The World Bank (WB) has approved $410 million to improve municipal governance and basic urban services in district towns and municipalities in Bangladesh and benefit 3.4 million people in around 100 urban communities across the country.
The Municipal Governance and Service Project will provide financial support to 26 urban government bodies with high economic growth and job creation potential, located along growth corridors leading from Dhaka towards Chittagong, Rangpur, Sylhet, Mymensingh. It will also cover three district towns in the south.
“Bangladesh experienced some of the most rapid urbanization in South Asia. Yet, the cities offer inadequate infrastructure and low levels of urban services, particularly in district towns and municipa...
Life comes to near standstill after sunset for the great majority of Bangladeshis living in the countryside. Only about 40% of rural households have access to grid electricity, and even these consumers suffer frequent and prolonged power cuts due to lack of supply. The Second Rural Electrification and Renewable Energy Development Project (RERED II) aims to increase access to electricity in off-grid rural areas through renewable energy sources.
Challenge
At present, against a peak demand of about 8,500 megawatt (MW), current supply is only about 6,500 MW. The urban areas with large industrial loads are prioritized for power supply leaving the rural areas with a disproportionate share of the power cuts. Further, the disp...
lnternational Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Christine Lagarde said yesterday that growth in the global economy was picking up, but warned of the “rising risks” of deflation.
“Momentum strengthened in the latter half of 2013, and should strengthen further in 2014 -- largely due to improvements in the advanced economies,” Lagarde said in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington.
The IMF managing director, however, declined to put numbers on the growth rate ahead of next week’s update of the Fund’s offici...
Five years after the global financial crisis, the world economy is showing signs of bouncing back this year, pulled along by a recovery in high-income economies, says the World Bank’s latest Global Economic Prospects report, issued on Thursday.
Developing-country growth is also firming, thanks in part to the recovery in high-income economies as well as moderating, but still strong, growth in China.
Growth prospects for 2014 are, however, sensitive to the tapering of monetary stimulus in the United States, which began earlier this month, and to the structural shifts taking place in China’s economy.
Bangladesh’s economic growth made in October last year remained unchanged as the GDP growth rate will slow down to 5.7 percent against 7.2 percent target in the current fiscal (2013-14) due to political turmoil, says the World Bank (WB).
The WB, an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programs, came up with the fresh but similar forecast on Wednesday in Washington, reports UNB.
In it...
Migrant workers sent $6.77 billion home to Bangladesh in July-December, down 8.41% from the same time a year ago. For the first time in recent memory, Bangladesh has experienced a decline in remittances in the first half of the fiscal year.
There are four factors that can potentially account for the decline in remittances: the stock of Bangladeshi migrants abroad, earnings per migrant worker, their average propensity to save, and their average propensity to remit money home out of those savings.
