world bank

the following has approved an $80 million grant for
Myanmar to support its reform drive, resuming assistance for the former pariah
nation after a quarter-century absence?
[A]World Bank
[B]International Monetary Fund
[C]Asian Development Bank
[D]Japan
World Bank
The World Bank has approved an $80 million grant for Myanmar to support its
reform drive, resuming assistance for the former pariah nation after a quartercentury
absence. The money is for infrastructure projects in villages in poor rural
areas. The World Bank closed its Yangon office in 1987 and ceased new lending
after the then-ruling junta stopped making payments on debts worth hundreds of
millions of dollars left from previous programmes

The World Development Report 2013-Jobs Released by World Bank

The World Development Report 2013: Jobs released by the World Bank stressed upon the role of strong private sector in creation of jobs, outlining the facts that how can the jobs encourage development and incite an honest cycle. The report in its finding also indicated that when people work, there is an intense fall in poverty as people work out from their hardship and empowerment of women through jobs ensures better investments in children. The non-productive mass turns up to be productive and increase in jobs helps in making of flourished societies proving better alternatives of conflict by fostering diversities.

Part-time work has seen a rise in India

The World Development Report also emphasised on the fact that the medium-size businesses whereas the share of part-time work has seen a rise in India. The report also stated that the share of informal workers in organised sectors and firms have also witnessed a steep rise from 32 percent in 2000 to 68 percent by 2010.

Skilled Labour Shortage in India

The report targeted firm dynamics associated lacks accounted for the growth of such trends. The World Bank surveyed 54000 firms across 102 developing nations and went to a conclusion that large firms with over a hundred workers were innovative and engaged mainly in export and had higher productivity combined with good wages, whereas the small firms with an employee base of about 20 people were less innovative.

The report also cleared that majority of the firm across the world starts up as a small unit but in case of India these firms remains to be small by doubling the profits after being productive for a period of about 35 years and slashing down the headcount by one-fourth. The report also forecasted for India the missing middle of the medium sized firms.

Emphasis on Strong Urbanization Policy 

In context of India the published report also emphasised on strong urbanization policy in India to create better jobs and betterment of the labour policies, which were too stringent in India. To arrive at findings the authors of the report also surveyed over 800 households and processed censuses to arrive at their findings.

The published report was created by a team led by Martin Rama along with Kathleene Neegle and Jesko Hentschel with five more members in the core team and eight members in the Research team.

Recently, the World Bank Group announced the appointment of an independent
panel of experts to conduct a review of it's Doing Business report. Who among the
following from India has been appointed as one of the ten international experts to this
panel?----------Arun Maira








WORLD BANK IS KNOWN AS IBRD IS IN WASHINGTON







president of the 'World Bank' --Jim Yong Kim

PART OF WOLD BANK IS
IMF
INTERNATIONAL FINANCE CORPORATION
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION

World bank and the Government of India on 5 October 2012 signed a loan agreement of 500 Million US Dollar for Secondary Education Project named Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan(RMSA).

The project is going to help in achieving increased and good quality secondary education as directed in the framework of Rashtriya  Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan, the flagship government of India program for gradual Universalisation of secondary education.

The agreeement was signed by Prabodh Saxena, the joint secretary, department of economic affairs and Onno Ruhl, the country director of World Bank.

What is Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan?

Like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), the Department of School Education and Literacy of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) under Government of India is launching Rastriya Madhyamic Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) with an aim to achieve Universal Access and Quality Secondary Education.

Under Rashtriya Madhyamik Siksha Abhiyan, the responsibility to develop Secondary-Education Management Information system (SE-MIS) is given to the Department of Educational Planning, National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA), New Delhi.

Jose Ocampo withdraws from World Bank Chief race
Former Colombian Finance Minister Jose Antonio Ocampo withdrew from the race to become the next head
of the World Bank. Mr Ocampo held that he will support the Nigeriana Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
to win the job. She is the only remaining challenger to the US nominee Jim Yong Kim. WB is likely to select a
successor to its current President Robert Zoellick on April 16, 2012.




WORLD DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2013 RELEASED BY WORLD BANK


World Bank sanctions Rs 32 Crore for Rural Electrification at Sagar
Island in Sunderbans of West Bengal
Rs 32 Crore sanctioned by the World Bank for Rural Electrification at Sagar Island in Sunderbans of West Bengal. The
project for house to house power connection will be inaugurated at Rudra Nagar in Sagar Island. Under the scheme 42
gram panchayats will be electrified. The entire project will be completed by next
three years in which around 2,50,000 people will be benefited.
Sagar Island:
 Lies on the continental shelf of Bay of Bengal about 100 km (54 nautical miles)
south of Kolkata
 Governed by the State government of West Bengal
 Area: nearly 300 km²
 It has 43 villages and a population of over 160,000
 A famous Hindu pilgrim place






Three candidates in race for World Bank’s new President
3 candidates to compete for the post of World President President. They are:-
 The Colombian academic Jose Antonio Ocampo.
 Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
 The Korean-born American academic Jim Yong Kim (nominated by President of USA Mr. Obama).
They were nominated by developing countries. A US citizen has led the Bank since its inception in 1944, but developing
nations say it is time for change.






