Events

The WDR team hosts workshops and consultation sessions throughout the development of the Report. The papers commissioned for the Report are presented and discussed at the WDR Workshops. Drafts of the Report itself are reviewed and discussed at the WDR Consultations.

A summer workshop was held July 6–9, 1998, to gather initial input from scholars and researchers. This event, part of a World Development Report tradition, was divided into 14 sessions with speakers presenting brief notes on various aspects of the trends examined by the Report: globalization, demographic transition and migration, environmental change, localization, and urbanization. Selected papers from the conference will be available in September 1999 through a conference volume and online.

In addition, with Japanese government support, we are holding three workshops in East Asia, for which short papers have been commissioned. The papers seek to crystallize key ideas and empirical findings for the Report. The presenters come from academic and research institutions across disciplines and across countries. Local observers and participants are from the academic, government, and business communities. Each workshop is a two-day event and co-hosted with a local organization. The WDR team presents work-in-progress to solicit comments. Selected papers from the workshops will be revised and published in a separate volume towards the end of 1999.

The first East Asia workshop, held in Tokyo on November 30 and December 1, 1998, was co-sponsored by the World Bank and the Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund of Japan. Scholars from Japan, China, Hong Kong (China), South Korea, and the United States presented their papers on such topics as regional policy coordination in Asia, the consequences of globalization for the Chinese economy, globalization and its impact on national urban systems, urban environmental management, urban poverty alleviation and social policies, urban housing and land markets, spatial organization and transportation demand, and urban environmental regulations.

Singapore was the location for the second East Asia workshop on January 12–13 of 1999, with the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies as our co-host. The presenters and discussants came from Japan, China, Hong Kong (China), Australia, the Philippines, Thailand, India, Singapore, and the United Kingdom. Topics ranged from global trade and WTO, telecommunications and urban growth, globalization and national urban policies, urban politics and governance, urban poverty and local policies, urban transportation and land regulations, and urban growth dynamics.

Our final workshop was May 26–27, 1999 in Tokyo. Presenters from the first workshop were invited back for a more formal presentation of their revised papers. The WDR team gave a presentation based on an early draft of the Report.