PSD Blog - The World Bank Group

Online career network for India's poor

Anirudh Krishna found that the lack of connections, rather than a shortage of better jobs, is what keeps poor Indians from escaping poverty.

Inspired by this research, Sean Blagsvedt co-founded babajob.com, an online marketplace for low-skilled workers. The company managed to overcome the main barrier to online networking – the lack of computer access by the poor – with a simple incentive. Babajob pays people to help others find jobs.

World Bank, mapped

Trying to navigate the World Bank's data on lending and country projects? Check out our new interactive map – it's an easy way to get the full picture.

Bhagwati on Sachs, Easterly and aid

Question: What do you think about professor Jeffrey Sachs' argument for a dramatic increase in foreign aid? Do you side with William Easterly in the debate?

Answer: My reaction is: plague on both your houses! […] I doubt professor Sachs ever pays attention to [...] sophisticated objections, always dismissing those who raise them as if they were wicked conservatives with horns and no brains. But Easterly is equally wrong in arguing that aid hardly works.

The full interview with Mr. Bhagwati is here.

Better times for Africa in 2008

The IMF's World Economic Outlook forecasts a 6.8 percent growth for the continent in 2008. Up from 6.1 percent in 2007, it's a performance not seen in the region since the 1970s. Notably, not all growth was attributed to rising commodity prices:

The combination of more open economies in a benign external environment, together with improved and more consistent policy reforms to strengthen the business environment and official actions to reduce debt burdens has allowed African countries to attract rising private capital inflows as well as benefit from "some step-up" in aid inflows and remittances.

Microfinance - buy it on eBay, part II

MicroPlace, the fully-owned subsidiary of the internet-giant eBay, is finally open for business.

Described as "Kiva.org with a touch of Prosper.com," the microlending site offers lenders interest rates between 1 and 4 percent.

Rob Katz has a good post comparing the two.

Connecting the unconnected

The total bottom of the pyramid household market for information and communication technologies (ICT) is estimated at $51.4 billion and includes 3.96 billion people with annual incomes below $3000. The Economist writes about poverty penalty in Africa, where only four out of every 100 people have internet access:

Of its 48 countries, the 28 in central and eastern Africa are connected to the web by only the flimsiest of satellite technology. Apart from the occasional internet hook-up at a diamond mine or UN camp, whole regions of Congo and Sudan, sub-Saharan Africa's two largest countries, have no connection at all. Even countries like Uganda, which are go-ahead about the internet, start from a very low base. Research by Microsoft found only one in 200 Ugandans regularly uses e-mail.

The organizers of the "Connect Africa" summit held today in Rwanda hope to encourage a new "Marshall Plan" for ICT on the continent.

Malaria digest

There are three reasons to be optimistic: a new, more effective drug and two vaccine prototypes - one of which made using mosquitoes' saliva glands. Stefan Kappe, the researcher, says:

We've made vaccines from pus and poop, we make them now using eggs—so why not make them in live mosquitoes?

Social capital can get you through credit crunch

At times when the cost of credit in the mainstream market rises, subprime borrowers, who have to pay even higher interest rates, can find their chance in the arms of social lenders. Because peer-to-peer lenders, such as Prosper, don't face the same constraints during a financial crunch as normal banks, they are able to charge lower rates and prosper.

In this system, where individual lenders compete for specific borrowers, borrowers can receive interest rates lower than from traditional banks, while letting lenders earn better returns than in money market or savings account.

SmartMoney has tips on navigating peer-to-peer sites and The Economist explains the limits of "crunchless credit."

Second Life for Doing Business

The Doing Business team will present its 2008 report - which ranks 178 economies on the ease of doing business - to the Second Life residents at the Activ8 Island Theater tomorrow at 3pm GMT (11am eastern).

If you're an avatar, don't forget to bring your questions and come early, seats are available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Those without an established online presence will be able to listen to the entire event here.

iSimulate from World Bank

If you are interested in web 2.0 and its potential applications to the development sector, the latest issue of the MIT Press' Innovations makes for some interesting reading.

Take for example the article on climate change. The authors argue that "it is now possible to harness computer technology to facilitate 'collective intelligence' [...] to address systemic problems like climate change." They envisage a virtual Climate Coolaboratorium where global conversations with "high social return" replace "complex, cumbersome and slow" policy making process. A collaborative tool to co-create and compare climate change scenarios.

Their dream might have just come true thanks to two highly innovative World Bank colleagues who recently launched iSimulate @ World Bank, a very "web 2.0" platform that allows users to organize collaborative economic forecasts (the platform is still in beta version, but interested users can pre-register to get an account).