LONDON – Environmental scientist Laura Garcia Velez cut her teeth on projects to help Ethiopian farmers insure crops for drought and connect remote Colombian communities to the electricity grid before working for conservation campaigners WWF. Now she’s an analyst for …
In late January 2015, just after the deadliest outbreak of Ebola in history, then-World Bank President Jim Yong Kim stood in front of a group of Georgetown University students and professors to introduce a new approach to fighting pandemics. Fresh …
A collective failure by political leaders to heed warnings and prepare for an infectious disease pandemic has transformed “a world at risk” to a “world in disorder,” according to a report on international epidemic preparedness. “Financial and political investments in …
Almost exactly four years ago the World Bank announced a pioneering project, the Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility, designed to develop a new insurance market and protect the world’s poorest countries against deadly disease. The PEF, as it’s known, was supposed …
A ruling last week not to wipe out holders of a World Bank financial instrument providing emergency funds to poor countries in a pandemic, was just a stay of execution if bond markets are to be believed. The riskier $95 …
A World Bank bond designed to deliver funding to help the world’s poorest countries to tackle fast-spreading diseases has lost half its value as the coronavirus outbreak in China has fanned fears that investors could face hefty losses. After the …
World Bank funding instruments issued to help emerging countries swiftly tackle pandemics have come under the spotlight after the latest deadly Ebola outbreak has yet to trigger a payout. Following the 2013-2016 Ebola outbreak that ravaged Sierra Leone, Guinea and …
The rise of automation has so far had a negligible impact on jobs at a global scale, the World Bank chief economist said, despite common gloomy predictions that humans are set to be replaced by machines. While advanced economies have …
The Insurance Development Forum (IDF) announced the appointment of Denis Duverne as chair of its Steering Committee, succeeding Stephen Catlin, effective Sept. 11, 2018. The IDF is a public-private partnership, led by a senior insurance industry executive and supported by …
Changes in temperature and rainfall will impact almost half of South Asia in the coming decades, reducing economic growth in one of the world’s poorest regions, the World Bank said. A World Bank report released on Thursday [June 28] analyzes …
