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Presenting qualitative survey findings, this book highlights opportunities and challenges in increasing the use of financial services by urban and rural households in Bhutan. It explores how different demographic groups save, borrow, send remittances, and insure themselves and what this means for services that could better meet their needs.
The microfinance sector in Bangladesh has matured rapidly in the past 30 years and now boasts the largest number of clients in the entire world. Despite these successes, the day-to-day operations of most microcredit institutions in Bangladesh are done manually. The introduction of a centralized information and communications technology (ICT) platform in the microfinance sector will provide further cost savings by streamlining data so that errors, omissions, and duplications (client overlap) are eliminated. Moreover, the introduction of a centralized ICT platform will help to ensure transparency through the standardization of information exchange and accounting mechanisms, increase outreach to rural areas, and integrate the largely informal microfinance sector with the formal financial system. 'Linking Up and Reaching Out in Bangladesh' shows how the establishment of a centralized microfinance platform would revolutionize the country s microfinance sector. This volume will be a useful guide for practitioners, policy makers, and microfinance institutions around the world.
Although access to financing in Pakistan is expanding quickly, it is two to four times lower than regional benchmarks. Half of Pakistani adults, mostly women, do not engage with the financial system at all, and only 14 percent have access to formal services. Credit for small- and medium-size enterprises is rationed by the financial system. The formal microfinance sector reaches less than 2 percent of the poor, as opposed to more than 25 percent in neighboring countries. Yet it is the micro- and small businesses, along with remittances, that help families escape the poverty trap and participate in the economy. 'Bringing Finance to Pakistan s Poor' is based on a pioneering and comprehensive su...
Anew, innovation-led growth model would enable Argentina to increase economic stability and achieve stronger shared prosperity. Argentina can escape boom-and-bust cycles and accelerate its recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic with an innovation-driven economy that, in addition to factor accumulation, fuels higher productivity growth across all its sectors. Such a growth model should build on Argentina’s strengths in human capital, research, and firm-level capabilities, which would help diversify the economy and make it more inclusive and less susceptible to external shocks, providing the country with a stronger buffer at times of uncertainty. Despite the volatility of the past few decades, ...
"""The report is essential reading for policy makers, government workers, and academics pursuing the goal of equitable, sustainable development across the world."" - N. R. Narayana Murthy, Chairman and Chief Mentor Infosys Technologies Ltd. Information and communication technology (ICT) is rapidly evolving, changing rich and poor societies alike. It has become a powerful tool for participating in the global economy and for offering new opportunities for development efforts. ICT can and should advance economic growth and reduce poverty in developing countries. It has been 20 years since the first telephone operator was privatized, a little over 10 since the World Wide Web emerged, and 5 since...
Amidst a fragile recovery, three clouds are gathering over the economic horizon: US inflation could provoke financial tightening, China's structural slowdown and zero-COVID-19 policy could dampen regional exports, and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine could disrupt food and fuel supplies, spook financial markets, and undermine business confidence. Counterposed against these risks, are three opportunities. First, shifts in the patterns of comparative advantage are creating new niches in both goods and services trade. Second, the diffusion of technologies could boost productivity. Finally, new green technologies could allow countries to cut carbon emissions without unacceptable cuts in consumption or growth. Accordingly, policy action must help countries to both affect the risk and grasp the opportunities. We begin by addressing three proximate questions: What is happening to the economies? Why? And what can we expect? We then discuss the policy options that can help East Asia and Pacific economies weather the shocks and ensure sustainable growth.
Economic activity in developing East Asia and Pacific has recovered from the recent shocks and is growing. However, output remains below pre-pandemic levels in many countries and inflation remains higher than target ranges in some countries. Near-term growth will depend on the dynamics of global growth and commodity prices, and financial tightening, which is likely to continue in the face of high inflation in the US. Taking a long-term view, growth in EAP has been faster and more stable than in much of the rest of the world. The result has been a striking decline in poverty and, in the last decade, also a decline in inequality. But it would be a mistake to let these achievements obscure vulnerabilities, past, present, and future. The region must implement structural, macro-financial, and climate-related reforms to address the problems of slowing productivity growth and scars from the pandemic, even as it faces up to the major challenges of deglobalization, aging and climate change.
After a half century of transformative economic progress that moved hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, countries in developing East Asia are facing an array of challenges to their future development. Slowed productivity growth, increased fragility of the global trading system,and rapid changes in technology are all threatening export-oriented, labor-intensive manufacturing—the region’s engine of growth. Significant global challenges—such as climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic—are exacerbating economic vulnerability. These developments raise questions about whether the region’s past model of development can continue to deliver rapid growth and poverty reduction.Agai...
'Connecting Sub-Saharan Africa' outlines a strategy for information and communication technologies (ICT) development in Sub-Saharan Africa that will further the reform agenda to facilitate deployment of ICT infrastructure, and encourage the development community to support African governments in this regard. The strategy builds on the earlier reform agenda in the sector by leveraging the achievements to date of Sub-Saharan African countries to advance the essential goal of increasing the continent's connectivity. It provides strategies for developing and enhancing the capacity of Africa's ICT institutions--including regulators, ministries, and regional bodies--to lead the development of an interconnected region and implement sustainable regional strategies for integration and knowledge sharing. Of particular concern is the ability to bring rural areas into the national, regional, and global economies, thus creating new opportunities for the world's poorest citizens.