Gourt > Business > Financial Services > Banking Services > Credit Unions (71)
A credit union is a not-for-profit co-operative financial institution that is owned and controlled by its members, through the election of a volunteer Board of Directors elected from the membership itself. Only a member of a credit union may deposit money with the credit union, or borrow money from it.
A credit union differs from a traditional financial institution (banks, savings and loan, etc.) in that the members who have accounts in the credit union are the credit union's owners. A credit union is a co-operative institution, with policies governing interest rates and other matters set to benefit the interests of the membership as a whole. As such, credit unions have historically marketed themselves as providing superior member service and being committed to helping members improve their financial health. Credit unions typically pay higher dividend (interest) rates on shares (deposits) and charge lower interest on loans than banks.*. Credit union revenues (from loans and investments) do, however, need to exceed operating expenses and dividends (interest paid on deposits) in order to maintain capital and solvency. The lowered profitability of credit unions relative to banks is indicative of credit unions' focus on serving members, whereas banks must be concerned with maximizing profits in order to enhance stock performance.
Credit unions offer many of the same financial services as banks, including share accounts (savings accounts), share draft (checking) accounts, credit cards, and share term certificates (certificates of deposit) and home banking.
More on [ Credit union ]
Cooperatives
Banks and Credit Unions :: Money Management
The Economist: Banking
The financial crisis: A light at the end of the tunnel?
Mon, 13 Oct 2008 06:11:28 -0000
Concerted action is taken around the world to rescue the financial systemTHE dithering has ended. After a week in which the financial system almost ground to a halt, governments of the industrialised world seem at last to have found the right tools to get credit markets moving again. At the weekend and early on Monday October 13th officials in Europe, America and Asia announced unprecedented and comprehensive plans to prop up failing banks, guarantee their loans and flood the world with cash by providing unlimited dollar funds through central banks. At first blush—and in contrast to previous failures after half-hearted efforts—the new plans seem to be working. Stockmarkets rose around the world on Monday, although the real sign that the situation is improving will come in the credit markets this week.All the actions are aimed at dealing with the three related problems that have blocked credit markets and the banking system. These are that banks have been unable to raise enough money in the frozen short-term money markets; that banks are unable to take out loans for three-to-five years to make up the shortfall between deposits and lending, because markets for longer-term borrowing are also shut; and, last, that they are struggling to win the trust of lenders because they do not have enough capital as a cushion against losses. ...
The markets: Off a cliff
Fri, 10 Oct 2008 06:11:29 -0000
Markets in America, Asia and Europe plummet, as fears grow over financial and economic conditionsMARKETS in Asia and Europe plummeted on Friday October 10th. Japan’s stockmarket ended the week in disarray: the Nikkei 225-share index fell by 24% on the week, twice the weekly fall of the 1987 crash. It is now at five-and-a-half-year lows. Europe followed suit. London’s FTSE 100 slumped by more than 10% within minutes of opening; by mid-morning European stocks were also down, with Germany's DAX index down by more than 8%. Amid widespread anxiety the oil price also tumbled, to around $81 a barrel, its lowest level in a year. The falls underline that stockmarkets, traumatised by the near-paralysis in credit markets, the collapse of once-mighty banks and the prospect of global recession, are suffering what has been dubbed a “cascading crash”: a series of blows which, added together, are stomach-churning. ...
Fixing the world economy
Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:48:13 -0000
More than a new capitalism, the world needs a new multilateralismJUST under ten years ago, during the emerging-market financial crises, Time magazine ran a cover headlined “The committee to save the world”. It showed Alan Greenspan, then chairman of the Federal Reserve; Robert Rubin, the treasury secretary; and Larry Summers, his deputy. Inside was a breathless account of how this trio of Americans had saved the world economy from calamity by masterminding IMF rescue packages for cash-strapped Asian countries through weekend meetings and late-night conference calls. Today the threats facing the global economy are graver than they were a decade ago, yet it would be hard to know whom to put on such a cover. Wall Street is at the centre of the mess, so America’s stature and intellectual authority has plunged. Rather than staving off defaults in Asia, Mr Paulson, today’s treasury secretary, and Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, are battling to prevent the implosion of their own financial system. Instead of dictating tough terms to Asian governments, they have been begging Congress for public money to deal with Wall Street’s most toxic securities. ...
