Showing posts with label World Bank. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World Bank. Show all posts

May 11, 2010

Development in the shadows : how the World Bank and the Frente Clandestina almost built a new government in Timor-Leste

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Title: Development in the shadows : how the World Bank and the Frente Clandestina almost built a new government in Timor-Leste
Author: Totilo, Matthew Alan
Other Contributors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.
Advisor: Judith Tendler.
Department: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.
Publisher: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Issue Date: 2009
Abstract: The failures of post-violent conflict development projects have so far outweighed the successes. In response, international aid organizations have deepened and broadened their dedication to state-building projects across all aspects of institution-building, to include economic, social and political. I chose to examine the implications of this commitment by looking at Timor-Leste's first local governance project and studying the relationship between its two main actors: the World Bank and the National Council of Timorese Resistance. While largely panned as a failure by NGOs, donor organizations and the government of Timor-Leste itself, this project brought the traditional local leadership closer to having a true role in governance than similar efforts by any other actor working in Timor-Leste. A historical analysis of the application of traditional Timorese relationships with outsiders reveals parallel stories of similar partnerships. When in Timor, local leaders described to me an interesting story in the Frente Clandestina, the resistance movement that formed the core of Timor-Leste's proto-government structure. Counterintuitively, this organization was built on a foundation of weak relationships and distrust in order to function as an effective military logistical operation fighting an occupation government. This challenges the literature on social capital, social cohesion and trust which inadequately describes its relevance to recent events.(cont.) Unfortunately, the collapse of this project demonstrates that divergent agendas, inaccurate assumptions about state-building by the international community, and the misuse of terminology such continues to be a fundamental problem. Outbreaks of violence in recent years have highlighted the problems of ineffective institutional construction. Timor-Leste was hailed as a model state "built from scratch", but those rosy predictions have not endured. Its first 10 years of independence can teach us a lot about the principles of legitimacy, democracy and dignity in the post-violent conflict development experience of building institutions.
Description: Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2009."June 2009."Includes bibliographical references (p. 95-101).
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/50109
Keywords: Urban Studies and Planning.


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Nov 4, 2009

EAP Half-Yearly Update

November 2009

Available in: العربية
eap_nov09_380x150
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
  • East Asia’s rebound from the economic downturn has been surprisingly swift and very welcome.
    A vigorous and timely fiscal and monetary stimulus in most countries in East Asia and the Pacific along with decisive measures in developed economies to prevent a financial meltdown, have stopped the decline in activity and set in motion the regional rebound. Our projection for real GDP growth in developing East Asia is set to slow to 6.7 percent in 2009 from 8 percent in 2008, or much more moderately than after the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis.
  • Developments in East Asia and the Pacific remain strongly influenced by China.
    Take China out of the equation, and the rest of the region is recovering with less vigor. Developing East Asia excluding China is projected to grow more slowly in 2009 than South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, and only modestly faster than Sub-Saharan Africa.
  • The aggregate numbers tell an incomplete story about the social and poverty impact of the crisis.
    The report estimates that 14 million people who would have emerged from $2-a-day poverty if the region’s economies had kept growing at pre-crisis levels, will remain in poverty in 2010.
  • The rebound has yet to become a recovery.
    That is why the authorities in the region are mindful of the risks of a premature withdrawal of stimulus, given the large output gaps and concerns that developed countries are converging to a slower-growth equilibrium.
  • The crisis has prompted countries in the region to rethink their development strategies.
    For most, the choice between growth driven by exports, and growth driven by domestic demand is a false one. Countries need to resist protectionism and become more integrated into the global economy. At the same time, governments are realizing that more growth can be extracted from domestic demand if they ease or eliminate incentives that favor the quick buildup of export-led, investment-heavy manufacturing.
  • Downside and upside risks in consolidating the rebound into recovery:
    Downside risks include a double dip in economic activity in the advanced countries as stimulus measures and inventory restocking wear off. On the upside, a more robust recovery in the advanced countries could remove some of the imperative for rebalancing in developing East Asia and encourage sustaining the pre-crisis export-oriented growth model.
  • Can East Asia and the Pacific sustain rapid growth, even if the rest of the world grows slowly?
    This will depend on whether East Asia and Pacific can integrate further regionally – through better facilitation of trade in goods and by extending its liberal trade policies to services.

