The period since the global financial crisis of 2008 has been characterized by the emergence of a broad set of tech-driven financial companies ("fintech" companies), acting in parallel with traditional banking services.
... See More + Although the new players are ramping up competition, pushing digital transformation and exerting pressure on the global financial sector, their services appear to be highly complementary to the ones provided by the more established banks, which are also embracing these technologies.
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The development objective of Ploiesti-Brasov Motorway Preparation Project for Romania is to provide the strategy for the development of Romania's transport sector for the next 20 years.
... See More + Some of the negative impacts and mitigation measures include: (i) relocation or loss of shelter for existing/resident population; (ii) loss of assets or access to assets; (iii) loss of income sources or means of livelihood, whether or not the affected persons must move to another location; (iv) study country framework assessments that may have recorded the involuntary resettlement experiences of road or transport sector projects; (v) conduct consultations with national legal experts on any recent and or proposals for legal changes under consideration by the State, identify existing gaps and develop measures to address them; (vi) conduct a sample survey of potentially affected households in the above mentioned three settlement/cities, business entities and losses that may occur due to access restrictions etc.; (vii) consultations should also focus on coping mechanisms currently being used by communities; (viii) ensure that physical disclosure of safeguards instruments and project-related information, including making them accessible in a place, time and format that is easily accessible to PAPs, as well as minimum timeframes to share information prior to consultations; (ix) summarize the concerns, suggestions by stakeholder for consideration by project authorities and technical consultants, during development of designs.
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Mind, Behavior, and Development Unit project showed that it is possible to encourage low-income Tanzanians to increase savings by up to 11 percent using the right messages.
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The development objective of the National Road 13 North (NR13N) Improvement and Maintenance Project for Lao People's Democratic Republic aims at achieving sustained and inclusive economic growth, whilereducing the effects of natural shocks, and supporting the national efforts to achieveSustainable Development Goal (SDG) 9 to build resilient infrastructure and SDG 13 toaddress the impacts of climate change.
... See More + Some of the negative impacts and mitigation measures are includes : (i) cash compensation at replacement cost for land and structures will be paid without deduction for depreciation or salvageable materials; (ii) PAP who do not have legal land title, land use certificate or other acceptable documentation indicating their land use right, including customary and traditional land use right, only provides the right to claim compensation for their lost assets such as house/structures, trees and/or crops, and not land; (iii) compensation at full replacement cost will be given for all structures affected, regardless of legal status of the land and structure. Provide moving allowance based on structure types; (iv) compensation for lost land and other assets should be paid at full replacement cost; (v) provision of agriculture land in appropriate ways including the creation of new livelihood options and stable income generation activities and promotion of local crafts/industry in addition to agricultural production activities for the affected people; (vi) participation in planning and implementation, specially confirming the eligibility criteria for compensation and assistance, and access to grievances redress mechanisms.
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The development objective of the Integrated Feeder Road Development Project (IFRDP) for Mozambique is to enhance mobility in selected rural areas in support of inclusive agriculture and other livelihoods of local communities, whilst ensure efficient mobility of people and freights along the connected main national corridors.
... See More + Some of the negative impacts are includes : (i) loss of vegetation at camp sites, borrow pits, access roads and deviations; (ii) encroachment to forest area for hunting and timber exploitation; (iii) modifications in water table as a result of Road Construction (soil compaction); (iv) lowering of quality of life of the people in the road alignment route and those located near ancillary sites; (v) increase in job opportunities in the region and improvements in rural income; increase potential for prostitution due to risk behavior of women and young girls; (vi) probable loss of income due to dislocation of informal businesses; (vii) improvements in access to alternative markets for agricultural produce; (viii) increased risk of health problems: waste products and sewerage;Some of the mitigation measures are includes : (i) minimizing the area of ground clearance as to avoid the production of excess spoil material and reduce the need for borrow pits; (ii) replanting disturbed areas immediately after disturbance has stopped, not after construction has been completed, and their maintenance; (iii) protecting trees and vegetation in the road alignment vicinity and re vegetation of cut slopes as soon as possible; (iv) drainage improvement to control location, volume and speed of water flows in water courses in the vicinity of exposed soils and slopes; (v) never dispose spoil on fragile slopes, flood ways, wetland, farmland, forest areas, natural drainage path, religious and culturally sensitive sites, wetlands, canals and other infrastructures; (vi) extraction of sand and stone from seasonal rivers should be avoided due to the impact on complex flood hydrology, which can result in much more serious storm floods; (vii) use only “clean” fill materials around watercourses, such as quarried rock containing no fine soil; (viii) take account of prevailing wind direction when siting roads and road features, including re-fuelling stations, near population centres; (ix) all heavy equipment and machinery shall be fitted with noise pollution control devices that are operating correctly; (x) clear trees only when absolutely necessary. trees falling in right-of-way but not on formation width need not be cleared, rather consider new plantation of selected (non-exotic) species; (xi) establish footpaths and vehicle pull-off bays along the road, through villages and near markets, schools and other community facilities; (xii) awareness creation on basic health care, environmental sanitation; (xiii) route selection for access to material sites, and detour road route should try to avoid dense vegetation covered areas and protected area.
