This is my last week in the World Bank, after working at the institution for 20 years, the last five as country director for China and Mongolia.

A few weeks ago I had the unique opportunity to camp out on top of the Great Wall, which was a fitting exclamation mark at the end of my five years as the World Bank's China Country Director. It was a cloudy, drizzly day as we started, but then cleared up and turned into a lovely evening. The large group of kids we had with us slept in one of the guard towers along the wall, but I and a few others opted to sleep under the stars. The next morning opened with some mist, but then turned into a spectacular blue day. Some long-term Beijing residents hiking with us noted that they couldn’t recall ever seeing the countryside so green.

Beijing’s dry climate sets a limit on how green and blue it’s ever going to get, but the improvement over five years is noticeable and is one of the two most striking achievements of China in this period. In many cities, air pollution has declined as a result of policies that include banning the use of coal in inner cities, strengthening public transportation, discouraging car use (gasoline now costs 50% more than in the U.S.), moving heavy industry out of inner cities, and more stringent enforcement of environmental regulations.

Students take a computer course at a private school in Cambodia.

A number of fascinating web-related findings came out of a World Bank report, released this week, which ties Internet and mobile phone access in developing countries to economic growth, job creation and good governance. Connectivity in the developing world seems to be better than ever. In developing countries worldwide, there are currently three billion mobile phone users, and the number of Internet users in developing countries increased by 10 times between 2000 and 2007.

In East Asian and Pacific countries, the number of Internet users (15 percent) was slightly above the developing-country average in 2007 (13 percent), but was still below the world average that year (22 percent). The connectivity and access to new information and communications technologies changes the way companies and governments do business, while bringing vital health, financial and other market information to people like never before.

While India is the clear leader in creating information technology-related jobs, China and the Philippines both stand out as benefiting by generating new job opportunities. And within the industry, the Philippines is also notable, because its IT services workforce is made up of 65 percent women, who hold more high-paying jobs than in most other sectors of the economy.

You can take your own look at the statistics compiled on each country, or create your own custom reports, from the IC4D Data & Methodology page.

You can also submit questions now for Christine Zhen-Wei Qiang, World Bank economist and editor of the report, for a live online chat on July 28 at 11 a.m. in Washington, D.C.

In a previous blog I summarized our views on China’s growth prospects, developed while writing the World Bank’s recent China Quarterly Update economic report. We think that China is likely to continue to see respectable growth in a difficult global environment. At this important juncture for China and the world economy, what is the upshot of this for policymaking?

At any point in time, governments need to work on short-term macroeconomic policies and on more medium- and long-term policies. There are trade-offs. More attention to short-term policies typically means less attention to the policies and reforms that are important for the medium and long term. We think that, given that China has already put in place a forceful short-term stimulus that seems effective in keeping growth respectable, China can put more emphasis on the structural reforms to promote continued, sustainable growth.

There continues to be a lot of discussion in China whether GDP growth will reach the government target of 8 percent this year, and whether the government should put in place more stimulus measures, typically presumed to be the kind of infrastructure-oriented stimulus that characterizes the package already in place.

I think it would not be a good idea to add more traditional, infrastructure-oriented fiscal stimulus in 2009. Why?

About a month ago, I came across Changemakers.com (via Change.org’s Social Entrepreneurship blog), a neat website for people to connect and collaborate with others working – on all levels – to solve social problems. The website is an initiative of Ashoka, a nonprofit organization that works to support social entrepreneurship. Changemakers seems to act as a social network of sorts – through competitions, discussion forums and storytelling – for people who want to make a difference. Two aspects of the site quickly appealed to me.

It's been a very enriching experience to listen to the reactions of these 1200 or so college students.

Over the past couple of weeks, thanks to my colleagues Saroeun and Sophinith, I have traveled to various universities in Cambodia to present the findings of the World Bank’s growth report for the country. It's been a very enriching experience to listen to the reactions of these 1200 or so students. It was also nice to see the dynamism of these universities and these students.

Most interesting was the focus of their questions. Although the report is focused on medium- and long-term trends, many questions were about the impact of the global economic crisis. My answer: Cambodia is very exposed to the crisis given its openness and reliance on foreign investment, and despite the strong resilience of its rural economy.

