Fuente : World Bank
http://www.worldbank.org

Also In This Edition: Briefly Noted...

/noticias.info/ Briefly Noted…Asia Pulse reports that the Japanese government has pledged to provide $2.3 million land conservation and efforts to alleviate poverty in Semarang, Central Java. A press release from the World Bank's representative office obtained here on Saturday said some $1.3 million of the funds would be used for land conservation while the remainder has been allocated to a poverty alleviation program in the city. The grant, it said, would be channeled through the World Bank as part of the Trust Fund of the Japan Social Development Fund.

Vietnam News Brief reports that Vietnam has finished a national strategy study on the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement aimed at minimizing emissions of harmful greenhouse gases which cause global warming. The study showed that Vietnam could eliminate about 80-120 million tons of CO2 from the energy sector, over 22 million tons from the agricultural sector, and 52.2 million tons from the forestry sector by 2010.

The Jakarta Post (Indonesia) reports that the government will ask the Asian Development Bank and World Bank for their financial support to help rebuild infrastructure in Aceh, severely-damaged by a massive earthquake and tsunami. Minister of Finance Jusuf Anwar said on Tuesday that it would soon ask the two international donor agencies to start disbursing $3 billion in combined undisbursed loan commitments for that purpose. Jusuf added that at present, undisbursed loans from the World Bank and ADB stood at $1 billion and $2 billion respectively.

Xinhua reports that health officials say the fight against tuberculosis remains arduous in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, where the disease is claiming nearly 10,000 lives a year -- the highest mortality rate for any single disease in the region. Guangxi is one of the Chinese localities that report the highest incidence of tuberculosis. The regional health department estimates 15 million people, or one third of its population, have been infected and about 360,000 are suffering from active TB in the lungs.

Asia Pulse reports that the World Bank has approved a loan of $620 million to upgrade India’s stretch of National Highway No. 28 between Lucknow and Muzaffarpur in Bihar on the East-West National Highway Corridor. This is the fourth World Bank loan to support India's National Highway Development Project and will help reduce transport costs which are hampering national economic activity in the country as well as contribute to opening up access to the North East.

Asia Pulse also reports that an amount of about $160 million is proposed to be spent on improving infrastructure and facilities at government-run hospitals and health centers in India’s region of Karnataka under a World Bank loan program over five years, Health and Family Welfare Minister N Cheluvaraya Swamy said today. Swamy told reporters here the World Bank funds will start flowing from April.

Kabar (Kyrgyzstan) reports the World Bank Office in Kyrgyzstan allocated $34, 000 for the Small Grants Program. The goal is to spread information and assist in dialog and partnership between government, parliament, civil society, business circles, mass media and donor organizations in order to fight with poverty.
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