In this issue: 1) IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings
2) Adolescent Girls' Initiative
3) Young Leaders from Around the World
4) Linking international agricultural research knowledge with action for sustainable poverty alleviation: what works?
5) Data Against Natural Disasters
6) Help Us!
7) To Receive This Newsletter Welcome to the one hundred and nineteenth issue of the PovertyNet electronic newsletter from the World Bank. This newsletter provides an update of new resources about understanding and alleviating poverty available from PovertyNet, http://www.worldbank.org/poverty, and other websites. Please continue to send suggestions on items to highlight in forthcoming newsletters to povertynet@worldbank.org.
1) IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings The World Bank-International Monetary Fund Annual Meetings opened amid great concern about the global economy. They ended with member nations urging the World Bank and IMF to draw on the “full range” of their resources to help developing countries weather the fallout from the turmoil. At the same time, finance and development ministers agreed October 12 that industrialized countries must not back down from their commitments to boost aid to developing countries already battered by high food and fuel prices. Developing countries “risk very serious setbacks to their efforts to improve the lives of their populations from any prolonged tightening of credit or a sustained global slowdown,” World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick warned. Zoellick said the World Bank has over $40 billion in capital and stands ready to double lending for developing countries if needed. Last year, the Bank lent $13.5 billion from that fund. “I could imagine that will go up considerably this year,” Zoellick said.
In addition, nations pledged a record $41.7 billion last year to the Bank’s fund for the 78 poorest countries, IDA. One of the Bank’s private sector arms, International Finance Corporation, is exploring the possibility of a fund to help recapitalize banks in developing countries. IFC said it might contribute around $1 billion and seek to raise another $2 billion from various sources, including international financial institutions (IFIs), commercial banks and other investors. The Bank responded to the food and fuel crisis earlier this year with a $1.2 billion rapid financing facility to provide immediate help to the poor and a new plan to boost agriculture and food security in Africa. Some $850 million for the rapid financing facility has already been approved or is in the pipeline. Australia announced at the Annual Meetings a AUD$50 million contribution to the food facility. Zoellick said the World Bank Group is also developing an Energy for the Poor initiative with a number of donors to help countries strengthen social safety nets to protect the poor against the impact of high fuel bills. Go here for more information on the meetings:
http://www.worldbank.org/ambc/
2) Adolescent Girls' Initiative Today, 1.5 billion people are ages 12–24 worldwide, nine out of ten of these young people live in developing countries, the most ever in history. Of these, approximately 625 million are girls and young women, ages 10-24. This is the next generation of economic and social actors. Adolescence is a critical time to intervene to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty, by helping girls stay in school, build capital assets, resist early pregnancy and marriage and a future of low earnings. Furthermore, investing in adolescent girls’ economic opportunities can have a large development impact with long term benefits to economic growth including:
Closing the gender gaps in school enrollment could increase per capita growth by as much as 3%.
An extra year of secondary school for girls can increase their future wages by 10% to 20%.
Progress in education by girls is not matched by higher labor force participation by young women where by age 24 young women lag far behind men in labor force participation. The Adolescent Girls Initiative aims at smoothing the transition from school to productive employment by, among other interventions, helping girls complete education, build skills that match market demand, find mentors and job placements, offer incentives to potential employers to retain, and train young women or to overcome some of the cultural barriers to young women's employment. These interventions will be tested and evaluated for impact. Go here for more information: http://go.worldbank.org/5PYHEZS360
3) Young Leaders from Around the World Decision-makers today need to work with youth—both learn from them and help them learn. This year, for the first time ever, the World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings included a special three-day session devoted to youth. From October 8–10, 18 young leaders from around the world gathered in Washington to discuss their projects, goals, and development concerns. And while many of the sessions were gruelingly long and intense, participants stayed enthusiastic and engaged throughout. The result: the sharing of many great ideas and initiatives, plus tangible action plans for how youth can become bigger players in development. Over the three days, participants shared their views on topics including how young people can exercise citizenship and make their voices heard in society, the school-to-work transition, the World Bank's engagement with youth, and an action plan on how youth can be vital partners in development. Below are just a few of the many interesting ideas and comments raised during the sessions: Mark Garcia of Silliman University in the Philippines, works on a project that aims to increase youth involvement in monitoring transparency in local government. He observed that low self-worth leads many young people to doubt their ability to make a difference. "If they're not convinced that they have value," he said, "they are hard to mobilize." Ismaël Mamadou-Tanko, president of the Youth Development and Peace (YDP) network in Togo, discussed his fundraising efforts to help send girls to school. In his opinion, the solution for helping to educate Togo's youth is investment. "There aren't even enough computers in the classrooms," he said, "and teachers' salaries just aren't high enough." Renata Florentino, who works on a project to improve cities in Brazil, with and for youth, talked about how important it is to involve everyone. "When you put all the groups together, you can really make a change," she said, adding that while it can take a long time to bring everyone on board, the end result is more participatory and therefore effective. Participants brainstormed over how youth can be more involved in what the World Bank does, and came up with several tangible areas of interest. Participants agreed that the sessions also helped to clarify what the World Bank is all about, and what it can and can't do. Go here for more information: http://youthink.worldbank.org/getinvolved/webitorials/annualmeetings08.php
4) Linking international agricultural research knowledge with action for sustainable poverty alleviation: what works? How can knowledge better contribute to poverty reduction? While the international community's attempts to mobilise science and technology for sustainable development are not new, it is not clear that they have been as successful as they might have been so far. In the context of an increasing number of such ventures, including the current Clean Carbon Initiative and the Global Fund for Health, a new report jointly brought out by the Center for International Development at Harvard University and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Kenya, Nairobi, reviews ILRI experience in implementing five agricultural projects in Africa and Asia over a period of twelve years to identify institutional arrangements and procedures that are more likely to strengthen the links between research and development. The report develops a seven-point framework for establishing better links between knowledge generated through research with actions that help people. It considers this to involve:
dialogue and cooperation between the scientists who produce the knowledge and the potential users of the information including communities, policymakers and donors collaborative, use-driven rather than curiosity-driven research in which an engagement of the users is key to the research agenda
building bridges between the research community on the one hand and the user community on the other, and creating networks that allow interactions between the different users and producers
engagement with key partners to turn jointly-created knowledge generated by the project/programme into action an openness to failure and risk-taking as a part of the learning process
maintaining project continuity and flexibility in the context of funding and staff shortages
dealing with the often large and largely hidden asymmetries of power felt by the various stakeholders in the research partnership Go here for the report: http://www.cid.harvard.edu/cidwp/pdf/173.pdf
5) Data Against Natural Disasters The World Bank has produced a book entitled Data Against Natural Disasters: Establishing Effective Systems for Relief, Recovery, and Reconstruction . This volume contains six case studies of initiatives to improve information management during the various phases—risk reduction, relief, early recovery, and recovery and reconstruction—in the response to disaster. This synthesis illustrates the urgency of the need to establish effective disaster management systems. It also highlights increasing global recognition of the need to take the step from ad hoc disaster responses to the systematic ex ante development of disaster management infrastructure by vulnerable countries or provinces and districts at risk. Go here for the full volume:
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPOVERTY/Resources/335642-1130251872237/9780821374528.pdf
6) Help Us The PovertyNet website needs your input to continue to grow. Send information about new web resources, research, data or events related to poverty alleviation, as well as your suggestions for improvements to the web site and this newsletter to povertynet@worldbank.org .
Thank you!
The PovertyNet Team
povertynet@worldbank.org
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