about 17 years ago
Halfway through the 2015 deadline to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, African countries stand to miss the sanitation target unless the region doubles its existing efforts to increase the population’s access to basic sanitation. <br><br> “With eight years to go, it is clear that most African countries are unlikely to reach their Sanitation MDG targets unless approaches…
about 17 years ago
University teaching was Haruhiko Kuroda’s dream. He did fulfill this dream – he taught at the graduate school of economics in Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo but only for two years. <br><br> In January 2005, he left the university to become the eighth president of the premiere development institution in Asia and the Pacific, the Asian Development Bank. <br><br> “It is ver…
about 17 years ago
In what former US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan recently dubbed as a “once-in-a-century credit tsunami,” the global financial meltdown has undeniably created ripples of negative economic impacts that threaten not only banking systems but also modest achievements made in the field of development. <br><br> “The worst-case scenario, a deep global recession, is not absur…
about 17 years ago
Strengthening one of the basic pillars of development is what Alberto Levy Ferre is tasked to achieve. <br><br> A senior infrastructure specialist at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Levy Ferre focuses on improving infrastructure and providing policy support in the energy sector. <br><br> “Electricity has extensive impact in the lives of people and in the competi…
about 17 years ago
As an administrator, Robert Zoellick deems it significant to have ‘a sense of strategic direction.’ <br><br> “By nature, I’m very straightforward,” the president of the World Bank, said in an interview during his first official day at work. “I’m open, I value multiplicity views, but I also like to have a sense of strategic direction….What I look for in people is a sense of ho…
about 17 years ago
In his 20-year tenure at the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Ayumi Konishi has been a programs officer, a project economist, and an education specialist. <br><br> Today, he currently serves as the bank’s Vietnam country director. <br><br> “I admire the country and the people of Vietnam. We not only support their development but also can learn many things from this country. I’…
over 17 years ago
Hiroaki Yamaguchi has been in the business of paving South Asian roads for the last five and a half years. <br><br> Working as a senior transport specialist with the Asian Development Bank’s South Asia department, he ultimately seeks to help build physical and human assets as he spearheads some of the bank’s numerous roads and railway projects including the reconstruction of t…
over 17 years ago
In 1975, Ahmad Mohamed Ali Al-Madani led the first steps of the then newly-established Islamic Development Bank, having been appointed by Organization of the Islamic Conference member countries as the bank’s first president.<br><br> Thirty-eight years later, Ali still holds the same post as the regional lender continues to promote trade financing, economic cooperation and pove…
over 17 years ago
On a normal office day, one may find Andrew Berg drafting either a note to Malawi donors about what would happen if they didn’t increase aid or a short memo to the International Monetary Fund’s executive board on the list of countries hit hardest by surging food and fuel prices. <br><br> Berg, head of the Regional Studies Division at the fund’s African department, leads IMF mi…
over 17 years ago
For Raul Novoa, being a project manager in the capital markets and financial institutions division of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) does not only provide him with the opportunity to reorganize financial markets –- but more importantly to restructure the lives of people. <br><br> “You are not making promises, you are doing something that makes a difference,” said No…