World Bank [to 1 February 2014]
http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/all
Region/Global actions and announcements
Beyond Bricks and Mortar: Building More Inclusive Cities to Lift the Urban Poor
With 5 million people moving to cities every month, urban poverty is an increasingly complex problem for policy makers around the world. At the World Bank Group, urban experts are looking at innovative ways to help cities reduce poverty and include the urban poor in the opportunities offered by growing cities. “In the past, our work on inclusive cities has primarily focused on slum upgrading, the ‘bricks and mortar’ interventions, to deliver infrastructure and improve services,” said Sameh Wahba, acting director for the Bank’s Urban and Disaster Risk Management Department. “But with the rapid growth of cities, it’s clear that it’s not enough to just go fix existing slums – cities need to plan for a growing population and deliver affordable housing to prevent new slums from forming.” “We can’t continue to run after the problem to solve it,” he said. “We need to get in front of it. In other words, couple the curative with the preventive. “Exclusion Exacerbates Po Show Less –
Date: January 30, 2014
Ahmadou Moustapha Ndiaye – Inclusion Matters: The Foundation For Shared Prosperity
Welcome and thank you for joining us today for the launch of The World Bank’s report “Inclusion Matters: The Foundation for Shared Prosperity” here in Uganda. “Inclusion Matters” is a global report but its messages have direct applicability to and relevance for Uganda today. So I am proud that this event here in Kampala is the first launch of the report in Africa and, in fact, the first in a World Bank client country. Let me start by introducing the World Bank team. I have great pleasure in welcoming our Country Director, Philippe Dungier to this event. We also have here Maitreyi Das, the lead author of the report who will provide first-hand insights from the report and set the stage for the panel discussion. In addition, Juan Carlos Parra, Lisa Schmidt and Johanna Suurpaa, members of the core team for the report are also present. I would like to record my appreciation for the Uganda team – Sheila Byiringiro Gashishiri, Annette Nabisere Byansansa, Constance Nekessa-Oum Show Less –
Date: January 28, 2014
PRESS RELEASE
More Productive Jobs for Africa’s Youth Vital for the Region’s Economic Progress, says New WB Report
January 27, 2014
WASHINGTON, January 27, 2014 – With more than half of Sub-Saharan Africa’s population now under the age of 25, and as many as 11 million young Africans expected to join the labor market every year for the next decade, creating millions of productive, well-paying jobs will be vital to boost economic growth, significantly cut poverty, and create shared prosperity in Africa, according to a new World Bank report on youth employment in Africa.
While many African economies have registered impressive economic growth in recent years, poverty levels across the region have not fallen as much as expected and young people looking for better-paying work have been at a great disadvantage. This is partly because many African countries rely heavily on oil, gas, and mineral extraction which boosts economic growth but does little to create new jobs for the region’s fast-growing youth population or reduce overall rates of poverty.
In a new comprehensive regional report on the subject, ‘Youth Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa’ notes that close to 80 percent of the workforce will continue to work on small farms and in household businesses in the near future. While the modern wage sector is growing very fast in some countries, it cannot create enough jobs to meet the youth employment challenge now preoccupying governments in every corner of the continent…
Youth Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa Report
