A system of trading in money which involved safeguarding deposits and making funds available for borrowers, banking developed in the Middle Ages in response to the growing need for credit in commerce. The lending functions of banks were undertaken in England by money- lenders. Until their expulsion by Edward I in 1291, the most important money-lenders were Jews. They were replaced by Italian merchants who had papal dispensations to lend money at interest. In the 13th cent. credit was essential to finance commerce and major projects.
Economics
The Bank has not, until recently, systematically identified and tracked its portfolio of CBD/CDD projects, and therefore has lacked a comprehensive understanding of the evolution and scope of its work in community development. It also has not been sufficiently clear about the objectives of using CBD/CDD approaches, criteria for choosing among different community development approaches, or about how to measure the results. Although the Bank has been involved in CBD/CDD fo...
Participatory approaches that involve local communities in their own development have gained substantial support among international donors over the past quarter-century and have become increasingly important in the work of the World Bank. Community participation is an approach to development that can be used with any Bank lending instrument and across sectors. Projects can involve communities in different ways?by sharing information, consulting, collaborating, or empowe...
The World Bank?s support for community participation has been manifested in the design and implementation of either community- based development (CBD) or community-driven development (CDD) projects. Although the literature does not clearly distinguish CBD from CDD,1 there is increasing consensus that CDD projects give communities control over resources and decisions in the design and implementation of subprojects. CBD projects, however, give communities comparatively les...
Similar findings emerged from the fieldwork carried out for OED?s Social Fund Evaluation (OED 2002b). OED?s analysis of the household data from Benin, Brazil, and India found the association between CBD/CDD projects and respondents? perceptions of changes in social capital to be positive in Benin, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh; results in Brazil were mixed. Household data also show that the association between CBD/CDD projects and respondents? perceptions of changes ...
Bank financing to its advantage. Also, Bank projects typically have not gone back to the same community with the same approach to enhancing capacity to follow up where the initial subprojects left off. Even if another Bank project does go back to the same community, in most cases it does not build on the capacity-building effort of the earlier interventions. Where it does, as in the Borgou Pilot in Benin, positive results can be expected. The change a year of effort can ...
Projects Have Supported Changes in the Attitude of Government Officials toward Working with Communities Surveys of government officials in all five case study countries and findings of project assessments indicate greater acceptance at all levels of government of the value of involving communities in service delivery/activities and greater understanding and ability to implement a participatory approach to development. For example, the OED assessment of the Eastern Anatol...
Each donor intervention at the community level may require a separate committee to meet the implementation requirements. The substantial confusion that this creates at the community level is a much more serious issue than the strain on institutional capacity at the government level. Thirtynine percent of the Bank staff surveyed agreed or strongly agreed with the observation that inadequate donor coordination in a cofinanced project is likely to have a greater negative im...
Agarwal, B. 2001. ?Participatory Exclusions, Community Forestry, and Gender: An Analysis of South Asia and a Conceptual Framework.? World Development 29(10):1623?48. -- 2000a. ?Conceptualizing Environmental Collective Action: Why Gender Matters.? Cambridge Journal of Economics 24(3):283?310.
SUMMARY AND POLICY CONCLUSIONS: 1. In 1993 the EU central banks studied the phenomenon of electronic money, which at that time only involved prepaid cards. The results of their analysis were published under the aegis of the EMI in May 1994. In that report the central banks welcomed the development of electronic money products, as these could, in principle, improve efficiency in payment operations for all parties involved, but recommended that, for a number of reasons, on...
OFFICERS OF THE WORLD BANK...
Responding to the economic and financial crisis dominated the Bank?s assistance program to the East Asia and Pacific (EAP) region in fiscal 1998. The Bank supported countries in their efforts to restructure their financial sectors, reform corporate governance, and provide social safety nets in the face of mounting unemployment, declining incomes and public expenditures, and rising prices for staple commodities, which primarily affect the poor. The Bank pledged some $16 b...
Countries in the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region continued to meet the challenges of transition with varying degrees of progress. Many Central European and Baltic countries are now sustaining growth and attracting external capital and investment. With support from the Bank and its partners, they are focusing on policies and institutional changes that will allow them to sustain growth while gradually meeting European Union (EU) membership requirements. In Eastern Eur...
Conversion of $14,703 million of undisbursed multicurrency pool loans to single-currency loans terms and $29,408 million of disbursed and undisbursed multicurrency pool loans to single- currency pool terms, under the program of currency choice offered to borrowers with multicurrency pool loans for which the invitation to negotiate was issued by September 1, 1996 -- loan loss provisions maintained at a level equal to 3 percent of total loans disbursed and outstanding plus...
The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) is an international organization which commenced operations in 1946. The principal purpose of IBRD is to promote economic development in its member countries, primarily by providing loans and related technical assistance for specific projects and for programs of economic reform in developing member countries. The activities of IBRD are complemented by those of three affiliated organizations, the Internation...
The Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region?s economic growth is expected to fall from 5 percent in 1997 to under 3 percent in 1998 because of spillover effects from the East Asian financial crisis and partly because of damage from the El Nino weather pattern. However, because countries responded with appropriate action, the region was spared the more serious contagion effects of the crisis. In fiscal 1998 the Bank continued to assist client countries to reduce poverty....
The broad-based economic recovery of recent years has yet to resolve major challenges facing the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, including high unemployment against a background of rapid labor force growth and important disparities in socioeconomic welfare and opportunities. In fiscal 1998 the Bank worked with regional partners to promote the policy reforms and private sector development needed for productive job creation; to support equitable growth based on...
The World Bank?s purpose is to help borrowers reduce poverty and improve living standards through sustainable growth and investment in people. In fiscal 1998, the Bank made strong headway in implementing the Strategic Compact,1 aimed at increasing development impact and playing its part in the fight against poverty more effectively. The Board of Executive Directors reviewed two progress reports on the compact in fiscal 1998 that documented improvements in the quality, ti...
The South Asia (SAS) region continued to demonstrate economic progress and remained relatively unscathed by the financial and economic crisis in neighboring East Asia. The crisis emphasized the urgency of financial sector reforms to which the Bank and its clients were already committed. In fiscal 1998, World Bank loans, technical assistance, and policy advice focused especially on helping its South Asia regional clients reduce poverty by strengthening economies, developi...
PRELIMINARY ADVICE -- Required Software: Excel 2000 for PC -- Data & parameters of modelling: It appears in blue colour and exclusively in the hypothesis sheet of the model. It can be directly modified in the cell. All other cells are parameterised on these initial values and should not be modified. -- Macro of calculation: It was elaborated so as to determine the amount of debt (Project Finance) that ?Arranging Banks? should bring to serve, besides the investments, the ...
INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: The process of institutional reform is complex. Most countries undertake the kinds of fundamental institutional reforms that shift boundaries between the public and private sectors less than once in each generation. Hence, the knowledge necessary to carry the reform process forward needs to be built up in most countries from a near zero base. The Port Reform Toolkit (Toolkit) is designed to shorten the learning curve for institutional review ...