Showing posts with label World Bank. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World Bank. Show all posts

Thursday, March 05, 2015

Sahara And Amazon And Solar



A few days back I came across this video. And it is fascinating. It is showing that the Amazon forest (full of life) is totally dependent on the Sahara (lifeless) for its very survival. This is mind blowing. Mother Nature.

Another thing I see is, the Sahara could also meet all of Africa's energy needs. Used to be solar was expensive and complex. Not any more.

The coming era of unlimited — and free — clean energy
Why Obama should stop pushing nuclear energy on India
Unlimited Free Solar Power?


The Sahara alone could meet all of Africa's energy needs. The Sahara probably is the best place on earth to harness solar energy. And, guess what, the Sun is not going anywhere. The oil fields of Saudi Arabia will run dry, but the earth will evaporate before the sun will disappear. I think the Sahara could generate 1,000 GW easy. Imagine a solar panel - one panel - the size of Texas.

Africa could become the leading continent on earth based just on Sahara's solar energy. It truly is the central continent. It is closer to every other continent than any other. Which means, it could end up the manufacturing hub of the world.

Africa so deserves a political union. It only makes sense that Africa should become one country. Because political leadership is what has been in the way. Or rather, lack of it. The continent that deserves to be the richest is the poorest.

The Sahara is in need of a serious image makeover. It is not lifeless. It is the opposite. It is life-sustaining.

Sunday, July 06, 2014

Global Finance: Still A Mess

The biggest tragedy of the 2008 recession was not the pain of the recession, painful as it was, but that the world did not rise up to the challenge and rearchitect the global financial system. Now it might be too late, because the major part of the crisis is over.

The global monetary system: Not floating, but flailing
Global commerce has long faced a fundamental tension: the more certainty countries create around exchange rates, the less room they have to manage domestic economic affairs. Thirty years before Bretton Woods a war wrecked the world’s first stab at the problem—the gold standard—and the attempt to rebuild it in the 1920s led to depression and another war. The exchange-rate system agreed at Bretton Woods lasted only a generation. After 150 years of experimentation the world has yet to solve its monetary problem. ...... Developing countries also found pegs hard to resist. Fixed exchange rates can encourage monetary discipline and tame inflation—a common emerging-world problem—while reducing borrowing costs. Yet too often pegs ended painfully, as overindebted economies found it impossible to maintain the discipline needed to protect them. Markets pounced, initiating crises and forcing devaluations—most dramatically in the Asian financial crisis of 1997-8. ..... Emerging economies have instead shifted toward managed rates maintained through market intervention. China, the world’s second-largest economy, is a particularly energetic manipulator of its currency, and has at times used an outright dollar peg. As a result over half of global economic activity is concentrated within two massive single-currency blocs. ...... The aversion to floating is a puzzle. Fixed rates can reduce borrowing costs, but the result is often a debt-binge and crisis. Modern technology reduces currency transaction costs. IMF research finds that flexible exchange rates reduce vulnerability to both macroeconomic and financial crises. ...... economies with floating currencies did better in the global financial crisis and its aftermath. ..... China claims to be gradually freeing its capital account and encouraging trade denominated in yuan. That may finally bring down the curtain on the dollar era initiated by Bretton Woods. Yet in practice China is reluctant to give up the perceived safety of a managed exchange rate. Gold habits are hard to break.

Renewed Calls From China For a Global Super-Currency To Replace "Bretton Woods II"
a 'super-currency' for international trade, and not to replace any currencies for domestic use. ..... The World Bank's former chief economist wants to replace the US dollar with a single global super-currency, saying it will create a more stable global financial system. ...... expanding the basket of major reserve currencies — the dollar, the euro, the Japanese yen and pound sterling — will not address the consequences of a financial crisis. ....... Internationalizing the Chinese currency is not the answer ....... Lin urged the international community, especially the US and European Union, to play a leading role in currency and infrastructure initiatives. To boost the global economy, he proposed the launch of a "global infrastructure initiative" to remove development bottlenecks in poor and developing countries, a measure he said would also offer opportunities for advanced economies. ........ The concept of a global "super currency" tied to a basket of currencies has been periodically discussed by world leaders as well as endorsed by 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize-winner Joseph Stiglitz. ...... "A supranational currency may be a new direction for development of the global financial system. It also requires different countries to cooperate in coordinating macroeconomic policies..."


