Tag Archive for ‘International Bank for Reconstruction and Development’ at LIRNEasia

Tag Archive for 'International Bank for Reconstruction and Development'

Call for Papers: Infrastructure Regulation: What works, Why, and How do we know?
Deadline: 05 December 2008.

What do we know about Sri Lanka’s Telecentres?

on November 20, 2008

Here are the summarised results from the telecenter operator survey done by LIRNEasia at the weCan workshop in October 2008. Sample was not representative, but large enough to get a general idea about the telecenter operations in Sri Lanka.

Out of a total of 147 operators surveyed, the bulk, 101 were from Nenasalas, the 500 odd telecenter network created under the World Bank funded e-Sri Lanka programme. 10 were from Sarvodaya multi-purpose telecenters and 6 from others (eg. public libraries) 30 have not specified the type of the telecenter.

Do telecenters in Sri Lanka make money? Yes. They report an average monthly income of Rs. 22,119. (=USD 201) This is associated with a relatively large standard deviation of Rs. 21,714 (= USD 197) indicating a variation within…

4 Comments
Tags: Broadband, Colombo, electricity, ICT Agency, ICTA, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Internet charges, Internet services, Nenasala, odd telecenter network, print services, printing series, Rs, Sarvodaya, Sri Lanka, survey, telecenter, telecenter network, telecentre, USD, VOIP, weCAN, World Bank, World Bank The.

What is the cheapest remittance mechanism of them all?

Chanuka Wattegama

on November 3, 2008

Last year as many as 190m migrant workers sent cash home, according to the World Bank. These remittances amounted to US$337 billion, of which US$251 billion went to developing countries. But the cost of sending hard-earned cash depends on both the source and destination. On average, sending US$500 from Spain to Brazil will incur a modest charge of US$7.68, or a 1.5% fee. Sending the same sum from the Netherlands to Indonesia costs a whopping US$86.41, a 17.3% charge. The Netherlands, Germany and Japan tend to be the priciest places to send money from. Costs are generally lowest in Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Singapore, America and Britain. (economist.com)

With hard times at our doorsteps, all we can say is a remittance mechanism that employs mobile communications…

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Tags: America, Brazil, Britain, Germany, Indonesia, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Japan, mobile communications, remittance mechanism, remittances, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, The Netherlands, USD.

Identifying the bottom of the pyramid

Rohan Samarajiva

on August 31, 2008

As researchers with a focus on government and private-sector actions that benefit the bottom of the pyramid, LIRNEasia has an interest in understanding poverty and who is poor. This summary report by the Economist gives a good overview of World Bank and ADB research on the subject. Of course, those interested are recommended to go to the sources for the real thing.

BTW, for those who wonder why we keep saying that South Asia is the home to the world’s largest concentration of poor people, the answer is that the World Bank states that 595.5 million people live on below USD 1.25 (purchasing parity) in South Asia. Sub-Saharan Africa only has 384.2 million.

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Tags: ADB, bottom billion, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, measuring poverty, poverty, south asia, sub-Saharan Africa, the Economist.

LIRNEasia’s 2005-06 work on dam safety pays off, but incompletely

Rohan Samarajiva

on August 16, 2008

We welcome the USD 71 million project to improve dam safety in Sri Lanka. LIRNEasia , together with several partners including the Sri Lanka Committee on Large Dams, Vanguard Management and Sarvodaya, did a lot of work on raising awareness of the impending dangers posed by ill-maintained dams, going as far as saying that a catastrophic dam failure in this reservoir-dotted country was not a question of if, but when.

The repairs will, we understand, address the most serious risks raised by the LIRNEasia participatory research. However, due to ill-informed protests of the opponents of water-use reforms and the weak-kneed response of the government agencies and the World Bank, the component that would have addressed the sustainability issues was stripped out after one exchange. So we…

1 Comment
Tags: dam safety, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Committee on Large Dams, sustainability, Vanguard Management and Sarvodaya.

“Building Sri Lanka’s Knowledge Economy”

Chanuka Wattegama

on March 21, 2008

Starting a business in Sri Lanka is not the easiest task in the world but how far that impedes Sri Lanka’s entry to global knowledge economy? This is one of the key questions posed by the World Bank publication
The report identifies the business environment; information infrastructure; an innovation system; and human resources as four pillars of the knowledge economy. Challenges faced by Sri Lanka in becoming a knowledge economy are examined and the report proposes possible ways that Sri Lanka could move forward to build its knowledge economy under the country’s development strategy as outlined in the Mahinda Chinthana.

‘Building Sri Lanka’s Knowledge Economy’ to be launched Tuesday March 25, 2008 at 4th Floor, DFCC Bank Auditorium 73/5, Galle Road Colombo 3. LIRNEasia is happy…

2 Comments
Tags: Colombo, DFCC Bank Auditorium, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Madonna James, Rohan Samarajiva, Sri Lanka, Sujtha Gamage.