A monetary malaise
Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:48:13 -0000
Central bankers helped cause today’s mess. Will they be able to clean it up?FOUNDED in 1930, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is the oldest and chummiest of the international financial institutions. Based in Basel (with its famously good food), the central bankers’ club is the nerve centre for international co-operation on monetary technicalities. How ironic, then, that the BIS’s economists put much of the blame for the current mess on central bankers and financial supervisors. For years, BIS reports have given warning about excess global liquidity, urged central bankers to worry about asset bubbles even when consumer-price inflation was low, encouraged policymakers in a global economy to pay more attention to global measures of economic slack, and argued that banking supervisors needed to look beyond individual firms to the soundness of the financial system as a whole. Today’s calamity, in the BIS’s view, stems from one fundamental source: a world where credit-driven excesses went on for too long. “The unsustainable has run its course,” thundered the organisation’s annual report in June. ...
Re-regulating finance
Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:48:13 -0000
How far should finance be re-regulated?“WALL STREET got drunk.” “Bankers deserve D.” A few years ago those phrases might have appeared on placards held by purple-haired protesters at anti-globalisation rallies. Now they come from the president of the United States and a former chairman of the Federal Reserve. Thinking the microphones were off, George Bush told a group of Republicans in July that Wall Street needed to “sober up” and wean itself from “all these fancy financial instruments”. And long before September’s events, Paul Volcker gave financiers their D grade along with a devastating critique. “For all its talented participants, for all its rich rewards,” he said in April, the “bright new financial system” has “failed the test of the marketplace”. In light of the events of recent weeks, it is hard to disagree. A financial system that ends up with the government taking over some of its biggest institutions in serial weekend rescues and which requires the promise of $700 billion in public money to stave off catastrophe is not an A-grade system. The disappearance of all five big American investment banks—either by bankruptcy or rebirth as commercial banks—is powerful evidence that Wall Street failed “the test of the marketplace”. Something has gone awry. ...
When fortune frowned
Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:48:13 -0000
The worst financial crisis since the Depression is redrawing the boundaries between government and markets, says Zanny Minton Beddoes (interviewed here). Will they end up in the right place?AFTER the stockmarket crash of October 1929 it took over three years for America’s government to launch a series of dramatic efforts to end the Depression, starting with Roosevelt’s declaration of a four-day bank holiday in March 1933. In-between, America saw the worst economic collapse in its history. Thousands of banks failed, a devastating deflation set in, output plunged by a third and unemployment rose to 25%. The Depression wreaked enormous damage across the globe, but most of all on America’s economic psyche. In its aftermath the boundaries between government and markets were redrawn. During the past month, little more than a year after the financial storm first struck in August 2007, America’s government made its most dramatic interventions in financial markets since the 1930s. At the time it was not even certain that the economy was in recession and unemployment stood at 6.1%. In two tumultuous weeks the Federal Reserve and the Treasury between them nationalised the country’s two mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; took over AIG, the world’s largest insurance company; in effect extended government deposit insurance to $3.4 trillion in money-market funds; temporarily banned short-selling in over 900 mostly financial stocks; and, most dramatic of all, pledged to take up to $700 billion of toxic mortgage-related assets on to its books. The Fed and the Treasury were determined to prevent the kind of banking catastrophe that precipitated the Depression. Shell-shocked lawmakers cavilled, but Congress and the administration eventually agreed. ...
World Bank/IMF
EU: Court hits at Brussels secrecy
The European Union's secretive decision-making processes were condemned on Thursday in a legal judgment that should lead to more light being shed on how thousands of regulations affecting businesses are hatched.
CONGO: World Bank accused of razing Congo forests
The World Bank encouraged foreign companies to destructively log the world's second largest forest, endangering the lives of thousands of Congolese Pygmies, according to a report on an internal investigation by senior bank staff and outside experts.
Digging for Dirt in the DRC?
As the Congolese government begins a review of mining contracts, a mining kingpin is deported on unrelated corruption charges, and the World Bank faces accusations of failure to provide oversight of contract deals.
ING Latest Press Releases
13/10/08 - ING DIRECT obtains further stake in Germany's Interhyp
Mon, 13 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0200
ING DIRECT N.V. announced today that it has obtained an additional 208,294 shares in Germany's largest independent residential mortgage distributor, Interhyp AG, at EUR 64 per share, valuing the company at EUR 416 million.
10/10/08 - ING welcomes Dutch government announcement
Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0200
In these extreme market circumstances, ING welcomes the announcement of the Dutch government as these are important and necessary steps to restore confidence and bring stability and certainty to the Dutch financial system.
29/09/08 - ING not to make offer for ABN Amro Netherlands
Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0200
ING announced today that it does not intend to make an offer to acquire ABN Amro Netherlands from Fortis.
