How many people are using banking services in poor countries? What financial services are used? And how could access to banking services be expanded to include more people? 'Banking the Poor' explores
This at-a-glance guide to global security provides a wealth of information on armed conflicts since 1946. It maps political violence, the links between poverty and conflict, assaults on human rights -
This annual compendium contains abstracts from studies in the World Bank Research Program that were initiated, ongoing, or completed from 2005 to 2007. Studies were in the fields of agriculture and ru
For more than a decade, higher education and research in the French-speaking countries of Africa has been in a state of severe crisis, stemming from an increasing disparity between available resources
The current share of women in the world's international migrant population is close to one half. Despite the great number of female migrants and their importance for the development agenda in countrie
'Celebrating Reform 2007' features successful reforms in the 10 areas covered in the 'Doing Business' reports. These cases studies span the globe—from Serbia to El Salvador, from Egypt to Nigeria—and
Middle income countries (MICs) are facing rapidly evolving development challenges as their economist mature and integrate into the global economy. As a group, the 86 MICs account for about one-fifth o
Although host governments and investors may share one common objective—the desire for projects to generate high levels of revenue—their other goals are not entirely aligned. Host governments aim to ma
After a decade-long civil war, Sierra Leone witnessed an unprecedented surge in school enrollments at the primary and then the secondary levels. Committed to the Education for All objectives, the gove
According to the editors, universities have in recent years been called upon to take a larger role in stimulating economic growth in developed and developing countries around the world. This volume co
Aimed at a broad audience that includes policy makers, development practitioners, and scholars, this report from the World Bank provides a general overview of the financial markets in the East Asia re
The information revolution, in recent years, has worked as a catalyst to create a globalized yet localized world with local governments playing an ever-increasing role in the domestic and global econo
In the late 1980s the World Bank initiated a process designed both to generate analytic background on priorities for control of specific diseases and to use this information as input for comparative
Access for All: Building Inclusive Financial Systems outlines the "new" vision of microfinance, laying out in plain language what CGAP and others in the development field have learned over the past 10
The proliferation of regional trade agreements is fundamentally altering the world trade landscape. The number of agreements in force surpasses 200 and has risen eight-fold in two decades. Today, as m
Ten years after the 1994 genocide—in which an estimated 10 percent of the country's population perished—Rwanda's devastated education system is now back on its feet. Classrooms have been repaired and
Hospitals remain an important source of critical health care services in most countries, providing both basic and advanced care to their populations. They are often the provider 'of last resort' for t
"Some people may believe that crises are an inevitable feature of the capitalist system. Others hold that exchange-rate crises will vanish as more and more countries adopt floating exchange rates... B
'Fair Progress? Economic Mobility Around the World' will focus on an issue that has gotten much attention in the developed world, but will present new data and analysis covering most of the developing
Electricity shortages are among the biggest barriers to South Asia’s development. Did you know that 30 percent of households in South Asia are not connected to the power grid? Even households and firm
High levels of trade costs persist in the world trading system, despite recent progress in tariff reduction, trade facilitation, and logistics. At least some of these costs can be attributed to non-t
Despite a spectacular expansion of the higher education sector in Sub-Saharan Africa, the supply of tertiary education has generally failed to keep pace with demand and the region continues to lag all
This volume proposes a simple framework to understand the political economy of subsidy reform and applies it to four in-depth country studies covering more than 30 distinct episodes of reform. Five ke
This book proposes a renewal of 'Open Regionalism' in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) aimed at achieving the region's goals of high growth with stability. The LAC region experienced a growth spu
Ukraine’s economic progress since its independence in the early 1990s has been uneven, in part due to the slow pace of reforms, unfavorable demographic factors, and low productivity. One of the key fa
The natural endowment of the Democrat Republic of Congo, in the form of land, minerals, and forests, is unparalleled. The right mix of policies has the potential to unleash incentives that could trans
Roads are the arteries through which the economy pulses. They connect sellers to markets, workers to jobs, students to education, and the sick to hospitals. Yet much of the developing world, Africa in
This book is about 24 developing countries that have embarked on the journey towards universal health coverage (UHC) following a bottom-up approach, with a special focus on the poor and vulnerable, th
Over the last decade, the topics of corruption and recovery of its proceeds have steadily risen in the international policy agenda, with the entry into force of the United Nations Convention against C
A new look and new ways to access the world’s premier source of development dataLooking for accurate, up-to-date data on development issues? World Development Indicators (WDI) is the World Bank’s prem
In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, it is hard to find any macroeconomic policy report that does not include some reference to financial stability or systemic risk and the resulting need
In the wake of the recent global financial crisis and against the backdrop of the ongoing global financial sector reforms, macroprudential policy is being increasingly seen as a “must-do” reform. At t
Job creation and productivity growth are at the forefront of the global development agenda. The central challenge today for the government of Armenia is to find new sources of long-term economic growt
Job creation and productivity growth are at the forefront of the global development agenda. The central challenge today for the government of Georgia is to find sources of long-term economic growth, p
The informal sector of Sub-Saharan Africa is comprised of small and household enterprises that operate in the non-farm sector outside the protected employment of the formal wage sector. The sector w
A new look and new ways to access the world’s premier source of development dataLooking for accurate, up-to-date data on development issues? World Development Indicators (WDI) is the World Bank’s prem
This report is among the first analyses in Africa to examine how parents and communities have taken up the challenge of feeding their children during the school day. It carries important messages for
The use of matching contributions to enhance the participation and level of savings in pensions system has now been in use for nearly three decades in a number of high income countries. Increasingly,
What to do about the extent of unregulated informal employment and the size of the shadow economy is a dilemma that has been gaining urgency, particularly in Europe's periphery. The forces that accomp
The Great Recession of 2009-11 was not simply a severe business cycle slowdown or even a combined credit, housing, and asset market collapse. It left permanent scars, especially on the advanced econom