Regulation must stay one step ahead of innovation: Chidambaram

Abu Saeed Khan

on October 24, 2007

India’s finance minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said Monday in Washington, “Regulation must stay one step ahead of innovation”.

He said the developed countries’ financial authorities are not keeping up with the new and complex financial market instruments that lay behind recent credit market turmoil.

“Thanks to the present crisis which originated in the advanced economies … I think developed economies will listen more to the developing economies’ point of view,” Chidambaram remarked.

“In the name of innovation, regulators or governments in the advanced economies have fallen behind the curve.”

The time has come for the developed world to attend to its own problems, and stop lecturing emerging economies about what is right and what is wrong, he said.

“For too long the advanced economies have told the developing economies that this…

1 Comment
Tags: Chidambaram India, finance, India, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, International Monetary Fund, Palaniappan Chidambaram, Reuters, United States, Washington.

Possible research focus on expatriate workers and their use of ICTs

Rohan Samarajiva

on August 19, 2007

As LIRNEasia plans its research program for 2008-09, the issue of money transfers through mobiles (first raised in the academic literature, to the best of my knowledge, by Professor Jens Arnbak in his contribution to a book that I co-edited in 2002) is rising in importance in the news as well as in our own thinking.

Migrant Cash Is World Economic Giant - Forbes.com

_ India is the world leader in remittances, taking in $23.7 billion in 2005 and an estimated $26.9 billion last year, the World Bank says. Western Union, traditionally one of the most frequently tapped money transfer companies, says its share of Indian transactions has grown at least 90 percent over each of the past six quarters.

_ Immigrants from Albania, one of Europe’s poorest…

2 Comments
Tags: Albania, Austria, Belgrade, cellular telephone, Europe, India, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Jens Arnbak, Jovana Acimovic, National Bank, Serbia, Tajikistan, USD.

Making money and doing good in Afghanistan

Rohan Samarajiva

on July 8, 2007

The Aga Khan Foundation is the owner of Afghanistan’s first mobile operator, Roshan. It is surprising that this social investment has not received a quarter of the publicity received by Grameen Phone in Bangladesh.

Do Business and Islam Mix? Ask Him - New York Times

Roshan has 1.3 million subscribers and is adding 60,000 a month. The Afghan government gets 6 percent of its tax revenue from the company, Ms. Abdulla says. Roshan says it employs 900 people, about 180 of whom are women.

“In Afghanistan, the Aga Khan is creating an enabling environment for business,” says Mr. Patel at the World Bank. “While producing results, these are early days. It’s too soon to see a payoff from his investments.”

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Tags: Abdulla, Afghan government, Afghanistan, Aga Khan Foundation, Ask Him - New York Times, Bangladesh, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Patel.

Senegal telecenters going out of business

Rohan Samarajiva

on June 17, 2007

For World Telecom and Information Society Day, I wrote a column on the wrong-headed telecenter policy being implemented by the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka with World Bank funds, where I referred to lessons from South Africa that were taken into account in the design, but ignored in the implementation. Here are some more lessons from Africa:

Creative destruction: izi killed the public phones « abaporu project on technology appropriation

All of a sudden, users don’t need the ‘public phones’ any more. In Senegal most of these télécentres have gone out of business. Bassirou Cissé, the general secretary of Unetts(*) says that “In 2000, there were 18,000 télécentres in Sénégal, accounting for 33% of the Senegalese operators’ revenues and 30,000 jobs. Today, most of them have closed down.”

Powered…

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Tags: Africa, Bassirou Cissé, For World Telecom, ICT Agency of Sri Lanka, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Senegal, South Africa, Sri Lanka, technology appropriation.

Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction

Rohan Samarajiva

on June 7, 2007

Readers of this website will know that from 2005 we have been pushing hard for action to reduce the risks of disasters and to better prepare people to save their lives. Starting from an effort to get government to create a national early warning system, we shifted to community-based disaster preparedness work at the last mile in association with Sarvodaya. It is heartening to see the risk reduction focus gaining acceptance worldwide:

News & Broadcast - Global Gathering Seeks to Reduce Disaster Risk

Nations and institutions are looking for other ways to protect an estimated 3.4 billion people living in areas prone to at least one natural hazard, such as flooding, hurricanes, earthquakes. A Global Hotspots Analysis conducted by the World Bank and Columbia University…

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Tags: Columbia, Columbia University, Geneva, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Saroj Kumar Jha, United Nations.

LIRNEasia at International Program for Development Evaluation Training

Rohan Samarajiva

on April 10, 2007

LIRNEasia’s Director of Organizational Development has been awarded a competitive scholarship for the International Program for Development Evaluation Training offered every Summer by Carleton University (Canada) and the World Bank.

