Haley, Ivanka Trump among possible World Bank nominees: report

WASHINGTON, United States - Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and US President Donald Trump's daughter and adviser Ivanka are among possible US candidates to replace outgoing World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, The Financial Times reported Friday.

Kim abruptly announced Monday he was cutting short his tenure as the bank's president more than three years before his second term was due to end.

In addition to Trump and Haley, who stepped down as US Ambassador to the United Nations last month, other names being floated include Treasury Undersecretary for International Affairs David Malpass and Mark Green, head of the US Agency for International Development, the newspaper reported.

Ivanka Trump in 2017 was the driving force behind a $1 billion, Saudi-supported World Bank fund to promote entrepreneurship by women.

The Treasury Department told AFP on Friday that it had no comment in potential candidates.

The department has received a "significant number of recommendations," a spokesperson said. 

"We are beginning the internal review process for a US nominee. We look forward to working with the governors to select a new leader."

Under an unwritten agreement, the United States, which is the bank's largest shareholder, has always chosen its leader since the institution was founded following World War II.

But the success of a US candidate no longer appears completely assured.

Kim was the first American nominee to face a contested election for the World Bank presidency in 2012 and the bank's board has said its selection process will be "open, merit-based and transparent," implying non-US candidates would not be ruled out.

The World Bank Board said Thursday it would start accepting nominations for a new leader early next month and name a replacement for Kim by mid-April.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

World Bank raises $500M with 'pandemic bonds'

WASHINGTON - The World Bank raised $500 million to finance rapid response to disease outbreaks, including through sale of its first-ever "pandemic bonds," the bank announced Wednesday.

Drawing on the slow response to the 2013 Ebola outbreak in Africa in which thousands died, the World Bank designed the Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF), to channel surge funding to developing countries facing the risk of a pandemic.

"With this new facility, we have taken a momentous step that has the potential to save millions of lives and entire economies from one of the greatest systemic threats we face," World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said in a statement.

"We are moving away from the cycle of panic and neglect that has characterized so much of our approach to pandemics."

The fund will provide $500 million over the next five years through a combination of sales of the bonds and derivatives, cash and future commitments from donor countries, the World Bank said in a statement. Germany provided an initial cash injection of 50 million euros.

The PEF, announced in May 2016 at the Group of 20 finance ministers meeting in Japan, was oversubscribed by 200 percent.

The PEF covers six viruses that are most likely to cause a pandemic, including those responsible for new influenza pandemic virus A, SARS, MERS, Ebola, Marburg, and others like Crimean Congo, Rift Valley and Lassa fever.

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Global warming could undermine poverty fight: World Bank

WASHINGTON - Climate change could undermine efforts to defeat extreme poverty around the globe, the World Bank warned Sunday.

In a new report on the impact of global warming, the bank said sharp temperature rises would cut deeply into crop yields and water supplies in many areas and possibly set back efforts to bring populations out of poverty.

"Climate change poses a substantial and escalating risk to development progress that could undermine global efforts to eliminate extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity," the report said.

"Without strong, early action, warming could exceed 1.5–2 degrees Celsius and the resulting impacts could significantly worsen intra- and intergenerational poverty in multiple regions across the globe."

The bank said it is already likely that average temperatures will rise 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) from pre-industrial levels, based on the built-in impact of past and current greenhouse gas emissions.

That means that extreme heat events, sea level rise and more frequent tropical cyclones may now be unavoidable.

But without concerted action, the real danger is that the average global temperature increase could go to 4.0 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.

The bank called that "a frightening world of increased risks and global instability."

"Ending poverty, increasing global prosperity and reducing global inequality, already difficult, will be much harder with warming of two degrees Celsius, said World Bank President Jim Yong Kim.

"But at four degrees, there is serious doubt whether these goals can be achieved at all."

Shrinking crop yields

The new report, "Turn Down the Heat: Confronting the New Climate Normal" focuses on the specific regional impacts of warming.

Warming of two degrees could lower the yield of Brazil's soybean crop by 70 percent. Andean cities would be threatened by melting glaciers, and Caribbean and West Indian coastal communities could see their fish supplies dwindle.

Two-degree warming could reduce yields of maize, wheat and grape crops in Macedonia by 50 percent. In northern Russia, it would mean substantial melting of the permafrost, causing a surge in damaging methane emissions, which would amplify the warming trend.

The World Bank has set an ambitious target of eliminating extreme poverty around the world by 2030, and Kim says that can still be done if warming is limited to just two degrees.

But temperatures have already increased 0.8 degree from the pre-industrial mean, and the new study says it is likely already too late to forestall a 1.5-degree gain.

