5MW grid connected solar rooftop (SRT) in Gandhinagar (Gujarat, India), some thought that the project was too small to make a difference.

Why are Indian firms five times less productive than American ones? One reason is land

Ejaz Ghani's picture
How important is land as a factor of production in India?
 
In a recent paper (The misallocation of land and other factors of production in India," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7221), we focused on its role, and examined how the misallocation of land has impacted the country’s manufacturing sector.
 

Weekly links October 9: the next step in transparency? Minimum wages in Africa, pirates, and more…

David McKenzie's picture
  • The next step in transparency/replication?The New Yorker on how researchers in the sciences are using videos to document each step of the process to make it easier to replicate precisely – and on how there is even a journal of visualized experiments (h/t @betsylevyp)

“What Makes a Sustainable City?” – Join us online Saturday, Oct. 10 for the answer

Claudia Gabarain's picture

With most of the global population and capital goods now concentrated in urban areas, cities are key to social development and economic prosperity. Urbanization, globalization, and climate change are interacting in a way that is unprecedented, and urban service delivery systems are becoming increasingly interlinked. 


Join us for a live online session this Saturday, Oct. 10 at 11:30 a.m. ET (15:30 GMT) straight from the Bank-IMF Annual Meetings 2015 in Lima, Peru. A discussion with senior leaders and government officials about how to support cities in becoming more socially, environmentally, and fiscally sustainable.

The event will be livestreamed in five languages and live tweeted and live blogged. We’ll have English and Spanish-speaking urban specialists joining our live blog to address your comments and answer your questions as the session progresses –and the panel in Lima will take a few questions from our online audience.

To see the list of panelists and other details, and to watch and join the live discussion, please go here (also in Français, español, Português and العربية )

Plus, follow the event on Twitter with #cities4future #ciudadfutura   #cidadesdofuturo   #AvenirUrbain  #المدن_المستدامة

STEPing ahead with procurement reform

Robert Hunja's picture



As part of the Bank’s ongoing effort to adapt to the changing needs of client countries, the Bank is modernizing its procurement framework. This will help us deliver stronger project results while maintaining the integrity and high standards of our procurement framework.

The two key elements of this transformation in Bank procurement involve the Procurement Policy Reform, to take effect in 2016, and STEP, the Bank’s new electronic procurement planning and tracking platform.
 
On July 21, 2015, the World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors approved the new Procurement Framework, which will go into full implementation during 2016. This new framework allows the Bank to better and more effectively meet the varying needs of clients by ensuring greater flexibility and choice of methods. Alongside the new framework, an electronic platform, Systematic Tracking of Exchanges in Procurement, branded as STEP, is being rolled out and will be implemented worldwide in the coming months.

This system jointly developed by Operations Risk Management (OPSOR) within Operations Policy and Country Services (OPCS), the Global Governance Practice (GGP), and Information Technology Services (ITS) departments, is a cornerstone of the World Bank Group’s procurement reform efforts and goes hand-in-hand with policy and procedural changes.


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