World Bank President Tours Flood-Damaged Haiti, Encourages Donor Support

“World Bank President Robert Zoellick toured storm-damaged Haiti on Tuesday and urged donors to support the Caribbean nation as it battles a devastating hunger crisis. Zoellick flew over the mud-covered city of Gonaives and met with members of the private sector in the capital during the three-day visit. …

From a UN helicopter, the World Bank leader surveyed some of the most extreme damage from a calamity that saw roads destroyed and about 60 percent of Haiti's upcoming harvest destroyed. He then returned to Port-au-Prince and visited a school lunch program in the sprawling Cite Soleil slum, said World Bank spokesman Alejandro Cedeno.

Zoellick met the day before with Haiti's new Prime Minister and representatives of several donor countries, including the US, Canada and Brazil. He is scheduled to discuss recovery efforts with Haitian President Rene Preval on Wednesday.…   [The Associated Press/Factiva]

Western Donors Set To Pledge Billions For Georgia

“Representatives from 67 nations and large financial institutions meet in Brussels on Wednesday, October 22, to decide on an aid package for Georgia.

The meeting is being co-chaired by the EU Commission and the World Bank and officially kicks off with welcoming speeches by Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.

The donors aim to raise EUR 2.38 billion ($3.25 billion) … ‘The purpose of the conference is ... to support the country in the reconstruction of damaged infrastructure, reintegration of internally displaced people and in accelerating Georgia's recovery from the impact of the August 2008 conflict on its economy as well as improving the security of Georgia's energy infrastructure,’ conferences organizers said in their official statement. …” [Deutsche Welle (Germany)/Factiva]

AFP adds that “…Barroso …in his opening remarks …spoke of the commission's pledge of EUR 500 million over three years to help rebuild the ex-Soviet republic. …” [Agence France Presse/Factiva]

Dow Jones writes that “International donors should give Georgia $3.25 billion over the next three years to help it rebuild …a joint study by the UN and the World Bank says.

The study will be presented Wednesday in Brussels at a meeting of potential donors. Groups, including the UN, the World Bank, the European Commission, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, are meeting to discuss Georgia's funding needs. The UN-World Bank study says the $3.25 billion in funding should include a quick injection of $480 million to help shore up Georgia's public finances.” [Dow Jones/Factiva]

Threat From Avian Flu Remains: UN And World Bank Warn

“Though less countries experienced human infections from the deadly H5N1 bird flu in the past year, the threat of a global influenza pandemic remains, the UN and the World Bank said in a joint report released Tuesday. Human infections from bird flu were reported in 20 countries between January and September this year, down from 25 countries in the corresponding period last year, the report said. …

The report found 50 of the 61 countries that experienced an outbreak in the past have eliminated the disease. ‘However, the virus remains entrenched in several countries and the threat of further outbreak of HPAI (highly pathogenic avian influenza) in poultry (and sporadic cases in humans) persists,’ said the report. Since late 2003, 387 human avian flu cases have been reported, with 245 deaths recorded in 15 countries in Africa, Asia and Europe, the report said. …” [Kyodo News (Japan)/Factiva]

Reuters adds that “…Most countries now have plans to combat a pandemic, but many of the plans are defective, said the report, issued before a bird flu conference due to be attended by ministers from some 60 countries in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, from Friday to Sunday.

The report, fourth in a series since a bird flu scare swept the globe three years ago, followed a new World Bank estimate that a severe flu pandemic could cost $3 trillion and result in a nearly 5 percent drop in world gross domestic product. …” [Reuters/Factiva]

Xinhua writes that “…Briefing reporters … UN System Influenza Coordinator David Nabarro said many countries are planning for an influenza pandemic, but many of the plans have not been adequately tested. …Citing statistics contained in the report, Nabarro said of the plans that are available, 53 percent of governments say they've tested their plans in the last 12 months, but only a quarter of these say they have tested them at all levels of government, and only 38 percent say that when they've test their plans, they've incorporated lessons learned into revising them. …” [Xinhua/Factiva]

Dow Jones notes that “…The report said that even a mild flu pandemic might kill 1.4 million people worldwide, while the death toll from a severe global outbreak could reach 70 million. …