Download the Executive Summary (143kb pdf)

Download the Full Report (1.4mb pdf)


DOWNLOAD CHAPTERS

Chapter 1: The Rebound (482kb pdf)

Chapter 2: Economic Policies Supporting Recovery in East Asia (195kb pdf)

Chapter 3: Transforming the Rebound Into Recovery (233kb pdf)


DOWNLOAD COUNTRY SECTIONS, KEY INDICATORS

Country Sections (591kb pdf)

  • Cambodia
  • China
  • Fiji
  • Indonesia
  • Lao People’s Democratic Republic
  • Malaysia
  • Mongolia
  • Papua New Guinea
  • Philippines
  • Thailand
  • Vietnam
Key Country Indicators (314kb pdf | 196kb xls)
Appendices (406kb pdf)
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Aug 19, 2009

How the World Bank Let 'Deal Making' Torch the Rainforests

The World Bank ignored its own environmental and social protection standards when it approved nearly $200 million in loan guarantees for palm oil production in Indonesia, a stinging internal audit has found.

The report, detailing five years of funding from the International Finance Corp. (IFC), the private-sector arm of the World Bank, lambastes the agency for allowing commercial pressures to influence four separate loans aimed at developing the industry.

"The IFC was aware for more than 20 years that there were significant environmental and social issues and risks inherent in the oil palm sector in Indonesia," auditors wrote. "Despite awareness of the significant issues facing it, IFC did not develop a strategy for engaging in the oil palm sector. In the absence of a tailored strategy, deal making prevailed."

The report (pdf) from the office of the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman comes as Indonesia prepares to enter the carbon markets by protecting its tropical forests. Working in partnership with Australia, the Indonesian government currently is working to design a national carbon accounting system. Australia is building a satellite to monitor deforestation in the Southeast Asian country, according to new U.N. submissions.

Indonesia is home to the world's second-largest reserves of natural forests and peat swamps, which naturally trap carbon dioxide -- the main greenhouse gas that causes climate change. But rampant destruction of the forests to make way for palm oil plantations has caused giant releases of CO2 into the atmosphere, making Indonesia the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases on the planet.

The audit does not address climate change or how lending for palm oil -- an ingredient in foods and a biofuel added to diesel for cars -- fits into the World Bank's new "strategic framework" for development and climate change. It also does not examine any of the specific charges or environmental accusations lodged against the firm to which the World Bank loaned money.

Rather, the report confines itself to whether the IFC abided by its own standards. On that front, the multilateral bank came up short.

IFC saw burning the trees as having 'no impact'

Specifically, auditors said, when loaning to Wilmar International Ltd. and other firms between 2003 and 2008, the IFC did not check out concerns about the companies' supply chain plantations. The Forest Peoples Programme, a U.K.-based nonprofit group that originally brought the complaint, charged that the companies illegally used fire to clear forestland, cleared primary forests, and seized lands belonging to indigenous people without due process.

The IFC, auditors noted, labeled the initial loan as a "category C" -- a listing signifying that a project has little or no adverse environmental or social impacts, and which is typically given to financial intermediaries. But by failing to examine the subsidiaries that source the raw materials, IFC ignored issues like the absence of publicly available environmental impact assessments for the subsidiary companies.

"For each investment, commercial pressures were allowed to prevail," auditors wrote. "Commercial pressures dominated."

In a written response to auditors, the IFC acknowledged shortcomings in the review process. But the lender also defended investment in palm oil production as a way to alleviate poverty in Indonesia.

"IFC believes that production of palm oil, when carried out in an environmentally and socially sustainable fashion, can provide core support for a strong rural economy, providing employment and improved quality of life for millions of the rural poor in tropical areas," it said.

Hunting for a 'sustainable' strategy

The agency vowed to develop a new strategy to guide its future palm oil investments, to be completed in about three months, and to put "renewed emphasis" on assessing a company's supply chain before lending.

Marcus Colchester, director of the Forest Peoples Programme, called that response "inadequate."

In a letter to World Bank President Robert Zoellick and the board, Colchester and leaders of other nonprofit groups called on the World Bank to freeze palm oil lending, charging that IFC suffers a "systemic problem whereby the pressure to lend and to support business interests overcomes prudence, due diligence and concern for social and environmental outcomes."

