Allowing traders to flourish is one of the key ways to promote growth and create jobs across Sub-Saharan Africa. Cross-border trade is also essential for reducing poverty, since the poor, including many women, are intensively engaged in the informal production and trading of goods and services.

Despite its benefits, conducting cross-border transactions remains a tough business for small traders.

“Small traders face highly regressive costs and have little choice, but to trade informally,” said, John Keyser, Senior Trade Consultant at the World Bank.

In 2010, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa established the Simplified Trade Regime to help traders who sell goods that do not exceed USD 1,000.00.

The Regime simplified several customs processes for traders, yet a host of registration and other requirements remain in place today. As a result, small informal traders pay 62% more in border costs than large formal traders.

Additionally, informal traders are trapped in this way of life, because should they attempt to transition to the formal market, they would pay more than double the border costs they face as informal traders.

To strengthen the rights of small traders and facilitate their cross-border transactions, the World Bank, in collaboration with the National Implementation Unit of the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry of Zambia, hosted a workshop on September 19th to share the findings of the Diagnostics Trade Integration Study (DTIS) and to propose targeted areas of reform related to informal trade and trade facilitation.

The debate between local traders and policy makers, who attended the event in Lusaka, gave clear priorities for policy action.

First, the small traders called for urgent steps to reform the Simplified Trade Regime. Despite the vision for the program, this trading tool remains underutilized due to the small cost savings it provides and the social prejudice against small traders.

During the workshops, Zambian traders shared their own personal experiences and suggestions for reforming this trade program, including: increasing the ceiling on the value of transactions; broadening the scope of products covered; and simplifying (or dropping) other requirements that limit its use by small traders.

“While the government sees the program as successful, it is important to have discussions with the private sector to come to a mutual agreement about how to reform it,” said Yvonne Chileshe, Director of Foreign Trade at Zambia’s Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry.

During the event, the traders and government representatives supported a Charter for Cross Border Traders that aims at improving the treatment of traders at the border and increasing the efficiency of trade flows. The goal is to post and disseminate the Charter at border crossings to enshrine a basic set of rights to traders and obligations for officials.

The clarification of traders’ rights and the responsibility of the government and the international community to support and put in place concrete measures are essential steps to easing cross-border transactions, according to Nora Dihel, Senior Trade Economist at the World Bank.

Meeting participants suggested piloting the Charter at the border between Zambia and Malawi. The Charter’s main messages refer to the basic rights and obligations for traders and officials. Traders should be processed at the border efficiently, without discrimination or harassment; the physical check of traders must be recorded with the reason and outcome provided and all duties, fees, taxes and methodology are publically available at the border.

Also, documentary requirements should be clearly stated and publically available at the border and with  the support of the international community, governments commit to establish visible communication of basic rights and obligations in the local language at all border crossings.

Furthermore, the Charter clearly states that at least one agent or all senior officials or even 50% of officials should have received gender awareness training, and that traders at all border posts have access to register violation of basic rights. If such violations occur, strict disciplinary measures must apply against abusive officials.

“Even with efficiently functioning trade programs and charters in place, adopting a clear national logistics strategy, as well as a proactive approach to regional logistics, is imperative to lowering the high trade costs within the Zambia and across Southern Africa,” said Charles Kunaka, Senior Trade Specialist at the World Bank.

Delays at border crossings due to a lack of cross-border information exchange between border agencies and out-of-date or cumbersome transit regimes are some of the largest barriers to trade.

“Implementing regionally integrated transit systems and being proactive in interactions with neighbors to improve regional corridor performance can help reduce Zambia’s trade costs within the region and globally,” said Kunaka. This can be achieved through harmonization of infrastructure planning and policies governing logistics services.

During the event, “Empowering Women Through Evidence in Africa,” held on October 12th, four economists and one legal expert working with the World Bank Africa’s Gender Innovation Lab quickly presented their research and heard feedback on their work from African Ministers of Finance, leaders of NGOs and others. The Gender Lab is using impact evaluations to measure how projects are improving the lives of African women.

“Our commitment to gender equality in Africa is evident in our agenda,” said Makhtar Diop, World Bank Vice President for the Africa Region, who kicked off the event.