Nabarro noted that the bird flu virus was entrenched only in two countries, Egypt and Indonesia. … ‘The pace of sporadic human infections and deaths from H5N1 has slowed since last year, with 28 confirmed deaths in 2008 compared to 59 in 2007, but the threat of an influenza pandemic remains,’ the report said. …” [Dow Jones/Factiva]

World Bank's 2009-2012 Partnership Strategy For Croatia Presented In Zagreb

“The continued restructuring of the Croatian Railways company, the privatization of shipyards, the completion of new legislation on salaries of civil servants and state employees, and increasing cost-effectiveness in the health sector are priority areas in which Croatia is expected to make additional progress in the coming years, World Bank Country Manager, Andras Horvai, said on Tuesday. …

The new strategy aims to shift the focus of cooperation from the PAL [program adjustment loan] programs to other forms of cooperation in important areas such as judicial reform, energy, environment, health, and education, through loans for specific investment projects rather than through programs, Horvai said. Among those projects are a pollution control project in coastal cities, a road reconstruction project in Rijeka, which is expected to be completed by the end of the year, and a project aimed at improving emergency medical services and investment planning in the health sector, for which a loan agreement was signed today. …” [HINA (Croatia)/Factiva]

Reuters reports “Croatia hopes to reduce its budget deficit to close to zero next year, while keeping economic growth roughly unchanged at slightly below 4 percent, Suker said on Tuesday. …The government of the EU candidate country plans this year's budget gap at 1.3 percent of GDP. Parliament must adopt the new budget by mid-December.

Suker said GDP should grow at between 3.5-4 percent next year, roughly in line with this year's economic expansion, estimated at 3.7-3.8 percent. …Suker also said Croatia hopes to draw all $1.8 billion of available loans from a four-year partnership framework agreed with the World Bank. …He said the funds, the availability of which depends on successful implementation of structural reforms, will be mostly used to further strengthen the private sector, as companies strive to boost competitiveness ahead of the EU entry. Horvai, praised Croatia's reforms and macroeconomic achievements in recent years, but said some areas required further focus. …” [Reuters/Factiva]

Meanwhile in a separate piece, HINA reports that “Suker and Horvai, on Tuesday signed a EUR 18.1 million loan agreement aimed at delivering faster and better emergency medical care. According to Minister Suker, the loan has been granted for a period of 30 years with a five-year grace period and a 5.5 percent interest rate. …

‘This project aims at improving the efficiency of the emergency medical services through investments in its restructuring in order to improve accessibility of the emergency medical services on the whole territory of the Republic of Croatia, shorten the response time for emergency calls and achieve better efficiency and quality of services,’ Suker said. …” [HINA (Croatia)/Factiva]

World Bank Urges Strategic Pension Reforms In Southeastern Europe

“With their ageing populations growing in size, countries in Southeastern Europe (SEE) must undertake strategic pension reforms to safeguard the old-age security of their retiring citizens, according to a World Bank pensions report released on Tuesday. By 2050, the countries of SEE will see a demographic shift that will leave far fewer working, and more entering retirement, the World Bank said in a statement after releasing the report.

The report titled Pension Reform in Southeastern Europe: Linking to Labor and Financial Market Reforms is a result of collaboration between the World Bank and the Center of Excellence in Finance in Slovenia. ‘In essence, governments have three options for pension reform in order to remain sustainable, and none of them are easy decisions,’ Robert Holzmann, World Bank Sector Director for Social Protection & Labor, said in the statement. ‘They can increase contributions into pensions, they can pay out less, or they can delay retirement so that people contribute longer and start collecting later. For many countries in SEE, the best of these options is to increase retirement age in parallel with a review of payout levels. …” [SeeNews (Bulgaria)/Factiva]

Also In This Edition… Briefly Noted…

South Africa’s economy is well prepared to weather the storm engulfing global capitalism, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said on Tuesday, even as he lowered the treasury’s prediction for growth and warned that the precarious deficit in the country’s current account will widen. Unveiling a new three-year framework for state spending, he said that, while the banking sector was well shielded by regulation and exchange controls, the turbulence in world markets is fiercer than anyone expected. [The Financial Times (UK)/Factiva]

