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 …
JAPANESE environmentalists have objected to an Indian press report, which said Japanese non-governmental organisations had welcomed India's resettlement and rehabilitation (R&R;) package for oustees of the Sardar Sarovar Project. In fact, Yukio Tanaka, coordinator of the Narmada Action Committee of Japan, has denied this outright. The controversy erupted on February …
FOR ONCE, Indians can look forward to the sun doing the out-of-character job of cooling them. A new device -- a "suncap fan" that brings visions of a whirligig attached to a dunce"s cap -- that might soon hit the country"s overheated cricket stands will be powered by solar photovoltaic …
THE NUMBER of hungry people in South Asia -- who make up 49 per cent of the population -- can be cut by 50 per cent to 281 million, according to the World Bank. This can be achieved through far-reaching reforms backed by policies aimed at improving basic health and …
THE WORLD Bank will require more environmental protection by Asian loan recipients. The bank might demand the use of unleaded gasoline and better traffic management and might even require recycling of solid waste. The bank paints a particularly dismal picture of Asia and estimates approximately $38 billion a year is …
NEGOTIATIONS on how to structure a more democratic Global Environment Facility (GEF), which will finance the environmental treaties signed at the Earth Summit, broke down once again in Cartagena, Colombia, in December 1993. Participating countries were unable to agree to the proposed changes to restructure the GEF, set up by …
CITIZENS' groups have flayed the World Bank's (WB's) new information policy -- Expanding Access to Bank Information (EABI) -- for keeping information in and people out. In a desperate attempt to shore up its sinking image and secure a $18 billion capital replenishment, WB had recently cobbled together the information …
EVEN AS the threat to global biodiversity and the atmosphere increases, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) has frozen all on-going projects and postponed decisions pertaining to others till early November, when the Independent Evaluation Committee will submit its final report. The freeze was prompted by an interim report, which suggests …
BRITISH aid agency Oxfam has flayed the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) for their complacent approach to the problems caused in sub-Saharan Africa because of its huge external debt, which is in excess of $183 billion. "After a decade of structural adjustment programmes implemented under the …
DESPITE being warned about the pitiable plight of the Uru Eu Wau Wau Indians in northwest Brazil, the World Bank (WB) did not stop to consider the effect on the tribals of a road construction project it was financing in the region. And now, unfortunately, the warnings are coming true. …
THE US Congress approval of less than the requested funding for the world's poorest countries has put the International Development Agency (IDA) of the World Bank in trouble. Though the Clinton administration had requested an annual contribution of $1.25 billion to meet its three-year commitment of $3.75 billion, the Congress …
AS PART of the national environment action plan (NEAP), the Union ministry of environment and forests (MEF) is preparing numerous projects, financial assistance for which it will seek from the World Bank (WB). The NEAP was developed at the insistence of WB, which exercises considerable influence over developing countries because …
In a severe indictment of the World Bank's (WB) record of resettlement of people affected by its projects in India, the bank's own Operations Evaluation Division (OED) has recommended that funding of projects involving forcible relocation of people should be stopped. OED says a February 1980 policy makes the bank …
MORE THAN 50 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from across the world met recently in the sub-Saharan city of Bamako as a prelude to the intergovernmental convention on desertification, which was proposed by African countries at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. When the industrialised countries did not show much interest …
LIGHTING offers much scope for improving energy efficiency in Pakistan, according to the country's National Energy Conservation Centre (ENERCON), which says the energy savings potential in lighting exceeds 50 per cent nationwide. Using a World Bank-format for planning, ENERCON is seeking funding to implement a five-year energy efficiency improvement programme …
SUB-SAHARAN Africa's debts have increased three-fold since 1980 and the only prospect is that the arrears will mount as just half the scheduled payments are being met. Solutions being explored range from implementing the so-called Trinidad terms to creating a UN Economic Security Council (ESC), whose 11 permanent members would …
CHINA'S plan to build the Three Gorges dam across the Yangtze river with a 185-m-high reservoir level "would not be an economically viable proposition", according to the World Bank. Probe International reports the World Bank endorsed a Canadian feasibility study of the dam, which contained evidence that raising the water …
THE MONSOONS in Bangladesh have once again triggered floods, displacing 1.5 million people. The worst affected are Sylhet and Chittagong, where road and rail links with the rest of the country were snapped. Bangladesh, located in the delta regions of two major rivers, the Ganga and the Brahmaputra, receives vast …
ENVIRONMENTAL NGOs in the US are rushing ahead of their government in both their desire and actions to act as the world's green helmets. A statement issued by the Environment Defence Fund and other US environmental groups at the time of the G-7 Tokyo Summit against the World Bank loan …
THOUGH Singrauli's thermal power plants have affected the availability of potable water in the area, studies show they have contributed only marginally to the high levels of dust and gaseous effluents there. None of the wells in the area supply potable water that meets official Indian standards. Water from wells …
AN ENVIRONMENTAL and socioeconomic survey of Singrauli was commissioned in May 1988 by the National Thermal Power Corp (NTPC) and executed by the French public sector corporation, Electricite de France International. Indian voluntary and environmental groups working in the area protested against being left out from the assessment team and …