The impacts of poverty exacerbated by climate change are wide and complex, the report shows. It will increase migration, though some people without means will be stuck with worse prospects in life.

In the Middle East and North Africa, water resources and agriculture will be under severe threat from warming.

And in turn, the impact could be political. The report cited two studies that linked the Arab Spring uprising to the drought impact of warming on food prices.

Further climate change could add to security problems "by placing additional pressures on already scarce resources and by reinforcing such preexisting threats as political instability, poverty, and unemployment," it said.

"This creates the potential for social uprising and violent conflict."

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World Bank pledges $200 million to fight Ebola

WASHINGTON - The World Bank said Monday that it would provide up to $200 million to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone to help the West African nations contain a deadly Ebola outbreak.

World Bank president Jim Yong Kim, himself an expert on infectious diseases, said he has been monitoring the spread of the virus and was "deeply saddened" at how it was contributing to the breakdown of "already weak health systems in the three countries."

"I am very worried that many more lives are at risk unless we can stop this Ebola epidemic in its tracks," Kim said.

The funding will help provide medical supplies, pay medical staff and take care of other priorities to contain the epidemic and try to prevent future outbreaks, the World Bank said.

The death toll from the Ebola outbreak on Monday reached 887 after 61 more fatalities were recorded, according to the World Health Organization.

The World Bank made the announcement as African leaders including 35 presidents are visiting Washington for a US-Africa summit.

An initial estimate by the World Bank and IMF found that Guinea would lose one percentage point in Gross Domestic Product growth, dropping from 4.5 percent to 3.5 percent expansion in the year, due to the epidemic.

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World Bank plans more funding for Yolanda-hit areas

MANILA, Philippines - World Bank Group president Jim Yong Kim on Monday visited communities affected by super typhoon "Yolanda" (Haiyan) in Leyte.

Kim announced the World Bank Group is preparing more funding for the Yolanda-hit areas soon.

He said the World Bank Group will submit the Philippine Rural Development Project to its board of directors next month.

The proposed project includes more than $62 million, which will help raise rural incomes of farmers and fishermen, as well as repair 230 kilometers of farm-to-market roads damaged by Yolanda in the central Visayas.

"I am here to reaffirm the World Bank Group’s support for the courageous Filipinos who are rebuilding from the ruins of Typhoon Haiyan... While much more can be done and needs to be done, I am encouraged to see the government, civil society, private sector, and local communities rebuilding access roads, irrigation facilities, shelters and schools for those affected by the disaster in Palo and Tanauan in Leyte," Kim said.

The $62 million is part of a $508.25 million project designed to raise rural incomes and boost productivity for farmers and fishermen nationwide.

The World Bank already had announced nearly $1 billion in financial assistance in the immediate aftermath of Yolanda, which flatted parts of central Visayas last November.

Kim expressed sympathy to the people who lost loved ones in the disaster, but said he was glad to see the communities were making progress in recovering.

"The poor are disproportionately affected by disasters and are the least able to cope. If we don't build resilience to climate change and natural disasters, we won't end poverty... The World Bank Group is working closely with the government and others to help communities improve their defense against those threats," he said.

The Philippines is the third-most vulnerable country in the world to extreme weather-related events, earthquakes, sea-level rise, and storm surges.

Kim is on a two-day visit to the Philippines. He is expected to meet with officials from the Philippine government, civil society organizations, private sector and youth organizations.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

'Yolanda' should put end to 'silly' debate on climate change

WASHINGTON - World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said Tuesday that the deadly typhoon disaster in the Philippines should put an end to "silly" arguments denying climate change.

"If you think of the number of storms that have hit over the past year, the severity of those storms... The frequency of these events is increasing and that's exactly what the climate change scientists have predicted," Kim said.

"What I hope the tragedy in the Philippines helps us to do is to move away from having what I think are silly arguments about not really the science, but about science as a whole."

Some 10,000 or more are feared dead and hundreds of thousands left homeless after the super-typhoon Haiyan blasted through central Philippines on Friday.

It was the strongest tropical cyclone ever recorded to have made landfall, and has raised fresh questions over whether global warming is behind an increase in the intensity and frequency of such storms.

Speaking to journalists, Kim said people need to stop arguing over whether climate change is real, and do something about it.

"Ninety-five percent of climate scientists agree that anthropogenic (human-influenced) climate change is real, and that we have to do something about it or the impacts are going to be severe," he said.

He said the damages from such storms run about $6 billion a year and that the cost will mount sharply over the coming decades.

"Let's stop the argument and move forward," he said. "Let's make the investments we need."

He called for more spending on renewable energy and on more environment-friendly agriculture.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com