Person:
Jha, Abhas K.

Urban and Disaster Risk Management, East Asia and the Pacific, World Bank
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Urban Development, Disaster Risk Management
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Urban and Disaster Risk Management, East Asia and the Pacific, World Bank
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Last updated: January 31, 2023
Biography
Abhas Jha is Practice Manager, Urban Development and Disaster Risk Management (East Asia and the Pacific) within the Social, Urban, Rural and Resilience Global Practice for the World Bank. He leads operations and strategy, technical quality control and risk management of one of the largest portfolios of infrastructure lending, technical assistance, and advisory services within the World Bank. Abhas works on cities, infrastructure finance and economics, risk and resilience, and public policy. He has been with the World Bank since 2001, working on policy reform and development finance in a variety of countries including China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Turkey, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Jamaica, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, and Peru. Abhas earlier served as Adviser to the World Bank Executive Director for Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and Sri Lanka. He was for 12 years a member of the Indian Administrative Service (the national senior civil service of India) in the Government of India (in the Federal Ministry of Finance and earlier in the state of Bihar). Abhas is the lead author of "Safer Homes, Stronger Communities: A Handbook for Reconstructing after Disasters" (2010) and "Cities and Flooding: A Guide to Integrated Urban Flood Risk Management" (2012) and has edited/co-edited or contributed chapters to several other publications.

Publication Search Results

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  • Publication
    Low-income Housing in Latin America and the Caribbean
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-01) Jha, Abhas K.
    Housing is one of the most important sectors of the economy -- in developing countries as in richer ones -- with large positive externalities in terms of economic growth, public health and societal stability. It is the primary form of asset accumulation for the poor -- often representing more than 50 percent of the assets of households. However, housing systems in developing countries are dominated by badly designed, poorly targeted, and inefficient government subsidies, market failures in land markets, overwhelming informality, a predominance of powerful vested interests and a growing slum population. This paper addresses the following headings: the housing sector in Latin American countries (LAC); the World Bank Group housing strategy in LAC; and the challenges ahead.