“In 2010,” Diop said, “70% of our projects were gender informed and that has risen to 94% in 2013. We want to make our programs gender smart and that means using cutting edge research and evidence to do the right thing to achieve gender equality.”

There is a lot of advocacy these days about empowering adolescent girls that hasn’t been backed up by the kind of hard evidence that we should be looking for,” said Shubha Chakravarty, a World Bank Economist in the Africa Region.

Chakravarty showed encouraging results from two projects focused on adolescent girls entering the labor market with varying emphases on vocational and life skills training.

In Liberia, after participating in a club where participants discussed life skills, especially focused on reproductive health, girl’s employment rates rose to 47% and their earnings were increased by about $32 dollars a month, or 80%, she said.

In Uganda, for girls in a similar club, motherhood decreased by 26% and the number of girls who reported having had sex against their will dropped by 76% over the past year, Chakravarty added.

“The programs were also cost effective,” she said, citing a $1,500 investment per year per girl in the project in Liberia, which was recouped within two years. “These were two very different models of empowering girls, but both are a good investment,” Chakravarty said.

After hearing all five presentations, Claver Gatete, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning for Rwanda, said he agreed with all of the research findings.

“But what matters, first of all, is a belief by the country and the leadership that this is necessary. If you don’t believe in it as country and own it, then it won’t work,” he said about taking steps to promote gender equality.

Following Rwanda’s genocide, according to Gatete, women were heading many of the households for the first time.“The country leadership discussed this, and we decided that if we are going to have development it has to be inclusive for everybody,” he said.

As a result, Rwanda has established an agenda to support women that includes a Ministry in charge of promoting families, programs that support women farmers, and specific budget items to provide resources for these gender equality measures. “It doesn’t matter if you have goodwill, you must have laws in place to spread gender equality,” Gatete said.  According to Gatete, in Rwanda the state constitution supports gender equality.

Tazeen Hasan, World Bank Legal Specialist for Gender and Development, presented the findings of a project on legal rights for women. Cultural constraints such as allowing or encouraging girls to marry at a very young age, land laws that restrict women from land ownership, or even family law that require women to obtain permission from their husbands to start a business, keep women out of the labor force, Hasan said.

Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of Oxfam International, agreed that these cultural norms are powerful obstacles for girls and women seeking ways to earn their own incomes.

“ Whose work is it to sensitize a country about the cultural constraints that keep women out of the labor force?” Byanyima asked. “Often it is the job of the NGO,” she said. “I think there is a need for everyone to be involved in this awareness raising. There is a role the government, and even for the private sector.”

The World Bank’s Diop praised the work of the Gender Innovation Lab.

“I believe that the World Bank Gender group is the leading agency in the world in bringing rigorous analysis of the evidence on gender issues to light,” he said. “We believe that the World Bank and the work done by the General Lab have the largest body of work available on gender equality in Africa.”

Diop concluded by saying that it’s critical to spread this knowledge developed by the Gender Lab.  “This team is always on the move,” he said. “And is ready to travel to any of your countries, to talk to your parliamentarians, or anyone in society and explain that things are happening on gender in Africa.”

The conference was held in St. Petersburg in the Russian Federation, within the World Bank’s regional migration program in Europe and Central Asia (ECA). A wide and strong community of experts and practitioners from nine CIS countries exchanged their knowledge, skills and views on the challenges that come with migration, which are critical for countries to address right now.

MIRPAL is a community of migration and remittance practitioners and policymakers from ECA countries. This peer-learning network was officially launched in May 2010 at a conference in Moscow. A series of learning events organized prior to the May 2010 launching conference served as a foundation for the development of the network.

Many countries in the region have experienced increasing inflows from migrant worker remittances over the past several years. Economic growth – as well as poverty reduction achievements – in most of these countries has been intertwined with migration and remittance trends. The Bank has undertaken the challenge of helping countries throughout the region cope with ongoing issues associated with migration and remittances through both lending initiatives and migration policy improvement.

This year, discussions revolved around economic and social aspects of migrant people’s integration.

To begin with, labor migration was discussed jointly by economists and anthropologists for the first time at the conference, thanks to contributions from the European University at St. Petersburg. The purpose was to get a comprehensive picture of the integration motivations of labor migrants in Russia. On one hand, migrants are willing to improve their wellbeing in terms of the level of income, while on the other, the time spent in a destination country reshapes their individual life experience, often affecting their social status.

