In my last blog post, I showed that while governments are increasingly using the technology to demonstrate that services are improving, their efforts risk being undermined by “gaming” – in other…

Willy McCourt |

Governments are under pressure to show their ever more educated and informed citizens that schools, hospitals and other public services are getting better. Traditionally, they have done that by…

Willy McCourt |

Source: UN On International Anti-corruption Day 2014, one of the issues we at the Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative want to illustrate - is how recovering stolen assets helps fight corruption and…

Jean Pesme |

Informed decision-making is crucial to the success of policies and reforms that foster growth and prosperity. So, how can we help decision makers make better decisions?
 

Marcela Rozo, Felipe Estefan, Luis Vélez Pretelt |

A collection of photos in the Champassak provincial office of Électricité du Laos shows the blue-shirted employees in action. Photo: Naazneen Barma/The World Bank The hallways of the Électricité…

Naazneen Barma |

Last week, I had the honor of receiving one of the World Bank's FY15 Big Data Innovation Challenge awards for a proposal developed with a team of researchers from within and outside of the…

Victoria L. Lemieux |

  ​ Strong and effective financial reporting rarely grabs headlines, but the vulnerabilities created by weak or ineffective systems of financial reporting certainly do – a number of well-…

Samia Msadek |

From August 2002, just months after Timor-Leste gained independence, to April 2006, I was the World Bank’s Country Manager for Timor-Leste and thus eyewitness to an unfolding state-building…

Elisabeth Huybens |

On a Friday morning in December of 2011, Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old street vendor, started his day to sell fruits and vegetables from his cart in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia. But he didn’t have a…

Ravi Kumar |

What makes smart politicians?  Jeffrey Frankel has an idea.   His recent blog examines the allure, and trap, of universal subsidies.   For one thing, they know that pulling the plug on bad…

Heba Elgazzar |