SA Newsletter

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This quarterly electronic information brief provides relevant information on recently published reports, seminars and events. To subscribe, please visit www.worldbank.org/afr/za.  We also invite you to please access other similar information on the websites of our countries:

 

South Africa (www.worldbank.org/southafrica)

Botswana http://www.worldbank.org/botswana

Namibia (www.worldbank.org/namibia)

Lesotho (www.worldbank.org/lesotho)

Swaziland (www.worldbank.org/swaziland)

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Lighting Africa is a World Bank Group initiative aimed at providing up to 250 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa with access to non-fossil fuel based, low cost, safe, and reliable lighting products with associated basic energy services by the year 2030.  Lead sponsors of Lighting Africa include the Global Environment Facility, the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program, Public Private

Infrastructure Advisory Facility, the European Commission, Governments of Norway, Luxembourg and Sweden, Good Energies Inc., and the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership.  For more information visit

This is a new network, jointly created by the World Bank and the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) of South Africa, to become a leading African advocate of citizen involvement in demand-side governance initiatives.

ANSA has recently launched its newsletter, Full Circle, whichis available in English, French and Portugese. For more information

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The Boards of Governors of the International Monetary Fund (Fund) and World Bank Group (Bank) meet once a year in the autumn for a two-day plenary session to discuss the work of their respective institutions. The Annual Meetings are preceded by the ministerial-level meetings of the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC), the IMF's policy-guiding body, and the Development Committee, a joint IMF-World Bank forum. For more information visit

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This two week course explored key elements in designing efficient, equitable and financially sustainable population policies and reproductive health programs in the context of health sector reform and Millennium Development Goals. After attending the course, participants learned to recognize how the changing international and national policy environments affect their work in population and reproductive health and to identify the linkages among health, gender and poverty.   To learn more click here

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The World Bank Institute (WBI) is the capacity development arm of the World Bank, and helps countries share and apply global and local knowledge to meet development challenges. WBI?s capacity development programs are designed not only to build skills among groups of individuals involved in performing tasks, but also to strengthen the organizations in which they work, and the sociopolitical environment in which they operate.

 

By 2000, the Sub-Saharan Africa region's cumulated stock of capital flight amounted to over US$400 billion. The objective of this high-level seminar is to mitigate the risks of capital flight and enhance growth and development in the post-HIPC era in Sub-Saharan Africa; ultimately, advance Sub-Saharan Africa integration into the global economy. For more information.

  

World Bank Core Course on Pensions, 5 November-16 November, Washington DC, United States of America
This course aims to provide top policymakers and other key stakeholders in the pension debate with an overview of the latest concepts and frameworks about pension reform as well as a review of lessons from recent pension reforms around the world.. For more information

 

The Strengthening the Essential Public Health Functions course covers the 11 Essential Public Health Functions. The course develops leadership and competencies in the assessment and performance of the 'Essential Public Health Functions' (EPHF), and contribute to the strengthening of effective national public health systems. For more information

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These publications and more are available at the Public Information Centre

New Policy Research Working Papers

As crude oil prices reach new highs, there is renewed concern about how external shocks will affect growth and poverty in developing countries. This paper describes a macro-micro framework for examining the structural and distributional consequences of a significant external shock-an increase in the world price of oil-on the South African economy. The authors merge results from a highly disaggregative computable general equilibrium model and a micro-simulation analysis of earnings and occupational choice based on socio-demographic characteristics of the household. The model provides changes in employment, wages, and prices that are used in the micro-simulation. The analysis finds that a 125 percent increase in the price of crude oil and refined petroleum reduces employment and GDP by approximately 2 percent, and reduces household consumption by approximately 7 percent.

Click here for the full text.

This paper reviews empirical findings from economic analyses of the role of gender equality and women's empowerment in reducing poverty and stimulating growth. Going beyond the large literature documenting the impact of female education on a range of development outcomes, the paper presents evidence on the impact of women's access to markets (labor, land, and credit) and women's decision-making power within households on poverty reduction and productivity at the individual and household level. The paper also summarizes evidence from studies examining the relationship between gender equality and poverty reduction and growth at the macro level. Click here for the full text.

 

This paper uses firm level data from a cross-section of 57 countries to study how financial development affects innovation in small firms. The analysis finds that relative to large firms in the same industry, spending on research and development by small firms is more likely and sizable in countries at higher levels of financial development. The estimates imply that among firms doing research and development in a country like Romania, which is at the 20th percentile of financial development, a 1 standard deviation decrease in firm size is associated with a decrease of 0.7 standard deviations in research and development spending. In contrast, this decrease is only 0.2 standard deviations in a country like South Africa, which is at the 80th percentile of the distribution of financial development. Click here for the full text.

 

Many countries spend significant resources on investment promotion agencies in the hope of attracting inflows of foreign direct investment. Despite the importance of this question for public policy choices, little is known about the effectiveness of investment promotion efforts. This study uses newly collected data on national investment promotion agencies in 109 countries to examine the effects of investment promotion on foreign direct investment inflows. The empirical analysis follows two approaches. First, it tests whether sectors explicitly targeted by investment promotion agencies receive more foreign direct investment in the post-targeting period relative to the pre-targeting period and non-targeted sectors. Second, it examines whether the existence of an investment promotion agency is correlated with higher foreign direct investment inflows. Results from both approaches point to the same conclusion. Click here for the full text.

 

The World Bank Research E-Newsletter is published once a month and reaches subscribers via email. The newsletter contains monthly updates on World Bank events and publications related to Development Economics research. Numerous links lead readers to more detailed information, and allow downloads of publications, including recent policy research working papers.Subscribe to the World Bank's newsletter at: www.econ.worldbank.org/research_digest

 

For more information on the Bank's new and archived research programs visit

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This is an internet-based broadcasting service that streams World Bank seminars, workshops and conferences to the public on the Internet.

View B-SPANs on the B-SPAN homepage.

 

The World Bank Institute's Multimedia Center and B-SPAN introduce the Bank's first pod cast, the "Best of B-SPAN". A series of downloadable radio programs distributed automatically on the 1^st and 15^th of every month, the series will cover a different development topic in each show using excerpts from the extensive B-SPAN video archive. Listeners can hear programs individually, or subscribe to the pod-cast free to have new content delivered to them automatically with each update.  For more information and to view the latest pod-casts click here.

 

Video on Demand (VoD) is a video portal developed & provided by the GDLN Multimedia Center that disseminates and archives videos collected from various sources, such as B-SPAN and WBI video collection. VoD allows users to add, browse, query, and play back videos over the Internet.

Most-Watched Presentations (available on the VOD homepage):

 

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For these and additional project documents please access the Documents and Reports website.

 

IBRD, IDA, IFC Board Meeting - Minutes - June 20, 2007

IBRD, IDA Board Meeting - Minutes - June 21, 2007

IBRD, IDA Board Meeting - Minutes - June 26, 2007

IBRD, IDA Board Meeting - Minutes - July 3, 2007

IBRD, IDA Board Meeting - Minutes - July 5, 2007

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For Additional Information, please contact our Public Information Center (PIC):

Location:  1250 Pretorius Street, ProEquity Court 1st Floor, Hatfield.

Opening Hours: Monday - Friday (09:00 - 16:00)

Telephone: 012 431 3103/0

Fax: 012 431 3134

Email: salibrary@worldbank.org

Contact: Mmenyane Seoposengwe

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