In other words, immigrants’ behavior patterns are not limited by economic motivation alone.

Destination countries often transform migrants’ social status – but there are ways to get around such situations.

For example, a person qualified as a doctor may end up working a low- skilled job in a new country out of necessity. Still, this person could continue to pursue former professional activities by providing medical advice to the migrant community members informally, for example.

Job placement is crucial for economic integration capacities of immigrant workers. Therefore, organized recruitment continues to feature high on the agenda of policy-makers.

“Organized recruitment requires joint efforts of sending and receiving countries,” said Elena Dunaeva, head of Federal Migration Service office in St. Petersburg. “Pre-departure training programs should be in the domain of a country of origin, while a destination country could ensure job placement through concrete employment offers supported by invitation letters issued by migration authorities.”

Another feature of the MIRPAL conference was the case-study approach: St. Petersburg hosting the conference this year served as an example of good practice of integration efforts targeting immigrants. The city’s Committee on Social Policies and Employment presented a recently adopted program “Migration” and highlighted the commitment of local authorities to a more regulated management of migration. The commitment was based on the understanding that migration is a challenging yet natural process to contend with, but one that provided tremendous development benefits.

Labor migration in the CIS region is acknowledged as beneficial for both sending and receiving countries. For more than three years now, the World Bank, IOM and UN Women, has been involved in Central Asia Regional Migration Program (CARMP) initiated by the UK Department for International development (DfID). The CARMP program covering four MIRPAL countries (Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan) will continue with the Bank in charge of building awareness, providing analytical support and ensuring sustainable coordination between participating countries via high- level policy dialogue.

In an effort to move the conversation forward, MIRPAL is opening its doors to more experts and practitioners from other ECA countries. With regard to the areas of migration research, MIRPAL members accompanied by the World Bank expertise are determined to address implications of the ongoing integration processes in the region.

The US$6.4 million Mobile Internet Ecosystem Project (MIEP) approved by the World Bank Board of Executive Directors today will strengthen innovation and entrepreneurship in the Lebanese mobile Internet ecosystem. Beneficiaries include software developers, university students and graduates, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) firms, industries where new software applications can improve productivity, and mobile users at large.

The project will increase entrepreneurial skills and practical training of the Lebanese talent pool to enhance competitiveness in the industry. It will help create instruments to interact and develop innovation networks to increase global competitiveness. Moreover, areas of improvement will be identified to help the government implement needed reforms.

Creating a mobile Internet ecosystem in Lebanon will have a positive impact on the country’s labor market including greater geographic diversification, improved growth and increased retention of skilled workers. With mobile technology well distributed across Lebanon, new economic opportunities will be possible in economically marginalized areas.

“Fostering investment and capital accumulation in new and innovative sectors that use existing domestic human resources and skills can help unleash Lebanon’s potential for growth and over the long-term shift the economy towards a more sustainable growth path,” said Ferid Belhaj, World Bank Country Director for the Mashreq. “Lebanon is recognized for its strong education system and its multilingual and educated entrepreneurial population. It is important to build on this human capital when addressing economic growth and job creation.”

With literacy rates above 90 percent and gross tertiary education enrollment at 54 percent, the country’s young graduates represent a competitive talent pool. However, Lebanon’s unemployment rate, particularly among young people and women, is high. While the national unemployment rate is 11 percent, 34 percent of all young people and 18 percent of women are actively looking for work.

“The mobile Internet segment can create jobs and entrepreneurship opportunities for the talented, technology savvy Lebanese youth,” said Carlo Maria Rossotto, World Bank Regional Coordinator of the ICT sector. “This project aims to strengthen digital skills and create new enterprises in the mobile Internet space which is a driver of economic growth and job creation”.

The project will be implemented in partnership with the Ministry of Telecommunications who will finance 50 percent of the total cost. The project has strong support within the Government of Lebanon and is aligned with the government’s latest Economic and Social Reform Action Plan.

“Large numbers of refugees from Syria arrive every day with their lives torn apart and Jordan continues to receive and care for them,” said World Bank Group President, Jim Yong Kim. “That sort of generosity needs our support, and we are pleased to offer this urgent assistance.”