There were also many questions about extractive industries. The answer is in Chapter 5 of the report: there remain considerable uncertainties about the potential in oil and gas and in mining, with in fact practically no major proven commercially viable reserve so far.

A couple of years ago, the extinction of the Yangtze Dolphin became apparent after some exhaustive visual and hydrophone surveys throughout its known range.

Some 18 years ago, before I joined the World Bank, I worked as a consultant for the Chengdu Hydropower Design Institute in China to prepare the Environmental Impact Assessment for the massive Ertan dam, which was to be financed by what was then the largest-ever World Bank loan. Ertan is on the Yalong River in the headwaters of the mighty Yangtze, the third largest river in the world, and was to be the first of a ‘cascade’ of dams reaching up to the Yalong headwaters. Some of the biodiversity impacts related to migratory fish, but even back then it was clear that the Gezhouba Dam and then the Three Gorges Dam, which straddle the mainstem of the Yangtze, blocked the movements and thus breeding of all migratory species.

Better materials and student participation characterize the READ schools project. (photo by Prateek Tandon)

Mongolia’s extreme climate was brought home to me again last week as I went with our World Bank team on a retreat about an hour and a half out of the capital city Ulaanbaatar. Wednesday afternoon was hot and summery, but on Thursday a cold front brought extreme storms that knocked out power and left a dusting of snow on the hills around UB. The life of the rural population, mostly herders, is inherently vulnerable in this extreme environment. Yet a number of projects supported by the World Bank have reduced this vulnerability somewhat in recent years.

Traveling around the countryside now I am struck by the fact that – for better or worse – my Blackberry keeps me connected most of the time. One of our innovative projects has offered subsidies, which private phone companies have competed for, to expand coverage in the countryside. The economics of cell phones is such that a one-time subsidy to erect towers will enable private companies to offer connectivity on a commercial basis.

I spent last week at the 2009 UNISDR Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in Geneva. The Global Platform, attended this year by some 1,800 participants from more than 300 Governments and Organizations, is the premier gathering for the worldwide Disaster Risk Reduction community, including political leaders and their policy advisors, UN agencies, international organizations, and scientific/academic institutions. The first event was held in 2007.

The World Bank’s East Asia and Pacific region had a strong presence at the Platform with representation (pdf) from all of its countries and regional partners like ASEAN and SOPAC. The Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) had its semi-annual Consultative Group meeting on the sidelines of the Platform on June 15. This was an important meeting for us since the Country Programming Profiles that we had prepared for resources from GFDRR for 2009-11 were up for consideration. The profiles were prepared by our country focal points in strong partnership with government authorities with the aim of leveraging scarce GFDRR resources into a coherent and comprehensive disaster risk management program. Donors endorsed the proposed program and were very appreciative of the process followed.

As mentioned in my last post, I was in Asia just a few weeks ago, and one (favorite) destination was Beijing. One key reason for being there was to participate in a seminar on “Promoting Innovation for Development” with the Ministry of Science and Technology. This seminar covered a range of topics related to innovation, including China’s strategies for innovation, strengthening the capacities of small- and medium-sized enterprises to innovate, and the financing of innovation. The seminar was well-attended by a range of participants, including the financial regulatory agencies, and the seminar served as a platform to launch a new book the World Bank published entitled, “Promoting Enterprise-Led Innovation in China.” Please take a look!

I attended the seminar to discuss strengthening the ecosystem for domestic venture capital in China (a pdf of my presentation can be downloaded after the jump). This presentation covered the basics of the venture capital (VC) industry, what is happening in China, the challenges and recommendations for improvement of the ecosystem for VC in China and the areas for further research.

Getting a clear view on where China’s economy is heading is not easy at the moment, as evidenced by large variations in GDP growth forecasts. One of the confusing developments is that while exports have continued to do badly recently, the domestic economy has exceeded most observers’ expectations by a wide margin.

Working in recent weeks on the World Bank’s new China Quarterly Update, released today, we have been trying to determine how the economy has been doing on balance, what the prospects are, and what this means for economic policy. In this blog, I will summarize our understanding of recent developments and prospects, leaving the upshot for economic policies for a later discussion (keep reading after the jump).