Latin America and the Caribbean region (LAC) will be growing at 3%, more in line with global trends but even with GDP beginning to slow, the region’s unemployment rate stood at 6.5%, approaching historic lows and well below its peak of 11% a decade ago, according to the latest semi-annual report “The Labour Market Story Behind Latin America’s Transformation,” by the World Bank’s Office of the Chief Economist for the region.
In developing countries, jobs are a cornerstone of development, with a pay off far beyond income alone. They are critical for reducing poverty, making cities work, and providing youth with alternatives to violence, says a new World Bank report.
The 2015 Annual Meetings of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund will take place in Lima, Peru, in October 2015, following a vote by the Boards of Governors of the two institutions.
World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim announced the appointment of Indian national Kaushik Basu as the institution’s new Chief Economist and Senior Vice President.
Global food prices soared by 10% in July from a month ago, with maize and soybean reaching all-time peaks due to an unprecedented summer of droughts and high temperatures in both the United States and Eastern Europe, according to the World Bank Group’s latest Food Price Watch report.
The World Bank on Monday said it stood ready to help governments respond to a broad-based run-up in grain prices that has again put the world’s poorest people at risk and could have lingering detrimental impacts for years.
World Bank President Jim Yong Kim on Wednesday warned that most regions of the world will be hurt by the debt crisis enveloping the Euro zone and said it was vital to protect the strong economic gains of the past decade in the developing world.
Jim Yong Kim, who took over as World Bank president said his first task will be to help emerging markets keep expanding at a time of stress for the world economy.
An aggravation of the European crisis could reduce growth prospects in Latin America up to 40%, said the Inter American Development bank president Luis Alberto Moreno, particularly because of the influence of European financial institutions in the influx of capital to the region.
Economic policy should be better designed to bring about more inclusive growth, ensuring that the benefits of increased prosperity are shared more evenly across society, according to a new report from the OECD and the World Bank.