The 4th World Bank Tax Conference exposed the magnitude of the challenge to build equitable tax systems via policies that improve compliance of the very wealthy. This blog highlights a summary of…

Pierre Bachas, Chiara Bronchi, Thiago Scot, Claudia Vargas |

The United Kingdom’s Help-to-Buy (HTB) program resulted in an additional 220,000 home purchases in 2014–16, representing an 11% increase in homes purchased by first-time buyers and home movers…

Belinda Tracey, Neeltje van Horen |

Closing Plenary of the Investor Forum. © World Bank “Private capital is often an important source of sustainable finance. Public finance alone may not be sufficient to meet the demands for…

Ceyla Pazarbasioglu |

© Maria Fleischmann/World Bank Sustainability is the holy grail of development. There are many interventions that yield positive results in the short term but somehow fail to be sustained over…

Oscar Calvo-González, Abel Cruz, Marco Hernandez |

Registered nurses look after newborns at a maternity hospital in Freetown Sierra Leone. © Dominic Chavez/World Bank Last week on World Population Day, I was thinking of the joy of children and the…

Kristalina Georgieva |

What would be a game-changer for achieving some of the world’s most difficult goals — such as ending poverty and hunger and making sure every child gets a quality education? Billionaire…

Donna Barne |

From the smallest rural villages in Bangladesh to the large, bustling metropolitan centers of Cairo or Istanbul, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are the lifeblood of Islamic communities around…

Bertrand Badré |

Also available in: Français | العربية   A boat trip from Port Elizabeth to Kingstown, in the Caribbean country of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, is a one-hour trip that locals take several…

Valerie Lorena |

At the World Bank Group/IMF Spring Meetings, 42 finance and development ministers discussed phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, putting a price on carbon and mobilizing the trillions of dollars in…

Rachel Kyte |