Structural transformation depends not only on how much countries export but also on what they export and with whom they trade. In my new IMF working paper with Rahul Anand and Kalpana Kochhar, we break new grounds in analyzing India’s exports by the technological content, quality, sophistication, and complexity of India’s export basket. The paper can be found here. Here ...
As we today mark UN Women’s Day, it is worth considering what the inequality between men and women costs South Asian countries and what can be done about it. One big cost of inequality is that South Asian economies do not reach their full potential. In Bangladesh, for example, women account for most unpaid work, and are overrepresented in ...
Sri Lankan woman washing dishes. Credit: Simone D. McCourtie/World Bank A common Sri Lankan proverb states that a woman’s wisdom only extends to the length of the kitchen spoon’s handle. With near universal female lower secondary school completion, and more girls than boys receiving tertiary education, the knowledge of Sri Lankan females has clearly moved beyond the length of the ...
Women community leaders. Photo Credit: World Bank Women are seen in their traditional role of home-makers, but might their ability to take on managerial roles in disaster risk management be underestimated? As part of the India Disaster Risk Management team, I travelled on the “Road2Resilience” bus journey along the entire coast of India. Along with the team’s mission ...
Small shacks with bamboo frames & corrugated tin roofs - where 40 percent of the city’s population live. Sangmoo Kim/World Bank In Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, you cannot miss the slum neighborhoods. More than 5,000 slum communities, accounting for 40 percent of the population, are spread across the city, often located right next to luxury penthouses, hotels, ...
Aqeela Asifi. Credit: UNHCR Aqeela Asifi is the 2015 winner of UNHCR's Nansen Refugee Award, recognized for her indefatigable efforts to educate Afghan girl refugees. She was a guest panelist at the "Managing Displaced Populations—Lessons From Pakistan" discussion with President Jim Yong Kim during his two day visit to Pakistan last week. Her car broke down during her long ...
Aqeela Asifi is the 2015 winner of UNHCR’s Nansen Refugee Award,recognized for her indefatigable efforts to help girl refugees access education. Credit: UNHCR Her car broke down during her long journey to Islamabad from Kot Chandana, a refugee village where she lives in the south-eastern Punjab province of Pakistan. It’s early evening and she’s probably exhausted, but still insists ...
A student at an Urban Slum Learning Center in Dhaka. Photo: Mabruk Kabir/World Bank On a foggy winter morning in Dhaka, 41-year-old Jahid was sipping tea by a roadside stall. “Life was very peaceful back in my village,” he reminisced, “but there was no work, so I moved to Dhaka. Even if I live in a slum, my children are ...
Students learning at the Earn through Freelancing training. Credit: Empower Pakistan/World Bank It is possible today to be sitting almost anywhere in the world and -- provided you have access to a computer and the internet -- you can be working on international projects, learning through online courses, or collaborating with other young people worldwide. These kinds of connected communities ...
In South Asia, 302 million people will join the urban population between 2011 and 2030. If I were one of them, (and let’s assume for a moment that South Asia is one big happy country with no political borders and no religious or ethnic divides), where would I want to live to be safe from natural disasters? Well, I ...
Bishnu Ghale, an RMG member from Khanigaon, works on the Nuwakot – Malabhanjyang road. When the earthquake hit on the Saturday of 25th April last year, 35-year-old Bishnu Ghale was working in the fields near her house in Khanigaon VDC of Nuwakot district. The quake destroyed her house, but she was thankful her husband and three children were alive. ...
Student’s project for the blind person (left), analogue fabrication lab (right) Recently, an undergraduate engineering student from Khulna University of Engineering and Technology (KUET) in Bangladesh showed me his mobile app that helps a blind person navigate while enabling family and friends to track their whereabouts. I was impressed with his capacity to apply electronics, geographic information system, and ...
और इन भाषाओं में: English | Español | Français "नाइटलाइट्स आईओ रास्ता दिखलाने वाला एक मंच है, जो उस तरीके में बदलाव लाएगा, जिससे दुनिया ऊर्जा की उपलब्धता की वैश्विक चुनौती का समाधान करती है। ये साधन (टूल्स) उन लोगों को ऊर्जा संबंधी समाधान मुहैया कराने में हमारी मदद करेंगे, जिन्हें इनकी सबसे ज़्यादा ज़रूरत है।" ...
