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 33

Assessing Country Progress Towards Digitization

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2019-02) Melhem, Samia

Today, almost all developing nations’ public administrations are going digital, leveraging disruptive technologies for better service delivery and improved efficiency. The question countries ask most frequently is where do we start?, and while the answer may seem daunting, the key to success is not where to start, but how to sustain what has most certainly already started.
How China's Transport Sector Can Contribute to Carbon Reduction

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-06) Zhou, Weimin

The Chinese government, based on its commitment to carbon reduction in the Paris Climate Agreement,laid out its intention to achieve peak CO₂ emissions by 2030, and to make its best effort to peak as early as possible. It committed to lowering CO₂ emissions per unit of GDP by 60–65 percent of their 2005 levels, and to increasing the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to about 20 percent. Although these targets were set up for the country as a whole, it is essential for decision makers and practitioners to understand the contribution the transport sector can make if its development path is aimed at sustainability.
Achieving Sustainable Mobility: Why Policy-Makers Should Pursue the Four Goals at the Same Time

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-11) Morales Sarriera, Javier ; Fulton, Lewis

The Global Mobility Report frames the transport agenda around four global goals: universal access, efficiency, safety and green. Unless those four goals are pursued simultaneously, mobility will not be sustainable for current and future generations. For example, policy decisions must not prioritize universal access interventions without considering the implications they may have on efficiency, safety, and green. Deviating from any of the goals will compromise the achievement of sustainable mobility. At stake is the fact that none of these goals are independent, but they are all interconnected. In many cases, there are synergies among pairs of goals, or even across all four. Synergies occur when projects and policies help achieve more than one goal at a time. Butin other cases, advancing the agenda on one goal may hinder another. Therefore, synergies shouldbe captured and apparent trade-offs should be managed. By acknowledging these interconnections and managing them appropriately, mobility will be able to generate more benefits for society, strengthening its role as a driver of social inclusion and economic competitiveness, with the least impact on safety and the environment. This note provides examples of the synergies and trade-offs a policy-maker should consider and manage.
Connections: Knowledge Notes from the Transport and ICT Global Practice

(Washington, DC, 2017-06-01) World Bank

Connections is a series of concise knowledge notes from the World Bank Group’s Transport and ICT Global Practice. Connections discusses projects, experiences, and front-line developments in Transport and ICT. This set includes notes from 2015 and 2016.
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.
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.
Enhancing Road Resilience in Pacific Island Countries: World Bank Assisting Adaptation to Climate Change

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-12) Michaels, Sean David

Pacific island countries are experiencing higher temperatures, rising sea levels, and extreme weather that is increasingly frequent and intense. The resulting damage has likewise been extreme. Between 2012 and 2015, for example, losses from three cyclones ranged from 11 percent to 64 percent of GDP in Samoa, Tonga, and Vanuatu. In many of these countries, primary roads and critical infrastructure are adjacent to the coast, and the majority of the population lives within 1 kilometer of the sea. Expected climate change effects will place coastal assets and communities at a higher level of risk. Governments are well aware of these challenges. Today, more than one-fourth of the World Bank’s transport commitments support mitigation and adaptation to climate change (a share that is growing), and its work with Pacific island countries is one of the ways it is responding to the rising demand for climate action. The demand from Pacific island countries in recent years has focused on road resilience, and early lessons will provide a strong basis for further progress.
Transport at COP21: Part of the Climate Change Solution

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-12) Ebinger, Jane ; Peltier, Nicolas ; Gitay, Habiba ; Monsalve, Carolina ; Losos, Andrew ; Rogers, John Allen ; Vandycke, Nancy

The case for climate action has never been stronger. Around the world, climate change is putting at risk the lives of millions of people as well as threatening many coastal cities and endangering trillion of dollars of investments in transport infrastructure and services. The Twenty-First Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will bring heads of state and ministers to Paris at the end of November to reach a global climate agreement with far-reaching implications for low-carbon and climate-resilient growth. Transport is playing a greater role in COP21 than in past UNFCCC conferences as a critical part of the solution: a sector that can contribute to both reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and building economy wide resilience to the impacts of climate change. In view of the sector’s potential, the heavily debated transport question is how to sustainably meet the rising global demand for greater interconnectedness and mobility. The World Bank and the seven other leading multilateral development banks have joined forces with the Paris Process for Mobility and Climate (PPMC) and the rest of the transport community to call for more action on transport and climate change.