19/09/08 - ING Investor Day: focus on ING DIRECT
Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0200
ING DIRECT is the main theme for the bi-annual ING Investor Day, held today in Madrid.
16/09/08 - ING expects limited impact from Lehman Brothers exposure
Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0200
ING announced today that, in light of the exceptional turbulence in global financial markets, it wants to inform its stakeholders that the total direct impact of Lehman Brothers' Chapter 11 filing on ING's profit and loss account is estimated to be around EUR 100 million on a pre-tax basis.
10/09/08 - ING rebalances hedge portfolio for employee options
Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0200
ING Groep N.V. has sold 6,350,000 (depositary receipts for) ordinary shares for its delta hedge portfolio, which is used to hedge employee options.
The Economist: The World Bank and the IMF
The world economy: Bad, or worse
Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:48:13 -0000
At best, the world economy is on the brink of recessionDEPRIVE a person of oxygen and he will turn blue, collapse and eventually die. Deprive economies of credit and a similar process kicks in. As the financial crisis has broadened and intensified, the global economy has begun to suffocate. That is why the world’s central banks have been administering emergency measures, including a round of co-ordinated interest-rate cuts on October 8th. With luck they will prevent catastrophe. They are unlikely to avert a global recession.According to the IMF’s most recent World Economic Outlook, published on October 8th, the world economy is “entering a major downturn” in the face of “the most dangerous shock” to rich-country financial markets since the 1930s. The fund expects global growth, measured on the basis of purchasing-power parity (PPP), to come down to 3% in 2009, the slowest pace since 2002 and on the verge of what it considers to be a global recession. (The fund’s definition of global recession takes many factors into account, including the rate of population growth.) Given the scale of the financial freeze, the fund’s forecast looks optimistic. Other forecasters are convinced that a global recession is inevitable. Economists at UBS, for instance, expect global growth of only 2.2% in 2009. ...
Chad: Breaking the bank
Thu, 25 Sep 2008 12:08:08 -0000
A vaunted model development project goes awryWHEN the World Bank agreed to help finance a controversial pipeline from oilfields in Chad to a port in Cameroon, it claimed to be raising the bar for transparency and good government in the extractive industries. It insisted that the government of Chad spend almost all its revenue from the project on development; to make sure it did so, the oil firms involved were to pay royalties into an escrow account monitored by an independent agency. Eight years later, the bar has fallen with a thud. Rather than comply with the bank’s strictures, the government of Chad has repaid its loans in full. It will now do as it pleases with its oil money.The project did not get off to an auspicious start: the government spent a chunk of its $25m signing bonus on arms. As local rebel movements grew stronger, and the conflict in neighbouring Darfur began to spill over into Chad, the government’s urge to funnel cash to the army only grew. It bickered frequently with the bank and the oil firms about the terms of the deal. The lockbox for revenue proved insecure, since the government simply took the money disbursed for education and health care and diverted it to less worthy causes. “Ultimately,” says a World Banker, “these projects depend on the political will of the governments involved.” ...
Poverty: The bottom 1.4 billion
Thu, 28 Aug 2008 11:35:37 -0000
The world is poorer than we thought, the World Bank discoversCorrection to this articleIN APRIL 2007 the World Bank announced that 986m people worldwide suffered from extreme poverty—the first time its count had dropped below 1 billion. On August 26th it had grim news to report. According to two of its leading researchers, Shaohua Chen and Martin Ravallion, the “developing world is poorer than we thought”. The number of poor was almost 1.4 billion in 2005. ...
IEG
Annual Review of Development Effectiveness 2008: Shared Global Challenges
Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:46:25 -0400
For the World Bank and its partners, the ever-present test is to deliver results-to lift people out of poverty and promote socially and environmentally sustainable development. Achieving such success in any individual country is increasingly intertwined with making progress on shared global challenges. This independent evaluation presents evidence on the Bank's efforts in two important and connected areas: tracking outcomes of Bank projects and country programs; and progress in fostering global public goods, such as protecting the earth's climate and preventing the spread of dangerous communicable diseases.
Using Knowledge To Improve Development Effectiveness
Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:44:47 -0400
The World Bank has committed to becoming a "global knowledge bank", using knowledge to improve the effectiveness of its work. Two of the ways the Bank provides knowledge to its client countries are economic and sector work and nonlending technical assistance.
