The IMF’s April 2025 Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa presents a clear warning: regional growth is slowing, debt pressures are mounting, and donor assistance is declining. Yet the report outlines critical opportunities particularly in domestic revenue mobilization, structural reform, and private sector activation that can shape a more resilient …
Watching the iridescent roller bird flash in the sun and take off, one might wonder where it is going. What would it encounter on its leisurely journey as it sweeps across ridges of rugged mountains, dips down into fields of paddy, past village ponds and thatched huts, resuming through inaccessible …
The 450-megawatt Baglihar hydel power project threatens to pour cold water on the warming relations between India and Pakistan. Pakistan says the project, on the Chenab river, violates the provisions of the World Bank-brokered I960 Indus Water Treaty between the two countries. On January 18, Pakistan moved the bank to …
Even as relief work continues in areas devastated by the tsunami, the corpus of the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund has quietly swelled to around Rs 500 crore. The money is said to be the largest corpus ever collected through the fund. This is just money that has been sent …
a multi-state World Bank (wb) loan for some tribal populations in India is in the pipeline, making it the first time the country might receive such a loan. The loan is to focus on the central Indian tribes that depend on forests for their livelihood. The money will be distributed …
In late September, Richard Feachem of the Global Fund for aids, tb and Malaria (gfatm) visited India, only to be embroiled in a controversy when the media fell upon statements he made regarding India having overtaken South Africa as the world's no 1 country with hiv/aids cases. So, while the …
the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (imf) have rejected a proposal by the uk to increase debt relief to Africa for helping it achieve its Millennium Development Goal (mdg) targets. At the annual meeting of the two bodies on October 2, 2004, Gordon Brown, uk's chancellor of the …
On September 22, 2004, the World Bank (wb) officially unveiled its Country Strategy (cas) for India. That very day, a draft critique of the bank’s strategy
WHAT constitutes authentic action on air pollution in India? If the World Bank is to be believed, it is a supine combination of objective data analysis and subjective anthropological speculation. The bank has prepared a study, yet to be released, that analyses ambient air quality in key Indian cities: air …
International relations have historically been characterised by coalitions of nation states. Even the present day un was born out of the deliberations of a post World-War ii (ww-ii) coalition of nations. Today, we have a plethora of coalitions
The World Bank Group will increase its lending to India over the next four years. The bank's executive directors approved an annual target of us $3 billion on August 26 in Washington dc, usa. It will be invested in infrastructure projects, human development and on securing rural livelihoods. Two policy …
Several years back, I mentioned to an editor of an environmental magazine that I was associated with a project under the World Bank- sponsored India Eco-development Programme (iedp). He immediately flew into a fit of rage. "Apologise immediately in writing,' he said. "And resign immediately from iedp, else I will …
unique protest: In a potent symbolic gesture equating a dangerous pesticide with the atom bomb, a Quit India Endosulfan march was organised in Kerala on August 6
A World Bank report on fiscal decentralisation to Panchayati Raj Institutions (pris) has reinforced the argument that decentralised governance in India will not work without genuine fiscal decentralisation. India: Fiscal Decentralization to Rural Governments analysed fiscal decentralisation in Kerala and Karnataka
mad cow victim: Florida-based Charlene Singh, 25, suffering the only known instance of the human form of mad cow disease in the US, died recently. She was ill since 2001. She suffered from the variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a brain-wasting illness caused by eating processed food made from cattle with bovine …
The World Bank (wb) has issued a letter of intent for the purchase of 8 lakh tonnes of carbon credits from the Visakhapatnam-based Institute for Solid Waste Research & Ecological Balance (inswareb). The purchase from the fly ash, lime, gypsum (fal-g) brick and block industry will result in earnings to …
The World Bank (wb) has approved its largest ever environmental grant for the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar. The funds, amounting to us $49 million, are meant to help the country in protecting its unique environment and native species. Madagascar, the world's fourth largest island, has an array of flora …
The 60th anniversary of Washington-based organisations, the World Bank (wb) and International Monetary Fund (imf), was celebrated amidst clamours for reform. Critics distributed
In Kerala’s Kozhikode district, there exists a village that doesn’t depend on government dole: Olavanna’s panchayat has been successfully running its own drinking water project since the 1990s. This is completely unlike the way the United Democratic Front (UDF) government functions. The Kerala Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (KRWSSA), …
