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 …
WITH INCREASING emphasis being placed on upgrading of technical training, Indian institutes providing such training are seeking help in this area from multilateral agencies. The World Bank is funding two such projects that are being implemented by the ministries of labour and human resource development (HRD). The projects aim to …
HELPED along with generous grants from the World Bank and Japan to green the Aravallis, plus its own sizeable forestry budget, the Rajasthan government has embarked on an ambitious compensatory reafforestation plan. District collectors have been asked to identify areas which can be set aside to form part of a …
IT IS IRONIC that during the same week in June in which the World Bank emerged from Rio as the major funding mechanism to clean up the world's environment and implement Agenda 21, the Morse report revealed to the world the chronic institutional failures of the bank to promote environmentally …
THE MORSE committee has asked the World Bank to step back from the Sardar Sarovar project. Whether the bank complies or not, the committee has undoubtedly delivered a resounding indictment of all those involved in the project -- from the governments of Gujarat and India to the mighty World Bank. …
AT THE outset, I would like to mention that I have not been able to read the Morse report. My opinions are based on the summaries of the report that have been published in the newspapers. I find the report disappointing in the sense of not "being well done". Going …
IT IS TIME the government of India set up a high-powered committee of experts to take a decision on the Narmada project. As far as the work on the project is concerned, I frankly cannot say whether the work should be stopped. It is a very technical matter and experts …
WHILE NGOs and journalists were taking tours to see what poverty looks like in favelas (Brazilian slums), world leaders were negotiating the chapter on "combating poverty" only a few kilometres away, in Riocentro. They, of course, could not see much poverty on "the road to Rio" as the Brazilian government …
ENVIRONMENT is a class issue. The attempt to obfuscate this fact is also motivated by class interests. Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg drew attention to what had emerged as the outstanding global reality: predatory capitalism carved out colonies and empires as much for obtaining raw material at low prices as for …
ECONOMICS is going green. According to a growing band of experts, now labelled "green economists", sustainable development can only be achieved if economic theory can be utilised to determine sustainable natural resource use patterns. Oscar Wilde once alleged that while economists may know the price of everything, they know the …
HOW DO you value a tree? Do you account only for the timber and fruit that a tree bears or are there other intangibles that have a value, for instance, the carbon dioxide that the tree fixes, the oxygen that it releases, the soil erosion that it checks or even …
Norwegians now maintain regular "resource accounts" for energy, minerals, fisheries, forests, agriculture, land use and air emissions. Each account contains information on the state or quality of the resource at the beginning and end of a time period, together with information explaining any change that has taken place. Energy forecasting …
LOFTY afforestation goals come to grief on a very mundane issue: the survival of people in and around the project area. One such is a US $30 million reforestation programme in the Chopta region of the Himalaya, funded by the World Bank. The government blamed the villagers for the failure, …
PATRICIA ADAMS attributes the current environmental imbroglio of developing countries to their debt crisis, which has been aggravated by loose lending, corruption and anti-democratic policies. She unearths various links between borrowing, lending and "development" projects to expose the mercantilism of Third World development. She does this by asking simple questions …
Last November, at an international meeting on women and the environment, some of us were arguing with UNFPA officials over the use of risky, long-acting contraceptives like Norplant in population control strategies. A German environmentalist interrupted: "But your women are already dying for want of health care and drinking water." …
IT is two years since western governments, in a fit of enthusiasm for green issues, proposed a US $1.5 billion "pilot project" to find ways to protect the world's rainforests. Meeting in Houston, Texas, the "Group of Seven" rich industrial nations backed a scheme from Germany's Chancellor Kohl to test …
What are the main issues at the UNCED summit? The various conventions. These have to be ratified at the summit. Are these conventions going to be on a partnership basis or on the old psyche of aid and assistance? When I see the rigidity and inflexibility of some of the …
THERE is considerable speculation amongst the anti-Narmada activists as to how the recent clashes between the police and the villagers of Manibell will influence the attitude of the principal financiers of the dam, the World Bank and Japan. Medha Patkar of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) did not look happy …
The Renewable Energy for Rural Livelihood (RERL) is implemented from 1 April 2011 upon the successful completion of the Rural Energy Development Programme (REDP) with main focus on enhancing rural livelihood. It is a joint project of Government of Nepal, United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank. The objective …