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Business enterprises and non-agricultural startups in rural economies play crucial roles in ending the vicious cycle of poverty. The propagation of business enterprises are, however, subject to a high degree of institutional frictions and vacuums e.g., information; but mobile infrastructure which has the externality of flowing information can help overcome most of these vacuums through reduced fixed costs, lower cost of information or search, and outreach to a broader customer base.
... See More + This paper studies the effects of mobile infrastructure ("mobile use activity") on propagation of rural business enterprises in Niger. Instrumental variable estimates exploit the exogenous introduction of the 2013 national mandatory SIM registration reform which provides a quasi-experimental set-up for mobile use and activity. The mandate deactivated about one-third of all existing prepaid SIMs and led to a remarkable decline in mobile use activity. The results suggest that there is economically substantial effect of mobile infrastructure on propagation of business enterprises. Moving a household with mobile use activity to a no mobile use activity environment due to SIM deactivation results in roughly 33.1 percent points decline in the likelihood of engaging in non-agricultural business enterprises. Most of this effect come from three major sources: households' ownership of a business service or center; ownership of small income generating activities; and involvement in the transformation of agricultural products. There is suggestive evidence that the reform's impact is disproportionately larger for women. With the expansion of mandatory SIM registration reforms in developing countries, the findings have extended implications in these contexts.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8278 DEC 18, 2017
The development objective of the Central Asia Road Links Program (CARs) is to improve transport connectivity between eco-nomic centers to access to a larger markets and activisation of economic interactions be-tween them.
... See More + Some of the negative impacts and mitigation measures are includes : (i) provision to women and poor households of training for new employment opportunities; (ii) use of participation or consultation strategies that encourage the involvement of women, and poor households in resettlement planning and implementation; (iii) agricultural land impacts will be compensated at replacement value in: (i)cash at current market rates or (ii) through replacement land equal in value/productivity to the plot lost; (iv) residential/commercial land will be compensated at replacement value either in form of land for land; (v) houses, buildings, structures will be compensated in cash at replacement cost without any deductions for depreciation, salvaged materials, or transaction costs; (vi) cash compensation shall reflect the current market rates based on size, age and market rates of wood, including harvest income; (vii) crop compensation will be paid both to landowners and tenants based on their specific sharecropping agreements; (viii) compensation for temporary business will be cash covering the income of the interruption period based on tax declaration or, unavailable, official minimum salary; (ix) residential land renters/leaseholders and house renters: who have leased land and/or a house for residential purposes will be provided with a cash grant of three (3) months’ rent at the prevailing market rate in the area and will be assisted in identifying alternative accommodation; (x) compensation of lost land and assets to social benefits will be paid, to cover the cost of living; (xi) cash compensation at replacement rates for affected structure and other fixed assets free of salvageable materials, depreciation and transaction costs.
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Agriculture plays a vital role in the development of many countries. Access to markets, finance and information are cornerstones for agricultural growth.
... See More + Information and Communication Technology (ICT) supports farmers by facilitating access to markets through real-time data on market prices, weather forecasts, information on pests, seed varieties and planting techniques. A major impediment for smallholder farmers to fully exploit the benefits of ICT is the lack of sufficient infrastructure and mobile networks in rural areas. A reason for this persisting network coverage gap stems from the significant capital investments required for providing widespread ICT access, which mobile operators have often little incentive to make since the potential profit margins in rural areas are relatively low. This paper examines the role of regulations in facilitating ICT access and ultimately rural development. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. The second section discusses the role of an enabling environment and ICT regulations that are critical for expanding access to rural areas. The third section presents the new data set on the quality of regulations followed by the analysis of the relationship between regulations and key ICT development indicators. The final section draws some concluding remarks.
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This report is a learning manual of finance for household’s and presents the following topics: introduction; setting financial goals; why is it necessary to make a budget?
... See More + ; can a budget be prepared without a methodology?; what are the household’s incomes?; what are the household’s expenses?; how to match expenses with incomes?; what needs to be done in case of an unexpected event?; why save money?; how to save money?; where to save money?; saving for retirement; when to use savings?; why borrow money?; understanding terms of borrowing; comparing terms of loan; negotiating with a lender; managing continuously repayment of debt and building trust; communicating with confidence; and how to use mobile money.
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