Recent Events in the Chief Economist's Office

July 2007:  John Page chaired the launching meeting of the joint World Bank-Japan African Enterprise Study in Tokyo.  Yutaka Yoshino, the task manager of the study, also attended and made some presentations.  The meeting was co-organized by the Bank and JBIC, and attended by researchers and practitioners from the World Bank, IFC, Japanese Ministry of Finance, JBIC, JICA, JETRO, Graduate Research Institute on Policy Studies (GRIPS), Oxford University, and Gothenburg University.  The study will address factors which enhance or constrain domestic enterprise development in Africa, including the roles of industrial clusters and inter-firm networks in the development of competitive domestic enterprises, as well as implications of Asian public policy experiences of enterprise development in Africa.

An AFRCE team led by Harry Broadman, comprised of Yutaka Yoshino, Gozde Isik, and Ann Karasanyi visited South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana and Namibia to meet with various private sector firms to conduct business case study interviews to be included in the forthcoming "Africa Middle Income Growth Spillover" study.

AFRCE staff member Xiao Ye participated in the Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys (PETS) mission in Ghana and Niger. Read More

June 2007: Africa Region Awards for Excellence: Africa Region staff recognized the accomplishments of 17 teams who, over the past year, have led the region in outstanding projects in several countries. The award winners, chosen out of 36 nominees, worked in the areas of Quality Assurance, Private Sector, Strategy, Human Development, ESSD and Analytics. Africa's Silk Road and the Africa Catalytic Growth Fund both received awards for excellence in the analytical area. Elizabeth White and Yutaka Yoshino picked up the awards on behalf of the teams involved. Read More

June 2007: World Economic Forum on Africa: The Launch of the Africa Competitiveness Report: Cape Town, South Africa hosted the 17th annual World Economic Forum on Africa with the    focus on building capacity for success. This year’s conference theme, “Raising the Bar,” underscored the objective of the meeting––to tackle issues such as investment, infrastructure, energy, governance, skills development, malaria and other health issues, urbanization, and climate change. The conference brought together diverse players from the continent as well as other countries––800 participants from 42 countries in all. Read More

June 2007: AFRCE Staff members Jorge Arbache, Gozde Isik, and Ann Karasanyi participated in a field mission in preparation of the forthcoming "Migration and Development in Africa" study led by Sonia Plaza and Dilip Ratha. The team visited Kenya, Uganda, and South Africa to meet with central banks, various professional associations, research institutions, international organizations and private sector firms to gather information to be incorporated to the upcoming study.

April 2007:  World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings and Progress and Change in the Africa Action Plan:  The World Bank’s key strategy for Africa—the three-year Africa Action Plan (AAP)—was up for mid-term review on April 15 at the Development Committee, the body that that advises the Boards of Governors of the Bank and the Fund on critical development issues. The Development Committee meeting discussed and assessed the first 18 months of experience in implementing the AAP. Read More

September 2006: World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings. Chief Economist John Page and Senior Economic Advisor Harry Broadman attended the World Bank/IMF annual meetings in Singapore. Read quotes from John Page in various news sources:  Channel News Asia, discussing economic reform,  Business Report South Africa 

July 2006: Chief Economist John Page participated in the DFID Africa Growth Conference held from July 5th-7th in London, which looked at boosting effectiveness of delivery on promoting and sustaining shared growth in Africa.

June 2006: Chief Economist John Page was in Paris to attend the Third Meeting on Scaling Up for Results at the OECD/DAC. Topics addressed included "Gearing up for Predictable Long Term financing," "Where are Members Planning to Spend their Increased Aid in the Near Term," "Strengthening the Aid Partnership Through the Country-Based Model," and "Scaling-up Through Results and Resources Frameworks."  Read meeting agenda   and  related documents.

May 2006: Chief Economist John Page gave the Keynote address at the World Bank/IFC-hosted Gender and Economics Training Workshop in Nairobi, Kenya.  This workshop brought together 60 participants - including many women entrepreneurs from Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda - to examine theoretical and practical aspects of gender dimensions to growth and private sector development. The keynote address highlighted the challenges of shared growth in Africa, with particular emphasis on the important gender dimensions of growth.   Read more He then travelled to Cape Town to take part in the African World Economic Forum, participating in panel discussion on Young Global Leaders and "Are the MDGs Bad for Growth?"

May/June 2006: Chief Economist John Page and Senior Strategy Office Elizabeth White were in Europe (Dublin, London, Paris) meeting with Donors to discuss the new African Catalytic Growth Fund. Read more on the  ACGF.

May, 2006:  A team led by Harry Broadman of AFRCE visited South Africa, Tanzania, Senegal and Ghana to conduct case study interviews to be included in the forthcoming "Prospects and Challenges for Africa-Asia Trade and Investment" study.  Read More.

May/June 2006: Working in partnership with other departments in the Africa region, Katie Heller, consultant in the Office of the Chief Economist, helped conduct a social and gender assessment of the Multi-Donor Trust Fund Decentralized Health System Reconstruction and Development in Northern Sudan.

December 13, 2005: Chief Economist John Page spoke at the Conference on New Frontiers of Social Analysis, discussing Legal Empowerment of the Poor. The Chief Economist emphasized not only that formalized legal rights are vital to both economic empowerment and growth for the poor, but also that merely formalizing rights are not adequate. Individuals, particularly women, must be informed of, and able to access and enforce their legal rights in order for legal empowerment to be an effective strategy for poverty reduction and growth.

November 25 to December 6: Lead Economist Delfin Go participated in a two-part economic modeling workshop hosted by South Africa National Treasury (NT) at Kievitskroon, Pretoria, South Africa.  More details

October 27, 2005: Tunis Meeting on Accelerating and Diversifying Export Growth in Africa; Tunis, Tunisia;    More than 40 government officials, researchers, and private sector leaders gathered in Tunis to discuss what policies, institutions and physical structures are needed for African economies to diversify, to attract new domestic and foreign investment, and to negotiate a beneficial fit into the global economy.  Read the conference report here.

October 18, 2005: Economy-wide Simulations of Ethiopian MDG Strategies: Lessons for Other AFR Countries and next steps; Washington, DC: In this breakfast seminar presented by the Chief Economist's Office and PREM, Hans Lofgren and Carolina Diaz-Bonilla presented MAMS (Maquette for MDG Simulations), an economy-wide framework for analysis of MDG strategies, including a pilot application to Ethiopia. Read  summary and view powerpoint presentations here.

18-19 July, 2005: Report on a joint Commonwealth Secretariat/World Bank workshop on Migration, Remittances and Development: Challenges for Africa; Accra, Ghana; This meeting was an opportunity for African policy-makers, and African and international experts to discuss how to address migration and remittances, minimizing brain drain while maximizing the benefit of migration and remittances on the development process.  Read the conference report here.

January 28, 2005: Facing the Challenges of African Growth; Dakar, Senegal; What policies, which priorities, and what financial commitments will help African countries accelerate economic and share the benefits of that growth with the broadest swathe of the population? Around these questions, Gobind Nankani invited thirty-four policy-makers and researchers -- within the Bank and outside -- to gather in Dakar to spend a day last January in active dialogue.  Read the conference report here.