Connections

57 items available

Permanent URI for this collection

http://hdl.handle.net/10986/22293

Connections is a weekly series of knowledge notes from the World Bank Group’s Transport & Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Global Practice. It covers projects, experiences, and front-line developments.

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 17

Low-Cost Technology to Improve Aviation Safety and Efficiency: Investment Program Brings Modernized Aviation Information Technology to Pacific Islands

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-02) De Serio, Christopher ; Giovannitti, Aldo

The World Bank’s Pacific Aviation Investment Program (PAIP) is bringing state-of-the-art air traffic management and satellite-based ground communications to airports and small aircraft operators in seven Pacific island countries and territories. These advances, coming online in 2017, will vastly improve the safety and efficiency of South Pacific aviation and further its global integration. The air traffic surveillance equipment, known as ADS-B, surpasses the abilities of radar to locate aircraft en route and does so at one-tenth the cost. ADS-B increases the safety of flying and improves search and rescue operations; it also enables more efficient flight routing, which saves fuel and reduces greenhouse gases. The installation of the surveillance equipment at ground stations in five Pacific island countries, Kiribati, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu, and in smaller aircraft will significantly broaden the coverage of aviation activity across the region. A new satellite-based ground-to-ground communications network will link those five countries plus Cook Islands and Niue. The network will be resistant to natural disasters, thus improving emergency preparedness and response. More broadly, strengthening aviation-related communications in the Pacific will help integrate the Asia-Pacific region with global developments in air traffic information systems.
Open Data for Sustainable Development

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-03) Petrov, Oleg ; Gurin, Joel ; Manley, Laura

The “open data” principle is becoming an increasingly important part of the data revolution, which is recognized worldwide as a key engine for achieving the post-2015 UN Sustainable Development Goals. Open data—publicly available online information that can be used for any purpose at little or no cost—represent one of the most underutilized key assets of modern government. Open data initiatives are often directed at converting open data into formats that can be reused for private sector development, jobs creation, economic growth, and more effective governance and citizen engagement. A 2013 study estimated that using open data in seven sectors of economic activity could create $3 trillion to $5 trillion annually in economic value worldwide. The direct, annual economic value of public governmental data has been estimated at up to €40 billion for the European Union and £2 billion for the United Kingdom. Numerous examples illustrate how the use of open data can give significant support to achieving the post-2015 UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Russia’s Ambitious Broadband Goal: Is the Progress Sustainable?

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-03) Gelvanovska, Natalija ; Rossotto, Carlo Maria ; Gunzburger, Michael Lee

In 2012, the Russian Federation announced one of the world’s more ambitious broadband Internet development goals: providing 80 percent of Russian households with ultrafast connection speeds - at least 100 megabits per second (Mbps) by 2018.1 That goal exceeds the current targets in Germany and the European Union, and it is about equivalent to those currently being pursued by countries with ambitious strategic broadband connectivity goals, including Denmark, Sweden, and the United States. As part of the effort to reach its 2018 target, the Russian government recently tasked Rostelecom - a largely state-owned enterprise and the dominant firm in Russia’s broadband market - with the responsibility of connecting 4 million people (about 2.8 percent of all households) in small, widely scattered settlements throughout Russia by installing 200,000 kilometers of fiber-optic cable providing speeds of at least 10 Mbps. The assignment is both a great opportunity and a huge challenge for Rostelecom and for the entire Russian broadband sector. What can Russia do to ensure Rostelecom’s successful completion of its specific task as well as the success of the broader 2018 target?
Will the Digital Revolution Help or Hurt Employment?: Adaptation a Key to Realizing Job Gains

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-02) Raja, Siddhartha ; Ampah, Mavis

What will technological change deliver in the coming decades? And what can we do to determine the outcome? Technological change in any given society is never smooth and always negotiated. Although both perils and opportunities await, the ultimate result depends on our choices today. Governments, businesses, and individuals have shown that adapting to changing circumstances can alter the consequences of apparently ‘inevitable’ changes. And developing countries can be profoundly affected by changes seemingly limited to the advanced economies; they must adapt to what is actually a global technological playing field. The World Bank’s recently issued World Development Report 2016: digital dividends focuses on strengthening the ‘analog complements’ of the digital economy, including adapting skills to get the most out of the digital revolution. Countries whose governments can facilitate innovation, strengthen education and skill building, and build up the social safety net may be the most likely to benefit from the coming changes.
Harnessing the Internet for Development