The Emergency Project to Assist Jordan Partially Mitigate Impact of Syrian Conflict was approved by the World Bank Board of Governors on Thursday July 18, 2013. It will focus on support for the healthcare system, under strain from a steep increase in demand, and to households facing rising prices for food and housing due to the larger number of consumers. The project will be implemented under the Bank’s new emergency procedures for Investment Project Financing, which allows for accelerated approval and disbursement in cases of emergency, natural or man-made disasters or conflict.

Inger Andersen, the Bank’s Vice President for the Middle East and North Africa region, visited Jordan in May for a first-hand look at the severity of the situation. She toured Mafraq in the north, where large numbers of Syrian refugees have sought refuge in the town itself and at the nearby Zaatari refugee camp. “I saw Jordan’s generous hosting communities struggling with the enormous inflow of people seeking shelter and protection. And at Mafraq I saw municipalities bursting at the seams,” she observed. “There is acute pressure on local authorities to maintain service delivery and that is where our funding can help.”

There are stresses on health and education services and on water, sanitation and electricity supplies. It is expected that by the end of the year, there will be one Syrian in the country for every six Jordanians. Competition for jobs has driven wages down, while prices have risen for basic necessities, fuel and rental accommodation.

US$50 million of the project’s funds will go toward supplies of vaccines and medicines for the growing population, with US$20 million to relieve the pressure on the government’s budget for the provision of medical services to Jordanians, and the remaining US$80 million to ensure Jordanians have affordable access to basic commodities such as bread and cooking gas.

In addition to the project approved today, a follow up operation will help leverage donor support to strengthen local governments’ service delivery and shore up the capacity of municipalities hosting refugees.

“The World Bank’s contribution is part of our broader program of engagement with Jordan in which we are helping build resilience to the current and future impacts of the regional crisis, while keeping and strengthening our support to the country’s ongoing economic reform program,” said Ferid Belhaj, World Bank Country Director.

The report, launched last week in Rabat at an event organized with the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO), underlines that greater investment in a knowledge-economy model will be needed to meet the job creation challenge common to the region.

“We hope this report can help countries of the Arab world imagine a new kind of development strategy with a knowledge and innovation-driven model at its very heart,” said Inger Andersen, Vice President for the Middle East and North Africa at the World Bank. “The report lays out helpfully how this approach can help Arab countries diversify their economies and innovate, creating new enterprises and jobs.”

The new report suggests that the extent of change will depend in good part on how well the knowledge economy takes hold throughout the region. Creating jobs entails more investment in knowledge-related sectors and new emphasis on how to develop competitive, productive, and sustainable economies.

Many Arab countries have made progress over the last decade in terms of rolling out education access and information and communication technologies (ICT), gradually improving the institutional environment for private-sector led growth.

Morocco and Tunisia have worked to support innovation, especially through the creation of technoparks and industrial zones that have attracted foreign direct investment and advanced manufacturing operations.Jordan has embarked on a major effort to transform the education system at the early childhood, basic, and secondary levels to produce graduates with the skills needed for the knowledge economy. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has launched a host of education reforms and has invested in the development of new universities, especially to boost science and technology.

The report describes how engaging in a knowledge-economy model involves the implementation of a number of key cross-sectoral reforms that can create an incentivizing environment for innovation and growth. This would require the adoption of a combination of policies, including developing more open and entrepreneurial economies, preparing a more skilled labor force, improving innovation and research capabilities, and expanding information and communication technologies (ICT) and their applications.

Knowledge transfer is another important piece of the knowledge-economy model, essential in organizing, creating and disseminating knowledge, especially through foreign direct investments and international trade in goods and services. Managing knowledge, the report argues, is a critical driver for enhancing productivity that in turn offers higher and sustainable economic growth. The study also shows that regional integration can be a positive asset to develop a stronger knowledge-economy development model in MENA, helping to expand trade and develop more efficient labor markets.

In addition to structural reforms, the report recommends that governments in the region should establish appropriate conditions for the development of specific promising sectors and sites that can generate new activities and jobs. The development of dynamic “growth spots” would help to create trust and confidence in the new economic model and therefore attract investments, economic activities and enhance knowledge sharing and innovation.

Anuja Utz, CMI Task Team Leader and main contributor to the report said its approach reflects the rich differences in challenges and opportunities across the MENA region. “Given the diversity of the Arab world, the study does not provide a cookie-cutter approach.” she said. “It offers examples of good practice from countries around the world and policy recommendations to help guide efforts, which should be customized to the specific circumstances of each country.”