New Public Sector Evaluations
Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:48:33 -0400
Decentralization in Client Countries In recent years, developing countries have decentralized functions and responsibilities for service delivery to lower levels of government at an increasing pace. The main reasons for such reforms are often political, but governments adopt them also as a way to improve service delivery and local governance. Typically, after the political decision is made, a country will turn to its development partners- including the World Bank- for support in implementing the new policies and achieving their development objectives. How Effective are the World Bank's Fiduciary Diagnostics? The World Bank's analysis of a country's public financial management system is an important component of fiduciary diagnostics. It is typically undertaken both to help the client country strengthen its system and to safeguard funds that the Bank provides against misuse. The resulting diagnostics have fostered reform agendas in client countries.
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The financial crisis: A light at the end of the tunnel?
Mon, 13 Oct 2008 06:11:28 -0000
Concerted action is taken around the world to rescue the financial systemTHE dithering has ended. After a week in which the financial system almost ground to a halt, governments of the industrialised world seem at last to have found the right tools to get credit markets moving again. At the weekend and early on Monday October 13th officials in Europe, America and Asia announced unprecedented and comprehensive plans to prop up failing banks, guarantee their loans and flood the world with cash by providing unlimited dollar funds through central banks. At first blush—and in contrast to previous failures after half-hearted efforts—the new plans seem to be working. Stockmarkets rose around the world on Monday, although the real sign that the situation is improving will come in the credit markets this week.All the actions are aimed at dealing with the three related problems that have blocked credit markets and the banking system. These are that banks have been unable to raise enough money in the frozen short-term money markets; that banks are unable to take out loans for three-to-five years to make up the shortfall between deposits and lending, because markets for longer-term borrowing are also shut; and, last, that they are struggling to win the trust of lenders because they do not have enough capital as a cushion against losses. ...
The markets: Off a cliff
Fri, 10 Oct 2008 06:11:29 -0000
Markets in America, Asia and Europe plummet, as fears grow over financial and economic conditionsMARKETS in Asia and Europe plummeted on Friday October 10th. Japan’s stockmarket ended the week in disarray: the Nikkei 225-share index fell by 24% on the week, twice the weekly fall of the 1987 crash. It is now at five-and-a-half-year lows. Europe followed suit. London’s FTSE 100 slumped by more than 10% within minutes of opening; by mid-morning European stocks were also down, with Germany's DAX index down by more than 8%. Amid widespread anxiety the oil price also tumbled, to around $81 a barrel, its lowest level in a year. The falls underline that stockmarkets, traumatised by the near-paralysis in credit markets, the collapse of once-mighty banks and the prospect of global recession, are suffering what has been dubbed a “cascading crash”: a series of blows which, added together, are stomach-churning. ...
Fixing the world economy
Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:48:13 -0000
More than a new capitalism, the world needs a new multilateralismJUST under ten years ago, during the emerging-market financial crises, Time magazine ran a cover headlined “The committee to save the world”. It showed Alan Greenspan, then chairman of the Federal Reserve; Robert Rubin, the treasury secretary; and Larry Summers, his deputy. Inside was a breathless account of how this trio of Americans had saved the world economy from calamity by masterminding IMF rescue packages for cash-strapped Asian countries through weekend meetings and late-night conference calls. Today the threats facing the global economy are graver than they were a decade ago, yet it would be hard to know whom to put on such a cover. Wall Street is at the centre of the mess, so America’s stature and intellectual authority has plunged. Rather than staving off defaults in Asia, Mr Paulson, today’s treasury secretary, and Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, are battling to prevent the implosion of their own financial system. Instead of dictating tough terms to Asian governments, they have been begging Congress for public money to deal with Wall Street’s most toxic securities. ...
A monetary malaise
Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:48:13 -0000
Central bankers helped cause today’s mess. Will they be able to clean it up?FOUNDED in 1930, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is the oldest and chummiest of the international financial institutions. Based in Basel (with its famously good food), the central bankers’ club is the nerve centre for international co-operation on monetary technicalities. How ironic, then, that the BIS’s economists put much of the blame for the current mess on central bankers and financial supervisors. For years, BIS reports have given warning about excess global liquidity, urged central bankers to worry about asset bubbles even when consumer-price inflation was low, encouraged policymakers in a global economy to pay more attention to global measures of economic slack, and argued that banking supervisors needed to look beyond individual firms to the soundness of the financial system as a whole. Today’s calamity, in the BIS’s view, stems from one fundamental source: a world where credit-driven excesses went on for too long. “The unsustainable has run its course,” thundered the organisation’s annual report in June. ...