They noted that the management response included no actions to address the problem of climate change being exacerbated by planting on peatlands and burning forests, and advised no discipline for staff that failed to comply with standards.

Barbara Bramble, a senior program adviser for international affairs at the National Wildlife Federation, said she believes the World Bank should help the Indonesian government at all levels change incentives for palm oil planting and refuse to invest in any company whose primary plantation is primary rainforest.

She, Colchester and even IMF officials widely agreed that there is in Indonesia an abundant amount of already degraded land that could be used for palm oil productuon. The challenge, Bramble said, is shifting national and local laws to encourage more sustainable production.

Meanwhile, the IFC indicated in a statement to E&E that the agency does not plan to give up palm oil investment anytime soon.

"IFC is aware of the environmental and social concerns associated with the palm oil sector in Indonesia. We also believe that the sector has considerable potential for job creation and economic growth," agency officials wrote. "We believe it is imperative to promote sustainable practices in the sector that will benefit the poor and preserve biodiversity."

Aug 3, 2009

Little Holds Nigeria Back From Food Crisis

By David Hecht
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, August 2, 2009 8:59 PM

KANO, Nigeria -- The nation blessed with Africa's largest oil reserves and some of its most fertile lands has a problem. It cannot feed its 140 million people, and relatively minor reductions in rainfall could set off a regional food catastrophe, experts say.

Nigeria was a major agricultural exporter before oil was discovered off its coast in the 1970s. But as it developed into the world's eighth-largest oil producing country, its big farms and plantations were neglected. Today, about 90 percent of Nigeria's agricultural output comes from inefficient small farms, according to the World Bank, and most farmers have little or no access to fertilizers, irrigation or other modern inputs. Most do not even grow enough food to feed their own families.

Nigeria has become one of the world's biggest importers of food staples, particularly rice and wheat, both of which the country could potentially grow in large enough quantities to be self-sufficient. Even with the imports, about 38 percent of Nigerians younger than 5 suffer from moderate or severe malnutrition, according to UNICEF, while 65 percent of the population -- roughly 91 million people -- are what humanitarian organizations call "food insecure." They are at risk of waking up one morning to find that they have nothing to eat.

With increased variation in weather patterns, experts envisage far worse to come.

Nigeria is "high-stakes," said William A. Masters, associate head of Purdue University's Department of Agricultural Economics and a specialist in agriculture in Africa. "Malawi's successes or Zimbabwe's failures are small compared to what happens in Nigeria," he said.

The people who have suffered most from Nigeria's unreliable agricultural output are its impoverished neighbors. In 2005, when Nigeria had a bad harvest, traders imported grain from Niger, which borders Nigeria to the north. The increased demand caused food prices to spike beyond what locals in Niger could afford. Aid organizations sent in food aid, but much of it was also bought up by traders and diverted to markets in Nigeria. Nutritional surveys suggest that untold numbers of children died.

Aid organizations say that they are now better prepared for food shortages in Niger and other countries around Nigeria, but that Nigeria itself remains problematic.

"Its economy is so big and complex, we can't really get a handle on it," one senior aid official in the region said on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. "The idea of a major drought or other disaster in Nigeria is almost too frightening for anyone to contemplate."

A Wake-Up Call

In theory, Nigeria could cope with a food emergency. The government is supposed to have the capacity to hold 300,000 metric tons of grain in reserve. But in practice, many of the silos for these grains have not yet been built, and those that have stand empty or are half-full.

"At best, the government's capacity is 300,000 metric tons and that capacity is only being half-utilized," said Guido Firetti, a silo contractor who recently took over the job of completing a 25,000-ton silo that has been under construction for more than 15 years.

For many in Nigeria, including some government officials, the global food crisis last year was a wake-up call. Prices of imported food soared, and the country panicked. Fearing food riots, the government announced it would spend $600 million to buy rice regardless of the price. The plan was quickly shelved when it became clear that getting the imported food to the people who needed it would take almost as long as growing the food locally.