The report: Transforming Arab Economies: Traveling the Knowledge and Innovation Road was launched at a high-level international conference at the headquarters of ISESCO in Rabat on June 4-5, 2013. Participants from governments, the private sector and the civil society will discuss concrete actions to move forward to a knowledge economy in their national contexts as well as within the Arab world and the Mediterranean.

“This is a critical moment for the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Great Lakes region,” Ban told reporters in the capital, Kinshasa, following a meeting with President Joseph Kabila.

The “unprecedented” joint visit is in support of the UN-brokered peace agreement, which was signed in February by 11 African leaders and aims to end the cycles of conflict and crisis in the eastern DRC and to build peace in wider region.

“We believe it offers the best hope for peace in a generation,” Ban said. “But that agreement must translate into concrete actions. A peace deal must deliver a peace dividend for people.

Coinciding with the visit, the World Bank Group today announced $1 billion in proposed new funding to help countries in the Great Lakes provide better health and education services, generate more cross-border trade, and fund hydroelectricity projects in support of the peace deal.

“We made extraordinary efforts to secure an additional $1 billion in funding because we believe this can be a major contributor to a lasting peace in the Great Lakes region,” Kim said.

“This funding will help revitalize economic development, create jobs, and improve the lives of people who have suffered for far too long. Now the leaders of the Great Lakes region, by restarting economic activity and improving livelihoods in border areas, can boost confidence, build economies, and give new opportunities for millions of people.”

In addition to meeting with President Kabila and other Government officials, Ban and Kim will also meet parliamentarians and representatives of civil society. As part of their visit, both men will travel tomorrow to the eastern city of Goma.

Recent days have witnessed renewed clashes between rebels from the 23 March Movement (M23) and the DRC national armed forces in Goma, which was the scene of intense fighting late last year.

The World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) grant aims to help the government of Afghanistan’s Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) expand the scope, quality and coverage of basic health and essential hospital services. SEHAT will cover both rural and urban areas in 22 of the country’s 34 provinces. It will also strengthen the national health system and build the capacity of the Ministry of Public Health to effectively perform its stewardship functions at the central and provincial levels.

“Provision of health care to its people remains one of the main priorities of the Government of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan during the transition” said HE Dr. Omar Zakhailwal, Finance Minister, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

“While we have had significant improvements in access and quality of health care in Afghanistan over the last decade, more needs to be done. We are grateful to the World Bank’s contribution in this regard.”

SEHAT follows two earlier projects financed by the World Bank. With this new financing, the World Bank has provided a total of $335 million since 2003 including support from the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF). This funding would be further supplemented by a proposed ARTF funded grant of $270 million including European Union and Government contribution of $30 million.

According to the World Bank, over the past decade, Afghanistan has made steady progress in the health sector. The number of health facilities in 11 target provinces nearly tripled from 148 to 432. Around 20,000 community health workers—half of them women—were trained and deployed throughout the country, increasing access to family planning and boosting childhood vaccinations. The number of facilities with trained female health workers rose from 25 percent before the project to 74 percent today. At the same time, the number of functioning health facilities increased from 496 to more than 2,000. These interventions have produced significant improvement in the coverage of reproductive and child health services, as well as a significant drop in maternal and child mortality.

“The World Bank’s support has been instrumental in enabling us to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Afghans, particularly women and children,” said HE Dr. Suraya Dalil, Minister of Public Health of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

“Providing a basic package of health services and an essential package of hospital services has proved to produce encouraging results, particularly in remote and underserved areas. As we continue to deliver our commitment in expanding provision of health services to all Afghans across the country, we appreciate the World Bank’s assistance at this crucial period of the transition process.”

Despite recent progress, the country faces significant challenges in the sector. Afghanistan’s infant and under-five mortality rates are still higher than the average for low income countries, and child malnutrition rates are among the highest in the world. About 55 percent of children under-five suffer from chronic malnutrition and women and children suffer from high levels of vitamin and mineral deficiencies.

The Ministry of Public Health will implement SEHAT program over a period of five years.

This was the message delivered by World Bank Middle East and North Africa Vice President Inger Andersen during her first visit to Libya this week.