The Global Importance Of Paul Volcker's Call For A 'New Bretton Woods'
The recovery of trade, the opening of financial markets, and the lifting of controls on current accounts led in the 1950’s and 60’s to sustained growth and stability. ...... the absence of an official, rules-based cooperatively managed, monetary system has not been a great success. In fact, international financial crises seem at least as frequent and more destructive in impeding economic stability and growth........ The United States, in particular, had in the 1970’s an unhappy decade of inflation ending in stagflation. The major Latin American debt crisis followed in the 1980’s. There was a serious banking crisis late in that decade, followed by a new Mexican crisis, and then the really big and damaging Asian crisis. Less than a decade later, it was capped by the financial crisis of the 2007-2009 period and the great Recession. Not a pretty picture. ........ the fiduciary dollar standard has significantly underperformed both the Bretton Woods gold exchange standard and the classical gold standard in every major category ...... The number of banking crises per year has soared to 2.6 per year, compared to only one every ten years under Bretton Woods
The G20 must look beyond Bretton Woods II

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Africa's Internet Strides

A composed satellite photograph of Africa.Image via Wikipedia
The Atlantic: The Coming Battle for Africa's Internet: Seneweb.com ... the unofficial homepage of the nation. .... the Huffington Post of Senegal -- except with far less in the way of competition. Deeply influential in Senegalese media and politics, it's where obscure reports of government waywardness go viral. On a happening day, the site fetches 200,000 unique visits and 1.3 million hits -- astounding numbers in a nation of 13 million, less than a million of whom can even get online. ....... That traffic has traditionally come not from inside Senegal but from all the motley places where West Africans travel for work -- such as Romania ..... nearly every country in the neighborhood has its Seneweb: Ghanaweb is probably the most influential, followed by Côte d'Ivoire's Abidjan.net. ...... "But now, the majority of visitors are in Senegal. The internet has taken off here." ...... as internet access becomes cheaper and more widespread ....... Less than ten percent of Africa's population has internet access ..... expects that number to grow by half every year "for the foreseeable future." ..... 100,000 miles of broadband wiring criss-crossing the world's second-largest continent like the 21st century version of a transcontinental railway. The connections start with undersea cables and extend onshore towards 3G towers within reception range of the continent's growing middle class. ......... 300 million people, each earning between $2,000 and $5,000 yearly -- not always enough to keep a router in the living room lit, but certainly enough to pay off a BlackBerry bill. The service they enjoy, smoother than its American equivalent, runs off towers that are newer and more adaptable to data transfers, which is rendering Africa's telecom transition -- from a continent of voice phones to one of pocket PCs -- more scalable than expected. ....... happening faster and faster than anybody could have imagined ..... every ten percent of a country's population that winds up online powers a percentage point and a half of yearly economic growth ...... the World Bank's offices in Sierra Leone and Liberia, which typically focus on building roads or power plants, have allocated $57 million to support a $300 million project to build a broadband cable reaching out to sea. ..... Currently, most internet access in Sierra Leone and Liberia is only by satellite, which restricts it to those who are both extremely rich and extremely patient. ....... "The impact of mobile phones clearly demonstrates that internet is something that can be transformative for the bulk of the population." ...... the converse is true as well: Africa's population could also be transformative for the internet. ...... Google offers a Craigslist-style site where Africans can shop used goods -- sheep, pool tables, balafons (a xylophone-like West African instrument) ...... Last year, Google unfurled Baraza, a question-and-answer forum for Africans ..... a phone-based bookkeeping service for shopkeepers, for example, which could do much in a part of the world where every salesman records his turnover in a notebook. He also wants to add a Blogger service to Seneweb and to sidestep Google Ads by soliciting African companies to buy banners on his site. ...... "You look at Africa, Brazil, China, India, and right there you have almost four billion of the world's consumers," Herlihy says. "They're only going to be happy using products designed for Americans for so long."
This is so exciting. This is when I was pursuing my IC vision a few years ago. It is happening, and fast. Frees up people like me to go tackle the next big thing: microfinance. We are for profit, high tech Kiva that will do the last mile under its own brand name.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Blog Carnival: Global Poverty

Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize, 2006Image via Wikipedia

July: Netizen Blog Carnival Month
  1. Blog Carnival: Internet For The Billions
  2. Blog Carnival: Wimax
  3. Blog Carnival: Cheap Laptops
  4. Blog Carnival: Microfinance
  5. Blog Carnival: Venture Capital
  6. Blog Carnival: Google
  7. Blog Carnival: Google (2)
  8. Blog Carnival: Bill Gates, Chrome OS
  9. Blog Carnival: Google Wave
  10. Blog Carnival: Android
  11. Blog Carnival: Entrepreneurship
Global Poverty

The Brooks Blog: Thom Brooks on "Punishing States That Cause ...
Carbonfund.org Blog » Fighting Global Warming and Poverty
Only local business can end global poverty
Global poverty: lobbying politicians this autumn | ToUChstone blog ...
Barack Obama's African priority (Global Poverty Act) | My Take
Official Google Australia Blog: Global Poverty Project Visits ...
The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order
G8 Risks Derailing Global Progress on Poverty | OneWorld.net (U.S.)
Tax Research UK » End Global Poverty – people say to Christian Aid
Global Call to Action Against Poverty: Sarkozy | Ads of the World ...