Zambia's government has frozen financing for all non-essential projects and may delay further cuts to fuel taxes to keep its budget deficit below two percent of GDP, Finance Minister Ng'andu Magande said on Tuesday. [Reuters/Factiva]

Organic farming offers Africa the best chance of breaking the cycle of poverty and malnutrition it has been locked in for decades, according to a major study from the UN. New evidence suggests that organic practices - derided by some as a Western lifestyle fad - are delivering sharp increases in yields, improvements in the soil and a boost in the income of Africa's small farmers who remain among the poorest people on earth. [The Independent (UK)/Factiva]

Latin America may need an injection of liquidity if the US financial crisis worsens, said World Bank Director of the Department of Human Development for Latin America and the Caribbean, Evangeline Javier today. She told EFE that the financial crisis will have an impact on the real economy of some countries in Latin America. [Agencia EFE/Factiva]

Argentine stock, bond and currency markets are expected to be hit hard if the government moves to takeover the private pension funds later Tuesday. President Cristina Kirchner is set to announce the complete nationalization of Argentina's private pension funds when she reveals reforms to the country's retirement system Tuesday, union leaders who back the measure say. [The Wall Street Journal/Factiva]

India and China will be encouraged to join a discussion about redesigning the global financial system, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, said on Tuesday while also laying out key principles to guide that overhaul. Sarkozy, addressing the European Parliament, said he would invite India and China to participate alongside the G8 nations during a visit to Beijing later this week with European Commission President José Manuel Barroso. [The Financial Times (UK)/Factiva]

Japan plans to hold the first meeting with other Asian countries, probably in November, to discuss enhancing controls on the financial system, Finance Ministry officials said Wednesday. The gathering is expected to become an Asian version of the Financial Stability Forum, a panel that advises the G7 economies. [Kyodo News (Japan)/Factiva]

The Foreign Investment Advisory Services (FIAS) under the World Bank officially opened a Vienna office for Eastern European and Central Asian Affairs on Tuesday.Austrian News Agency said this office would mainly work on close cooperation with Eastern European and Central Asian countries to improve their economic and political conditions so as to increase foreign direct investment to this region. [Xinhua/Factiva]

Kosovo has completed all necesary preparations and hopes to join the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in early 2009, Economy and Finance Minister Ahmet Shala told reporters. [Agence France Presse/Factiva]

Saudi Arabiaon Tuesday was reported to have deposited $2 billion-$3 billion in local banks to meet a shortfall of dollar funding in the domestic banking sector. Despite the danger of further stoking inflation by recycling petrodollars into the economy, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, the central bank, has moved to help banks overcome tightness in local currency money markets and frozen international debt markets. [The Financial Times (UK)/Factiva]

In another move to bolster fragile credit markets, the US Federal Reserve said it would lend as much as $540 billion to the money-market mutual-fund industry, which has been plagued by investor redemptions since September. It is the third major step Fed officials have taken in the past month to buck up money-market funds, which in normal times are low-risk investments that earn modest returns by investing in short-term debt. [The Wall Street Journal/Factiva]

World trade was surprisingly resilient over the summer but the growth rate remains on a negative trend as the global economic downturn threatens to choke off demand, according to the monthly measure of world trade produced by the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis. [The Financial Times (UK)/Factiva]

The first meeting in Ireland under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) opened Tuesday in an effort to reach agreement on the transfer of low-carbon technologies to developing countries. Officially called the UNFCCC Expert Group on Technology Transfer, the meeting at Farmleigh House in Dublin has drawn delegates from Africa, Asia, South America, Australia, North America and Europe, as well as representatives of the World Bank and other UN agencies. [Irish Times/Factiva]

Governments should resist the temptation to cut their health budgets in response to a global financial crisis, World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Margaret Chan said on Tuesday. WHO said steps to repair the economy should not only focus on rekindling trade and business growth but also on fighting poverty, misery and ill-health. [Reuters/Factiva]

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Tuesday during a speech in Naples that the G8 would likely decide to enlarge the group and include the world's emerging economic powers. [Agence France Presse/Factiva]