“Libya’s revolution is a great inspiration to the region, and we in the World Bank would like to help the people of Libya, particularly the youth, realize their expectations,” said Andersen, concluding a three day visit. “Libya’s task is to build the institutions of a modern market economy which draws on its rich resources but also diversifies widely and encourages the engagement of citizens and investors in a thriving private sector that can create much-needed jobs.”

Andersen added that while Libya has notable oil reserves its most important resource is its people: “They have spoken for a new way of doing things in which they have voice, opportunity and, urgently for impatient young Libyans, jobs.”

During her visit Andersen met Prime Minister Ali Zeidan and several ministers in his cabinet focusing on finance, banking, international cooperation, planning, public works and local government. She also made a point to meet representatives of civil society and the private sector to hear a diverse range of views.

After a walk around Martyr’s Square Andersen reflected on the price paid by Libyans for their new freedoms and the heightened expectations that accompany this historic transition: “Across the Arab World I am touched by the many voices I hear which want the simple but profound dignities of social justice and a new relationship between citizen and state built on transparency and accountability. There is much work to do on the nuts and bolts of institution building to underpin such new states that can deliver on these hopes and in this we are committed to help.”

The World Bank has already begun work with Libyan counterparts on statistical systems and national accounts, on public financial management, monitoring and evaluation systems and refining corporate governance within state-owned enterprises. It is also helping Libya’s financial sector in the development of a framework for Islamic finance to ensure it is a well-structured instrument and coexists effectively with conventional banking products. A range of analytical work has been prepared by the Bank to inform Libya’s decision makers including a financial sector review, governance options for investment, a labor market assessment and a cultural heritage report.

Another area where Libya is challenged to deliver rapidly and equitably is social services to its citizens: “Restoring the credibility of government and establishing trust with citizens will be key to securing Libya’s transition,” said Simon Gray, World Bank Director for the Maghreb. “To achieve this, the predictable delivery of services is critical and we are working with authorities on the infrastructure side in water, power and sanitation and in education and health.”

The World Bank’s inputs to these areas are largely knowledge and technical assistance as Libya’s hydrocarbon sector has recovered dramatically and will be at full production later this year.

The persistently high and volatile food prices not only influence conditions of hunger and undernutrition, but also obesity which may increase in the context of high prices as people opt for cheaper, less nutritious food to feed their families, the World Bank Group’s quarterly Food Price Watch report said.

“Unhealthy food tends to be cheaper than healthy ones, like junk food in developed countries. When poor people with some disposable income in developing countries try to cope with high and increasingly volatile food prices, they also tend to choose cheap food that is high in calories but without much nutritious value,” said Otaviano Canuto, World Bank Group’s Vice President for Poverty Reduction and Economic Management.

“Half of the world’s overweight people live in just nine countries — China, United States, Germany, India, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, and Turkey — evidence that obesity is not an epidemic restricted only to rich countries.”

According to the latest edition of the Food Price Watch, global food prices continued to fall between October 2012 and February 2013 – a trend observed since the recent all-time peak in August 2012 – but prices were only 9 percent below the August peak. Lower demand from a sharp fall in the use of wheat feed and reduced maize consumption for ethanol in the United States pushed prices down. Reported favorable weather conditions in some regions have also raised hopes of better crop supply for 2013.

In the “new normal” of high and volatile food prices, millions will continue to suffer from poor nutrition, whether it is hunger, undernutrition or obesity which can cause premature death. In 2008, the number of overweight adults was 1.46 billion, of which 508 million were obese. Even conservative estimates see that number rising to 2.16 billion for overweight adults and nearly doubling to 1.12 billion for obese by 2030 across all regions and in countries like China and India.

Despite the gravity of the problem, it is not evident that reducing obesity is among the top global policy priorities, the report said. Responses to the obesity epidemic have ranged from doing nothing to trying to promote healthier behaviors through taxes, bans or restrictions on certain foods and awareness campaigns. There have also been extreme cases in Japan where fines have been imposed to employees exceeding certain waistline limits.

“The discussions on the post-2015 Millennium Development Goals, along with the UN high-level meeting on the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases offer an unprecedented opportunity for integrated global and national collective action to fight all forms of malnutrition, from stunting to obesity,” Canuto said.