All Blog Posts
Member blogs include thematic articles of 600-800 words on books or research by members, or human interest stories by members. To submit a thematic blog write to the relevant TG chair; for human interest blogs write to 1818society@wbgalumni.org, with “Blog Proposal” in the subject line.
| Title | Author | Publication Date | Content | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canadian Rockies CMH Summer 2023 | Xiao Ye | Oct 6, 2023 | Terry, my husband, and I joined the Canadian Rockies hiking trip in July. We spent a day and half in Calgary, which turned out to be a city with the... | Read More |
| Original World Bank Cost-Efficiency Indicators: Then & Now | Bill Katzenstein | Oct 5, 2023 | The Bank’s first review of its expenses in relation to lending, conducted in 1955, centered on three graphs illustrating the record of expenses and operations back to its startup. The... | Read More |
| The Lucrative Dangers of Tobacco Farming [1] | Uma Lele | Aug 1, 2023 | The global spread of tobacco production and use is like gun proliferation in the US. It is one of those evils that causes widespread harm – such as lung cancer,... | Read More |
| Destruction of World Bank-supported Hydropower Plant in Ukraine | Istvan Dobozi | Aug 1, 2023 | Ukraine has considerable hydropower resource potential. It operates nine major hydropower plants, accounting for about 10 per cent of the country’s total electricity generation mix, which is dominated by nuclear... | Read More |
| Pakistan: Hunza – Batura – Fairy Meadows: A hidden gem | Miriam Schneidman | Jul 14, 2023 | Sipping on a cup of chai on the balcony of the Raikot Sarai lodge while gazing at Nanga Parbat, the ninth highest mountain peak in the world (8126 m) ---... | Read More |
| Bidii Yetu – Cross Africa Odyssey to Raise Awareness of the Potential of People with Disabilities | Matthew Gamser | Jul 14, 2023 | A year ago I reconnected with an old friend and former colleague who, due to a hereditary disease, progressively lost feeling in his legs from his forties. Now in his... | Read More |
| Toward A More Effective WBG Response To Global Challenges | René Costa | Jun 30, 2023 | The World Bank Group (WBG), a long-standing development lender, is facing criticism for not being broad enough in its mandate to address global challenges, its governance weaknesses, and its complex... | Read More |
| Remembering Korea: Moments from the K-Tour of May 2023 | Chad Leechor | Jun 30, 2023 | On a cool sunny day, we gather at the Incheon Airport near Seoul, to start a stint of energetic hiking plus cultural immersion. There are 16 members of the 1818... | Read More |
| One Hundred and Fifty Shades of Green | Preeti S. Ahuja | Jun 14, 2023 | Just as my fingers finished typing “One Hundred Shades of Green” – a name I thought to be apt for my microblog (and designed to carefully avoid any confusion with... | Read More |
| A UNIVERSAL FINANCIAL FRAMEWORK FOR GLOBAL CONCERNS | René Costa | Jun 1, 2023 | “While there are countless solutions to tackling what has been described by the UN as the “existential threat” of our times, it is not fully clear how these solutions would... | Read More |
| Bhutan: Land of the Thunder Dragon | Jianyuan Zhu | Jun 1, 2023 | Better to see something once than hear about it a thousand times. – Asian Proverb [caption id="attachment_14858" align="alignright" width="300"] Trongsa Dzong - the longest Dzong in Bhutan.[/caption] Dubbed as the... | Read More |
| Bhutan Trek 2023 – A Trekking Newbie’s Perspective | Heidi Hennrich-Hanson | May 22, 2023 | Patience is not the ability to wait, but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting – Buddha quote [caption id="attachment_14815" align="alignleft" width="336"] Paro Dzong at night[/caption] After 3... | Read More |
| The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 | Chas Feinstein | May 16, 2023 | Mark Twain famously said: “Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.” As someone who has been following the glacial progress of climate change negotiations since 1991,... | Read More |
| A Tale of Two Microstates: Ideas for A Climate-Smart & Nutrition-Sensitive Future | Preeti S. Ahuja | Apr 27, 2023 | While the focus on the key purveyors of a changing climate is rightly increasing, it is important to keep in view simultaneously, the attendant issues besetting smaller states. Two such... | Read More |
| Lessons Learned from Life as a Consultant: Dealing with a Client who Refuses to Pay | Joe Barone | Apr 18, 2023 | When I left the Bank in March 2018, I decided to hang out my shingle as a consultant. Although the first nine months were filled with learning new things and... | Read More |
| Priorities for Action in the Face of Runaway Climate Change | Vinod Thomas | Apr 13, 2023 | Climate change presents an extreme gulf between scientific knowledge of the risk and policy action to tackle it. Technical solutions and economic policies are plentiful, in principle. What is lacking... | Read More |
| The Spiral Stairs | James Brown | Mar 1, 2023 | With the Boeing announcement of the last 747 rolling off the line in Everett Washington this week, I realized that it has been 50 years since this bird first entered... | Read More |
| Is Free Trade Dead? | Istvan Dobozi | Feb 8, 2023 | Free trade is one of the few economic paradigms that unite economists of all ideological and political stripes: reduction of international trade barriers – import duties and non-tariff barriers –... | Read More |
| How the Dollar-a-Day Poverty Line Came into Being | Lyn Squire | Jan 26, 2023 | Even after thirty years, there are still misconceptions about how the dollar-a-day standard used to measure poverty in the developing world came into being. Some, usually those critical of the... | Read More |
| A day with Pelé | John Muir | Jan 4, 2023 | [caption id="attachment_13427" align="alignright" width="341"] Washington Darts team 1970, NASL champions[/caption] The late 60’s had become a busy period for me. At the request of South American friends, I helped establish and... | Read More |