Re-regulating finance
Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:48:13 -0000
How far should finance be re-regulated?“WALL STREET got drunk.” “Bankers deserve D.” A few years ago those phrases might have appeared on placards held by purple-haired protesters at anti-globalisation rallies. Now they come from the president of the United States and a former chairman of the Federal Reserve. Thinking the microphones were off, George Bush told a group of Republicans in July that Wall Street needed to “sober up” and wean itself from “all these fancy financial instruments”. And long before September’s events, Paul Volcker gave financiers their D grade along with a devastating critique. “For all its talented participants, for all its rich rewards,” he said in April, the “bright new financial system” has “failed the test of the marketplace”. In light of the events of recent weeks, it is hard to disagree. A financial system that ends up with the government taking over some of its biggest institutions in serial weekend rescues and which requires the promise of $700 billion in public money to stave off catastrophe is not an A-grade system. The disappearance of all five big American investment banks—either by bankruptcy or rebirth as commercial banks—is powerful evidence that Wall Street failed “the test of the marketplace”. Something has gone awry. ...
When fortune frowned
Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:48:13 -0000
The worst financial crisis since the Depression is redrawing the boundaries between government and markets, says Zanny Minton Beddoes (interviewed here). Will they end up in the right place?AFTER the stockmarket crash of October 1929 it took over three years for America’s government to launch a series of dramatic efforts to end the Depression, starting with Roosevelt’s declaration of a four-day bank holiday in March 1933. In-between, America saw the worst economic collapse in its history. Thousands of banks failed, a devastating deflation set in, output plunged by a third and unemployment rose to 25%. The Depression wreaked enormous damage across the globe, but most of all on America’s economic psyche. In its aftermath the boundaries between government and markets were redrawn. During the past month, little more than a year after the financial storm first struck in August 2007, America’s government made its most dramatic interventions in financial markets since the 1930s. At the time it was not even certain that the economy was in recession and unemployment stood at 6.1%. In two tumultuous weeks the Federal Reserve and the Treasury between them nationalised the country’s two mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; took over AIG, the world’s largest insurance company; in effect extended government deposit insurance to $3.4 trillion in money-market funds; temporarily banned short-selling in over 900 mostly financial stocks; and, most dramatic of all, pledged to take up to $700 billion of toxic mortgage-related assets on to its books. The Fed and the Treasury were determined to prevent the kind of banking catastrophe that precipitated the Depression. Shell-shocked lawmakers cavilled, but Congress and the administration eventually agreed. ...
World Bank/IMF
EU: Court hits at Brussels secrecy
The European Union's secretive decision-making processes were condemned on Thursday in a legal judgment that should lead to more light being shed on how thousands of regulations affecting businesses are hatched.
CONGO: World Bank accused of razing Congo forests
The World Bank encouraged foreign companies to destructively log the world's second largest forest, endangering the lives of thousands of Congolese Pygmies, according to a report on an internal investigation by senior bank staff and outside experts.
Digging for Dirt in the DRC?
As the Congolese government begins a review of mining contracts, a mining kingpin is deported on unrelated corruption charges, and the World Bank faces accusations of failure to provide oversight of contract deals.
ING Latest Press Releases
13/10/08 - ING DIRECT obtains further stake in Germany's Interhyp
Mon, 13 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0200
ING DIRECT N.V. announced today that it has obtained an additional 208,294 shares in Germany's largest independent residential mortgage distributor, Interhyp AG, at EUR 64 per share, valuing the company at EUR 416 million.
10/10/08 - ING welcomes Dutch government announcement
Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0200
In these extreme market circumstances, ING welcomes the announcement of the Dutch government as these are important and necessary steps to restore confidence and bring stability and certainty to the Dutch financial system.
29/09/08 - ING not to make offer for ABN Amro Netherlands
Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0200
ING announced today that it does not intend to make an offer to acquire ABN Amro Netherlands from Fortis.
19/09/08 - ING Investor Day: focus on ING DIRECT
Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0200
ING DIRECT is the main theme for the bi-annual ING Investor Day, held today in Madrid.
16/09/08 - ING expects limited impact from Lehman Brothers exposure
Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0200
ING announced today that, in light of the exceptional turbulence in global financial markets, it wants to inform its stakeholders that the total direct impact of Lehman Brothers' Chapter 11 filing on ING's profit and loss account is estimated to be around EUR 100 million on a pre-tax basis.
10/09/08 - ING rebalances hedge portfolio for employee options
Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0200
ING Groep N.V. has sold 6,350,000 (depositary receipts for) ordinary shares for its delta hedge portfolio, which is used to hedge employee options.
