A normative definition that I use as a recovering angel investor myself is that an angel investor actively helps a seed stage startup succeed with both mentorship and capital in exchange for those intangible benefits of mentorship and a return on investment. In World Bank parlance, then, they automatically provide both investments and technical assistance with no agency costs; a great recipe for solving multiple problems (funding capacity, entrepreneurial capability and access to early stage finance) in a cost effective way. Knowing that 318,480 of them invested $22.5 billion on 66,230 ventures in the US and achieved 27% annual returns forms the basis of our hypothesis that angel investing could work well in the developing world.
12-12-12 marks an auspicious day on which couples are rushing to get married. Globally, many women and men have been waiting for this day to mark as the day they got married. Those who miss it will need to wait 100 years to have another chance like this one again. But depending on where in the world they are, getting married will mean different things for these women, their career and future business opportunities.
In many economies around the world women are legally prevented from conducting basic transactions which are necessary precursors to entrepreneurship and employment. Women, particularly married women, can be barred from actions such as opening bank accounts, determining where to work or live, and having the ability to move freely. In some economies married women need their husbands’ permission to carry out such actions.
When a modestly paid public official is suddenly able to take lavish holidays, buy a new sports car, or purchase expensive jewelry it raises eyebrows - and suspicion. Corruption may be suspected but it is often frustratingly difficult to prove – so what is the best way to deal with the sources of unknown wealth?
‘Illicit enrichment’ poses a legal and practical challenge for authorities around the world. One option is to criminalize the offence, meaning in practice that the prosecution does not have to prove that the assets come from corrupt behavior, but simply cannot be justified from legitimate sources of income. The public official then has to provide evidence of the legitimate source of the mysterious new found wealth, and if it cannot be adequately explained then suffer the legal consequences.
In the wake of the first global recession since World War II, governments around the world are looking for ways to boost growth and competitiveness. Given the fragility of the business and economic climate—and strained public coffers—the responsibility to get policy right is acute. But can public policy makers improve on their hit and miss record of intervention in the past? I would pick out three useful lessons that we have learned, often the hard way:
■ Don’t focus on single industries in the hope of “picking winners.”: Governments need to take a broad-based, inclusive approach to growth, particularly if a key aim is the creation of jobs. Large domestic service sectors that are labor-intensive are creating all net new jobs in high-income economies and 85 percent in middle-income countries. Don’t get me wrong. New technologies can have a transformational impact beyond their particular sectors, enabling future productivity improvements and growth—think IT. But it is the low-tech green jobs in local services, such as improving building insulation and replacing obsolete heating and cooling equipment, that have a greater potential for creating jobs in the near term.
Submitted by Marco Nicoli on Tue, 2012-11-27 13:18
Should you ever need a haircut in South London, you would have the option to choose from a wide array of African hair stylists. There you can get your hair colored, cut, or braided, while chatting up the latest gossip in town, and... you can send money back to Nigeria.
Many stores in South London allow you to send money abroad. It looks just like a fruit market, where the sellers have to compete among each other. Aside from trying to lure customers in with the best looking apples and pears, they also keep their prices exposed.
But the world is not... ("...enough" you are thinking, if you are a James Bond fan) ...the world is not South London and remittance services are not crispy apples nor they are juicy pears. The price for sending money might include a fee, taxes, a margin on the exchange rate applied, and a commission to the receiver. And each service is different in terms of speed and extensiveness of the network where money can be picked up by the receiver. In other words, it is not as easy to compare as the price of apples.
Five hundred million. That’s the official estimate, the number that practitioners arrive at from a range of 200 to 900 million. That is the number of smallholder farmers in the world, and it makes a lot of eyes pop in development circles.
Take for example the most recent agribusiness value-chain event, Making the Connection: value chains for transforming small holder agriculture, which convened recently in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. While the 500 attendees represented the private sector, government, civil society, farmers’ organizations and academia, almost all discussions had a way of looping back to one topic: smallholders.Why is it that the attendees were so fixated on the farming segment of the value chain? Is Africa not yet ready to climb past the very first rung of the value chain? Today, it is estimated that a mere 10% of the global agricultural production undergoes processing.