This signifies LIRNEasia’s continued commitment to the values of a learning organization. Last year, LIRNEasia’s Lead Economist Dr Harsha de Silva was awarded a scholarship at the MIT Poverty Research Lab.

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Tags: Canada, Carleton University, Harsha de Silva, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, LIRNEasia\'s Lead, MIT Poverty Research Lab..

Following successful course, LIRNEasia plans regular offerings; next course in March 2008 in Singapore

Rohan Samarajiva

on March 19, 2007

Report on the 11th LIRNE.NET Executive Training Course on Regulation, 25 February – 3 March 2007, conducted by LIRNEasia and CONNECTasia Forum Pte.Ltd.

Rohan Samarajiva, Course Director

The 11th LIRNE.NET course on “Telecom Reform: Strategies to achieve connectivity and convergence,” was held February 25th - March 3rd, 2007 at the Changi Village Hotel, Singapore. It was attended by 33 persons from 13 countries, ranging from Mongolia to Congo and South Africa to Bhutan.

Among the participants were 13 persons from regulatory agencies, including three members of regulatory collegiums. Eleven persons from the management of telecom operators, and nine from research organizations, universities and civil society made up the balance. Twenty were men; and 13 women.

The course had two components: a conventional lecture and assignment based module of five…

3 Comments
Tags: Bhutan, Bill Melody, Broadband, Changi Village, Changi Village Hotel, China, Congo, CONNECTasia Forum Pte.Ltd, Dialog Telekom, Evan Due, Hans Wijayasuriya, Harsha de Silva, Hong Kong, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, ITU, M. H. Au, Mongolia, Rajendra Singh, Rohan Samarajiva, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Studies, The 11th LIRNE.NET, Tim Kelly, Universal Service Funds, VOIP.

LIRNEasia website assessment gains traction

Rohan Samarajiva

on December 1, 2006

LIRNEasia regulatory website assessment has been mentioned prominently in an official Pakistan government document, The Economic Survey 2005-06 from the Ministry of Finance

“Best Regulator’s Website Of Asia Pacific Region

LIRNEasia is a regional ICT policy and regulation capacity building organization funded by IDRC and infoDev of World Bank. The organization evaluated 27 websites from the Asia Pacific region covering 62 economies. The website of PTA was declared as the best website among all the national websites of regulators of Asia Pacific and regional economies. The website was declared best on the basis of availability of legislative & consumer information, future plans, continuous updating, user friendliness, links to external sites and availability of information on mission statement, organizational chart, contact and online forms.”

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Tags: Asia-Pacific, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Ministry of Finance, online forms, Pakistan, Pakistan government.

Training Course in Telecom Reform: Strategies to achieve connectivity and convergence

Ayesha Zainudeen

on November 13, 2006

An executive course on telecom regulation, including World Dialogue on Regulation Expert Forum on Sector and Regulatory Performance Indicators
Offered by LIRNEasia and CONNECTasia Forum Pte. Ltd.
February 25th - March 3rd, 2007. Changi Village Hotel, Singapore

The 2007 course is designed to enhance the strategic thinking of a select group of senior decision makers in the telecom and related sectors in the Asia Pacific and elsewhere. The focus will be on the most current strategic issues.

4 Comments
Tags: 11th LIRNE.NET, Africa, Asia-Pacific, Caribbean, Changi Village Hotel, China, CONNECT asia, Europe, Harsha de Silva, Hong Kong, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, International Telecommunication Union, Latin America, LIRNE asia, M.H Au, Previous LIRNE.NET, Rajendra Singh, Rohan Samarajiva, Singapore, Strategy and Policy Unit, Tim Kelly, TM International Sdn Bhd, William Melody, Yusuf Annuar Yaacob.

Bangladesh the ‘Golden Boy’ of South Asia: Global UNDP Report

Abu Saeed Khan

on November 9, 2006

Dhaka, Nov 9 (www.bdnews24.com) - The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Report for 2006, launched globally Thursday, revealed that Bangladesh had shown impressive gains in water and sanitation sector although Asia’s emerging giants were lagging.

“Income matters, but public policy shapes the conversion of income into human development,” said the report, entitled “Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis.”

“India may outperform Bangladesh as a high growth globalisation success story, but the tables are turned when the benchmark for success shifts to sanitation: despite an average income some 60% higher, India has a lower rate of sanitation coverage. Similar gaps between wealth and coverage are observed for water,” the report revealed.

Since 1975, Bangladesh has steadily improved life expectancy, education, and the standard of…

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Tags: Asia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Cape Town, Carter, Egypt, GDP, Gordon Brown, India, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Kevin Watkins, Kofi Annan, Lula, Middle East, Ngozi Ok, Nigeria, Thailand, United Kingdom, United Nations, United Nations Development Programme, United States, USD, water systems, www.bdnews24.com.

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