Browse Category

Dev Partners

Japan setting up anti-bribery mechanism for aid program    

Japan is planning to roll out new anti-fraud measures to ensure accountability within its foreign aid operation, after bribery allegations rocked three of its country programs earlier this year, Devex has confirmed. The anti-bribery mechanism will be rolled out in Vietnam first before potential adoption in Indonesia and Uzbekistan — the three countries where a private contractor has been accused of paying local officials roughly $780,000 to win development projects. papan's FlagAn official with Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs clar...

Developing countries see swelling middle class: ILO

Workers in developing countries are increasingly moving to better jobs and joining the middle class, but 839 million workers still earn less than $2.00 a day, the International Labour Organization said. “The developing countries are generally in a process of catching up with the advanced economies,” ILO chief Guy Ryder told reporters in Geneva ahead of the release of the agency’s annual World of Work Report on Tuesday. Between 1980 and 2011, per capita income in the developing countries like Senegal, Vietnam and Tunisia on average grew 3.3 percent each year, which is far faster than the 1.8 percent growth seen in advanced economies, the report said.

DFID threatens to withdraw fund    

The Department for International Development (DFID) has threatened to withdraw the grants it had committed for establishing economic zones (EZ) as the government has failed to set up the much-hyped zones in four years. The UK-based development organisation recently said it would withdraw fund of nearly Tk 15 crore committed for ‘Economic Zones Development’ project, if the government fails to spend the money by this December, Planning Commission sources said. The World Bank, which conducted a survey on the project, and the DFID came forward to help set up EZs, making commitments of Tk 65 crore and Tk 14.34 crore respectively as grants against the said project, reports the Daily Sun.

AfDB, Yunus deepen cooperation on social business in Africa

“In one year we have come a long way and Tunisia is taking concrete steps in the adoption of social business. It will soon be a model for African countries and I am very happy,” said Professor Muhammad Yunus, 2006 Nobel Peace Laureate, pioneer of microcredit and co-founder of the Yunus Social Business (YSB) during his visit to Tunisia on 9 and 10 May 2014. yunus-14-5-2014This, his second visit to Tunisia, offered a renewed opportunity to meet representatives of the African Development Bank (AfDB) and to review progress on social ...

ILO to launch report on profits of forced labour

The International Labour Organization (ILO) is to launch a new report, Profits and Poverty: The Economics of Forced Labour, on May 20. ILOThe study investigates the underlying factors that drive forced labour, of which a major one is illegal profits. Figures will include a breakdown of profits by area of forced labour and by region, according to a release. The report will also provide updates to data included in the 2009 Cost of Coercion report, as well as the global estimate of persons in forced labour. A press briefing by Corinne Vargha, ILO’s Chief, Funda...

World Bank to help Bangladesh on VAT

The World Bank Board has approved USD60m in interest-free credit to modernize the administration of Bangladesh’s value-added tax regime and to boost the tax take. The VAT Improvement Program Project will introduce automation, including the launch of online VAT taxpayer services, and improve transparency in VAT administration. The project aims to increase the ratio of VAT to gross domestic product (GDP) by at least one percentage point of GDP by 2019, from just 3.7 percent of GDP in 2012-13. wbThe project will support the government to implement the new VAT law, which comes into effect in 2015, and aims to provide better servic...
Verified by MonsterInsights