Defeating Global Poverty: Small, local banks are better | Twine
Carbon Offsetting May Be Means of Fighting Global Poverty ...
Defeating Global Poverty: Small, local banks are better
Seize the chance to end global poverty, says charity :: Inspire ...
Middle Class Privilege and the Realities of Global Poverty
Falling family planning funding threatens global poverty fight ...
Pope Benedict promotes global poverty | The Skepticrats
JICA's CDM Forestation Project in Vietnam to Alleviate Global ...
The Global Poverty Project: Building Change Efficacy
The Fight Against Global Poverty and Inequality: The World Bank's ...

Carbon Offsetting May Fight Global Poverty

US Senator Barack Obama campaigning in New Ham...Image via Wikipedia


Our Global Education: Poverty Trumps Genetic Predisposition to Asthma
Microcredit Summit Campaign Secretariat Blog: Muhammad Yunus ...
The Love Revolution
“Be One in a million” – Join Catholics Confront Global Poverty ...
Global Call to Action Against Poverty : Sarkozy | images ...
Global Study on Child Poverty and Disparities: Visual Identity for ...
Andrew Goodall: Global poverty – DFID white paper on country-by ...
G8 Risks Derailing Global Progress on Poverty
Fighting climate change the key to ending poverty Opinion Articles ...

Grameen Foundation news releases | Grameen Foundation : Resource ...
FT.com | Willem Buiter's Maverecon | Does poverty give a country ...
Humanitarian Texts » Blog Archive » £8m boost for local projects ...
George Soros: Government Interventionist and Global Socialist ...
Just Focus » Blog Archive » Global Poverty Project
Fight global inequality, poverty and disease, celebrities urge G8 ...
SustainabiliTank: Ban Ki-moon, UNSG, is in Beijing for the ...
StopPovertyNow.org , a Grameen Foundation initiative to spread ...
Global poverty: the human-rights dimension | open Democracy News ...

On peak oil, climate change, thinking global and acting local ...
Reducing Global Poverty: Panel Discussion
gadgets for good: DIY technology can curb global warming and ...
Muhammad Yunus On Ending Global Poverty | SocialEarth: Video
Kerlikowske Finds Ideology : Rolling Stone : National Affairs Daily
in a garden... somewhere: Thomas Pogge (on our culpability for ...
Social Media: Giving A Face to Poverty, A Voice to Hope « NYWICI ...
New Estimates of Global Poverty: Video | Building Capacity to ...
Poverty China | Beijing Beggar - Stock Footage at $89
Labour's Climate Policy Forcing Millions Into Energy Poverty ...

Global Poverty: Human Rights Dimension / ISN
Global Poverty Reassessed | Building Capacity to Reduce Poverty
Global Poverty Project | SJ around the Bay
The CRS Advocate July/August 2009
Global Poverty, Immigration and What Works
Bachus Spends Billions on Global Poverty Act
Global poverty, ethics and human rights : the role of multilateral ...
How Australians Buying Fair Trade Benefits the Poor in Developing ...
Foreign Policy In Focus | G20 and Global Poverty
Christian Aid Poverty Over - been there, done that, got the T ...

Bread for the World-New Mexico: Something's Brewing in the Senate ...
ERG, MDGs and Global Poverty In the News
Ending Global Poverty
Rahim and Amyn Mawani's initiative to help end global poverty ...
Bear Creek Ledger » Obama's Global Poverty Act (S. 2433) is Back ...
The latest news on Health Care, F-22 Stopped, Student Loans, Prof ...
Scoop: Global Poverty Project launches in New Zealand
Swap Til You Drop: The Global Poverty Project - you are invited!
Poverty: The elephant in the room | Build it Kenny, and they will ...

theroadto: (New clip) Global Poverty & World Poverty | World ...
Pants to Poverty : Blog : GLOBAL PANTS AMNESTY!
Rising Food Prices, Poverty, and the Doha Round - Carnegie ...
MCC: CEO Blog » Blog Archive » The right resources to fight global ...
Global Poverty Project: Canadian Launch
RGE - Didn't We Try that in 1938? Why Technical Poverty Fixes Fall ...
Gore Wants UN Global Governance
Obama's Global Poverty Bill is Back - Blog - OpenCongress
Global Poverty Project: Gold Coast

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