World Bank announces $4.3 bn aid to India
WB declared a $ 4.3 billion financial aid to India via fresh innovative and flexible financing arrangement to
assist India in fighting poverty. The arrangement has been designed in a way so as to maintain net
exposure of the lending arm of WB, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, IBRD within
the limit of $ 17.5 billion established by it. The fresh arrangement will provide special bonds to be issued by the WB
and purchased by India, to offset additional planned lending.




Indian Govt, World Bank ink $152-mn deal
The government of India and the World Bank signed an International Development Association (IDA)
credit of $152 million to finance the government’s efforts to help improve the efficiency, quality, and
accountability of health services in UP. The project would be financed by a credit from the IDA-World
Current Affairs Published on www.gktoday.in from January 1, 2012 to
September 10, 2012
Bank’s concessionary lending arm, with a final maturity of 25 years, including a grace period of 5 years and a 1.25%
interest rate.







World Bank approves $500-mn education project
The World Bank today approved $500 million (Rs 2,540 crore) to support India’s secondary education project
to make quality education accessible to youngsters at the secondary level.
The project would support all activities envisioned in the Rs 65,000 crore Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha
Abhiyan (RMSA) programme.
RMSA is a flagship government scheme for this segment. Under the RMSA programme, expansion, repair and
renovation of 60,000 government secondary schools would be carried out. It would also upgrade 44,000 upper primary
schools to secondary ones and set up 11,000 secondary and senior secondary. The project would be financed by the
International Development Association, the World Bank’s concessionary lending arm that provides interest-free loans
with a maturity period of 25 years and a grace period of five years, the Bank said in a statement.

World Bank appointed Onno Ruhl a Dutch National to be the country director for India on 10 September 2012.  He will replace the retiring N Roberto Zagha in October 2012. His appointment at this post will help the bank to formulate and implement developmental programs and steps in the nation.

About Onno Ruhl

1. Onno Ruhl holds a post graduate degree (MSc) in Economics from University of Amsterdam
2. He joined World Bank in the year 1993 and due to his potential leadership skills and strong experience in finance and operations; he held several positions in Asia and Africa.
3. He has served World Bank as its director for Nigeria and a country manager for Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)
4. Prior to his joining to World Bank in 1993, Ruhl served the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Netherlands
5. He has served the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) as an Alternate Executive Director on the Board

Chinese national Jin-Yong Cai to lead World Bank’s private
financial arm
Chinese national, Jin-Yong Cai has been appointed as the head of World Bank’s private financial arm International
Finance Corporation (IFC).

Jin-Yong Cai, will be the new Executive Vice President and CEO of IFC.
IFC is the largest global development institution and concentrates exclusively on the private sector.









$ 200 million Loan extended to Kerala by the World Bank
$ 200 million Loan to Kerala by WB (World Bank)
Objective:-
To assist Kerala improve its basic infrastructure facilities in urban and rural areas
To help the state usher in second-generation reforms towards greater decentralisation at the
local level
Around 978 gram panchayats and 60 municipalities in Kerala to benefit from the Project

India signed 70 million US Dollar loan agreement with World Bank

Government of India on 22 November 2012 signed a 70-million US Dollar loan agreement with World Bank for financing the Karnataka Health Systems Development as well as Reform Project. 

Primary objective of this project is improvisation of public-private collaboration, health services delivery and financial aid for vulnerable groups and underserved in Karnataka. The agreement was signed by the Joint Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs and India Operations Advisor of World Bank in New Delhi. 

The components of the project include:

•    Strengthening present health programs of the Government of India
•    Innovations in the health financing as well as service delivery
•    Project management, evaluation as well as monitoring
Additional financing of this project is scheduled to be implemented till 31 March 2016.







India signs USD 130 Million agreement with World Bank for NE projects
 India and the World Bank have signed an agreement worth 130 Million US dollars to improve the livelihoods for
over three lakh village households in the North Eastern region of the country.
 The money will be used to finance the Centre’s efforts to empower rural communities in the growth-deficient
North East region under the North East Rural Livelihoods Project, NERLP.
 The project is being implemented in the eight districts of the four participating states of the North east which
include Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura.




World Bank to fund $648 Million for the Construction of the Hydro-Power
Plant in Uttrakhand
WB to fund a loan assistance of $648 million for the construction of the Vishnugad Pipalkoti
Hydroelectric Plant on the Alaknanda river in Uttarakhand
Hydro Power Plant expected to generate 1,665 million units of electricity yearly
444-MW Vishnugad Pipalkoti Project would also help reduce India's greenhouse gas emissions by
1.6 million tones annually, compared to a thermal plant of the same capacity