The government then shifted gears. The money for importing food was reassigned to food self-sufficiency projects and, according to Nigeria's 2009 budget, the government's spending on agriculture is set to increase. The spike in world food prices, the worldwide recession and the slump in oil prices have spurred the government on, said Salisu Ingaw, the head of the National Food Reserve Agency. "Now we have to become more food self-sufficient," Ingaw said.

Embracing a Small Scale

Corruption is the usual explanation for why this ostensibly "rich" nation remains so underdeveloped. "But corruption is just the tip of the iceberg," said Masters, the Purdue specialist.

Even the most corrupt Nigerian governments invested in some infrastructure projects because they had so much oil wealth, Masters suggested. The problem is that so little of what they invested in ended up working, he said.

One widely held misconception that Nigerian governments fell for, Masters said, is that big farm ventures were inherently more productive than small ones. "Unless they are to be a link in a larger industrial process, the chances are high they will fail," he said "In most cases, large industrial farms don't have the necessary flexibility one finds in smaller family-style farms."

Nigerian development economist Shuaibu Idris said governments have traditionally seen small-scale farmers as backward, "but there is absolutely nothing wrong with a peasant one-man proprietor farm as long as the farmer can learn to adapt to new realities." Small-scale farmers may need to form cooperatives to share the cost of farm machinery and to buy inputs at bulk prices, he said.

That is also the conclusion recently embraced by the World Bank. In January, it approved a new $150 million Commercial Agriculture Development Project in Nigeria designed to support small- and medium-scale farmers.

The World Bank's new project, which is in the form of a loan to the government, will improve rural roads for farmers to reduce high transport costs and provide them with better storage facilities.

The good news is that Nigeria has boundless agricultural potential. Of the 3.14 million irrigable hectares of land in the country, the World Bank says only 7 percent is currently being utilized. And though large tracts of farmland have been lost to desertification, more than half the country's estimated 98 million hectares of arable land currently lie fallow.

"The opportunities for our farmers are enormous if only they were to get the right institutional support," said Sabo Nanono, the head of Kano state's commercial farmers association. "We could feed the entire West African region; we could produce enough rice in just two or three [of Nigeria's 36] states to feed the nation and even to export."

Somehow, the supply chain that feeds 140 million people keeps cranking along. The country has not seen a major famine for nearly four decades, since the Biafran civil war. But Nanono warned that it wouldn't take much to send this vulnerable country -- and region -- over the edge.

"The reality is that if the rains are bad throughout the region or the price of inputs became unaffordable, there could be massive food shortages, and neither the government nor any other institution stands ready to help," he said. "Then only God could save us."

David Hecht's report from Nigeria is part of the Food Insecurity project, a joint initiative of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and The Project for Under-Told Stories. View Hecht's audio slideshow on the project here. A companion story airs on "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" by Special Correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro. The Food Insecurity Web site is an interactive portal that features additional articles on food issues that have appeared in The Post and other news outlets. The Web site also gives users the opportunity to engage with journalists directly and to post their own responses, in video and in print.

Jul 30, 2009

Education in Indonesia

publication



Teacher employment and deployment in Indonesia
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Early childhood education and development in Indonesia : an investment for a better life
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The World Bank has signed an agreement with the Government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands on the provision of $ 20 million to help the Ministry of National Education maximize the effectiveness of the BOS (Bantuan Operasional Sekolah or School Operational Assistance) Program. The Dutch grant, which will be administered by the World Bank, will be used to ensure that BOS funds to schools are well used, and parents are better informed about the BOS program. Read more




QUICKFACTS

Indicators in Indonesia (Figures show the most recent available data and the year)



For more recent data see World Bank Education Stat (EdStat)

Health in Indonesia

publication

Health Financing in Indonesia: A Reform Road Map
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Press Release

Indonesia’s Doctors, Midwives and Nurses:
Current Stock, Increasing Needs, Future Challenges and Options

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Investing in Indonesia's Health
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Indonesia is facing major policy challenges in terms of how health reform will be financed, which groups should be subsidized, what specific health benefits should be covered, what changes are needed in the service delivery system, as well as other regulatory and administrative issues.

The latest World Bank Report on health addresses these issues.
Read more



QUICKFACTS

Indicators in Indonesia (Figures show the most recent available data and the year)


For Full Data on Health and Population in Indonesia click here