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-01) Melhem, Samia

Universal access to the Internet has become a topdevelopment priority. Getting there requires affordable,reliable access to fast, “always on” broadbandnetworks, one of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 9.c). Finland has recognizedaccess to broadband as a fundamental human rightsince 2010. In 2011, a key Uncommission also declared that broadband access is a basic human right, alongwith health care, shelter, and food. Affordable Internetaccess enables progress on some of the toughestdevelopment challenges in the world’s poorest communities. According to one estimate, increasing the proportion of the world’s population that is connected to the Internet to 75 percent(reaching 5.6 billion people)would add 2 trillion dollars per year to world Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and help create 140 million jobs—a lofty goal: today, only about 40 percent of the world’s population (3.2 billion)is connected. But reaping those benefits requires more than adding Internet connections: while digital technologies have been spreading, “digital dividends” have not. Getting traction will require a major reevaluation of Internet development and reform projects. That reevaluation is the focus of the World Bank’s World Development Report 2016: Digital Dividends (WDR 16).It highlights the size of the digital divide and shows that a robust program of development in the supporting environment points the way for the development community to make decisive headway on the enormous promise of the Internet.
ICT at COP21: Enormous Potential to Mitigate Emissions

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-12) Gallegos, Doyle ; Narimatsu, Junko

The transformational potential of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) was on display in Paris at the Twenty-First Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. ICTs, including the Internet, mobile phones, geographic information systems (GIS), satellite imaging, remote sensing, and data analytics, could reduce yearly global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) 20 percent by 2030, thus holding them at their 2015 level. Moreover, ICT emissions are expected to decrease to 1.97 percent of the global total by 2030, from 2.3 percent in 2020, while emission reductions attributable to ICT will be nearly 10 times greater than those of the ICT sector. ICTs are also critical for climate change adaptation, providing vital tools for all phases of the disaster risk management cycle. Although the opportunities for ICTs to support the climate change agenda are enormous, much work remains in order to realize them. Governments of developing countries must be further encouraged to include ICTs in their national climate change policies. And the international development community will have to make significant efforts, particularly in low-income countries, to develop ICT infrastructure as well as the institutional capacities and skills to implement and sustain these solutions.
Advances and Challenges in 'Intelligent Transportation': The Evolution of ICT to Address Transport Challenges in Developing Countries

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-11) Wang, Winnie ; Krishnan, Raman ; Diehl, Adam

Transport efficiency and safety in the advanced economies have long benefited from information and communication technology (ICT). However, these ICT applications have typically been high-cost, customized infrastructure systems. Now the era of the Internet, digital mobile communication, and ‘big data’ analysis has created a new global potential for less costly and more powerful ‘intelligent transport systems’ (ITS). The World Bank is supporting client transport agencies in deploying these new tools, including cloud-based services, open data standards, and smartphone applications, to more efficiently manage transportation assets and improve road safety. In the process, such projects have also demonstrated improvements in the traveler’s experience and the attractiveness of public transit. Moreover, the greater potential of the new technologies to reduce congestion and travel times means that the new era has also strengthened the potential of ITS to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, realizing the potential of ITS in developing countries depends on improvements in assessment practices to find what works best and in the data capabilities of domestic institutions. Significant improvements in these areas are critical to the success of ITS.
A New Measure of Rural Access to Transport: Using GIS Data to Inform Decisions and Attainment of the SDGs

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-10) Iimi, Atsushi ; Diehl, Adam

In rural areas of the developing world, where the majority of the poor live, good transport connectivity through road infrastructure and transport services is an essential part of the enabling environment for sustainable growth. A lack of detailed nationwide data has limited previous efforts to develop measures of access to roads in rural areas that would guide policy and investment. The World Bank, with support from DFID, has been piloting a methodology that exploits advances in digital technology to assess population distribution and infrastructure location and quality. The resulting Rural Access Index (RAI) may serve as a useful and cost effective tool for governments planning their rural transport programs and as an indicator of progress towards the achievement of several of the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets.
The Identity Target in the Post-2015 Development Agenda: Enabling Access to Services for All

( 2015-09) Dahan, Mariana ; Gelb, Alan

Robust personal identification (ID) systems are critical to the success of many development programs. Regardless of the methods used, official ID for all - together with the legal, political, and economic rights it confers - is becoming a priority for governments around the world. Legal ID is on the post-2015 sustainable development goals (SDGs) agenda as SDG target 16.9, urging states to ensure that all have free or low-cost access to widely accepted, and robust identity credentials. The international community should join forces to achieve this goal, as attaining it will also be a key enabler of many other SDGs.
Impact Evaluation to Inform and Transform Investments in Transport and ICT

(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2015-06) Vandycke, Nancy ; Legovini, Arianna ; Liaplina, Aleksandra ; Di Maro, Vincenzo

A new World Bank initiative, ‘Impact Evaluation (IE) - connect for impact,’ aims to radically transform and better inform the way that transport and information and communications technology (ICT) projects are designed and implemented. Although multilateral lending to this key strategic sector comprises 29 percent of all global assistance, only 0.4 percent of impact evaluations have had transport as a subject. This initiative aims to fill the gap and bring high quality and valuable feedback to projects, improving design, enabling mid-course corrections, and informing ex-post evaluations. For the first time, this initiative will offer a systematic sector approach to generating concrete evidence of what works, what does not, where, when and why. It will greatly increase the impact and value add of investments in transport and ICT projects, which is especially important given global trends toward increasing urbanization, with 70 percent of the world’s population expected to live in cities by 2050.