Just a few weeks ago, I launched a new World Bank report on gender in Pakistan – Is the microfinance sector in Pakistan serving women entrepreneurs? The report highlighted some troubling patterns which emerged from a review of the microfinance sector there, mainly that most women borrowers are actually acting as loan conduits for the men in their family, that much of the sector is engaging in de facto discriminatory practices, and that women who are actually running businesses in Pakistan have little interest in using microfinance products, because the products offered are unsuitable for their business needs. These are pretty counterintuitive findings, and have us questioning whether these observations are specific to Pakistan, or if these practices are more widespread.
As a follow up to that work, our team was given a great opportunity to organize a session at the recent FPD Forum on Supporting Women Entrepreneurs Around the Globe: Challenges and Opportunities. We saw this session as a way to raise the profile around this important agenda (beyond Pakistan), and ask some very important questions about how the Bank is supporting women in the private sector, what the key challenges to reaching this market segment might be, take stock of what we’ve learned about the impact of our work to date, and hear about the innovative work others are doing in this space.
I grew up listening to U2, and I have followed Bono’s pioneering work raising awareness on pressing issues around poverty. My perspective was that Bono, like other very famous artists, generally leaned towards important topics that create immediate empathy, such as child malnourishment, education and health sector failures. Hence my grateful surprise when Bono yesterday singled out open data and transparency as key issues in the fight to end poverty.
The poor cannot afford to pay money for health care so they use mainly free government-run health services. Isn't that what you were always told? So if donors want to help the poor they should give their money to governments that provide such services for the poor. I am sure you have read that in many books and articles.
Wait, let’s run that scene once more in real time. What actually happens out there in the real world? Often the government clinics described above have difficulty hiring staff, especially in poor rural areas. The majority of young health workers prefer to live in urban areas where they feel safer and can bring up their children with good schools, near family and friends. Long wait times and lack of medicines at government-run health facilities make the private health sector more attractive to consumers.
With over 50% of world’s population lacking proper access to payments and financial services, closing the global gap in the access and the use of payment services remains a challenge. Underdeveloped or missing payment services infrastructure has often resulted in high transaction costs and low penetration of payment services for lower income populations, mainly due to a large number of low value of payment transactions conducted by the underserved segments. This in turn has resulted in the lack of investments in appropriate payments infrastructure to satisfy the payment needs of people at the base of the pyramid.
The underserved segments have payment needs that are similar to other consumers. Evidence has shown that even very poor people save small amounts, send and receive money from relatives, pay bills and school fees, and borrow from suppliers and others to meet obligations or take advantage of financial opportunities even in the absence of bank access. To satisfy their payment needs, most low income people end up using informal mechanisms that may be convenient but are not safe or efficient. Those who do have marginal access to payment services, usually endure high transaction costs and poor service.
A normative definition that I use as a recovering 
epending on where in the world they are, getting married will mean different things for these women, their career and future business opportunities.
When a modestly paid public official is suddenly able to take lavish holidays, buy a new sports car, or purchase expensive jewelry it raises eyebrows - and suspicion. Corruption may be suspected but it is often frustratingly difficult to prove – so what is the best way to deal with the sources of unknown wealth?
n in the past? I would pick out three useful lessons that we have learned, often the hard way:
Many stores in South London allow you to send money abroad. It looks just like a fruit market, where the sellers have to compete among each other. Aside from trying to lure customers in with the best looking apples and pears, they also keep their prices exposed.
Five hundred million. That’s the official estimate, the number that practitioners arrive at from a range of 200 to 900 million. That is the number of smallholder farmers in the world, and it makes a lot of eyes pop in development circles.
Just a few weeks ago, I launched a new World Bank report on gender in Pakistan – 
I grew up listening to U2, and I have followed Bono’s pioneering work raising awareness on pressing issues around poverty. My perspective was that Bono, like other very famous artists, generally leaned towards important topics that create immediate empathy, such as child malnourishment, education and health sector failures. Hence my grateful surprise when Bono yesterday singled out open data and transparency as key issues in the fight to end poverty.
money for health care so they use mainly free government-run health services. Isn't that what you were always told? So if donors want to help the poor they should give their money to governments that provide such services for the poor. I am sure you have read that in many books and articles. 
With over 50% of world’s population lacking proper access to payments and financial services, closing the global gap in the access and the use of payment services remains a challenge. Underdeveloped or missing payment services infrastructure has often resulted in high transaction costs and low penetration of payment services for lower income populations, mainly due to a large number of low value of payment transactions conducted by the underserved segments. This in turn has resulted in the lack of investments in appropriate payments infrastructure to satisfy the payment needs of people at the base of the pyramid. 