The Economist: The World Bank and the IMF
The world economy: Bad, or worse
Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:48:13 -0000
At best, the world economy is on the brink of recessionDEPRIVE a person of oxygen and he will turn blue, collapse and eventually die. Deprive economies of credit and a similar process kicks in. As the financial crisis has broadened and intensified, the global economy has begun to suffocate. That is why the world’s central banks have been administering emergency measures, including a round of co-ordinated interest-rate cuts on October 8th. With luck they will prevent catastrophe. They are unlikely to avert a global recession.According to the IMF’s most recent World Economic Outlook, published on October 8th, the world economy is “entering a major downturn” in the face of “the most dangerous shock” to rich-country financial markets since the 1930s. The fund expects global growth, measured on the basis of purchasing-power parity (PPP), to come down to 3% in 2009, the slowest pace since 2002 and on the verge of what it considers to be a global recession. (The fund’s definition of global recession takes many factors into account, including the rate of population growth.) Given the scale of the financial freeze, the fund’s forecast looks optimistic. Other forecasters are convinced that a global recession is inevitable. Economists at UBS, for instance, expect global growth of only 2.2% in 2009. ...
Chad: Breaking the bank
Thu, 25 Sep 2008 12:08:08 -0000
A vaunted model development project goes awryWHEN the World Bank agreed to help finance a controversial pipeline from oilfields in Chad to a port in Cameroon, it claimed to be raising the bar for transparency and good government in the extractive industries. It insisted that the government of Chad spend almost all its revenue from the project on development; to make sure it did so, the oil firms involved were to pay royalties into an escrow account monitored by an independent agency. Eight years later, the bar has fallen with a thud. Rather than comply with the bank’s strictures, the government of Chad has repaid its loans in full. It will now do as it pleases with its oil money.The project did not get off to an auspicious start: the government spent a chunk of its $25m signing bonus on arms. As local rebel movements grew stronger, and the conflict in neighbouring Darfur began to spill over into Chad, the government’s urge to funnel cash to the army only grew. It bickered frequently with the bank and the oil firms about the terms of the deal. The lockbox for revenue proved insecure, since the government simply took the money disbursed for education and health care and diverted it to less worthy causes. “Ultimately,” says a World Banker, “these projects depend on the political will of the governments involved.” ...
Poverty: The bottom 1.4 billion
Thu, 28 Aug 2008 11:35:37 -0000
The world is poorer than we thought, the World Bank discoversCorrection to this articleIN APRIL 2007 the World Bank announced that 986m people worldwide suffered from extreme poverty—the first time its count had dropped below 1 billion. On August 26th it had grim news to report. According to two of its leading researchers, Shaohua Chen and Martin Ravallion, the “developing world is poorer than we thought”. The number of poor was almost 1.4 billion in 2005. ...
IEG
Annual Review of Development Effectiveness 2008: Shared Global Challenges
Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:46:25 -0400
For the World Bank and its partners, the ever-present test is to deliver results-to lift people out of poverty and promote socially and environmentally sustainable development. Achieving such success in any individual country is increasingly intertwined with making progress on shared global challenges. This independent evaluation presents evidence on the Bank's efforts in two important and connected areas: tracking outcomes of Bank projects and country programs; and progress in fostering global public goods, such as protecting the earth's climate and preventing the spread of dangerous communicable diseases.
Using Knowledge To Improve Development Effectiveness
Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:44:47 -0400
The World Bank has committed to becoming a "global knowledge bank", using knowledge to improve the effectiveness of its work. Two of the ways the Bank provides knowledge to its client countries are economic and sector work and nonlending technical assistance.
New Public Sector Evaluations
Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:48:33 -0400
Decentralization in Client Countries In recent years, developing countries have decentralized functions and responsibilities for service delivery to lower levels of government at an increasing pace. The main reasons for such reforms are often political, but governments adopt them also as a way to improve service delivery and local governance. Typically, after the political decision is made, a country will turn to its development partners- including the World Bank- for support in implementing the new policies and achieving their development objectives. How Effective are the World Bank's Fiduciary Diagnostics? The World Bank's analysis of a country's public financial management system is an important component of fiduciary diagnostics. It is typically undertaken both to help the client country strengthen its system and to safeguard funds that the Bank provides against misuse. The resulting diagnostics have fostered reform agendas in client countries.
Credit Union Talk Discussion List - Discussion among senior and mid-level management of credit unions. Participation from the public, private and academic sectors is welcome.
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