© ThickStock.com/Getty Images The first green bond issued by the World Bank 10 years ago created the blueprint for today’s US$500+ billion labeled bond market. This blog post looks at how green…

Heike Reichelt |

It is an unfortunate but fact of life that Indonesia often deals with the impacts of natural disasters. It was sadly evident again this week when I arrived in Jakarta to the unfolding disaster…

Philippe H. Le Houérou |

Photo: Trocaire | Flickr Creative Commons In war-torn post-1991 Somalia, running water was a scarce commodity, to the misfortune of millions of people. Members of local communities rose to the…

Yolanda Tayler, Nazaneen Ismail Ali, Simeon Sahaydachny, Nataliya Langburd Wright |

People in Saint-Louis, Senegal. © Ibrahima BA Sané/World Bank [[tweetable]]Massive investment is needed to meet the ambitious goal of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity by 2030…

Hartwig Schafer |

3-1-0 Three minutes to complete the online loan application, one second for approval and with zero human touch for SME loans. This is the marketing slogan used by Ant Financial, one of China’s…

Margaret Miller |

Results-based financing can force conversation to focus on developing a theory of change that starts with results. (Photo: Minna Mattero / World Bank) We just got back from Nepal to see how…

Jessica Lee, Peter Holland |

Understanding macroeconomic volatility part 3Read parts 1 & 2
There’s good evidence that a country’s level of financial development affects the impact of volatility on economic growth,…

Francisco G. Carneiro, Ha Minh Nguyen, Rei Odawara |

Understanding Macroeconomic Volatility: Part 2 The fact is that a government can soften a recession by increasing spending (the counter-cyclical approach) to raise demand and output. If government…

Francisco G. Carneiro, Ha Minh Nguyen, Rei Odawara |