People who look at the Doing Business report’s Trading Across Borders indicator and the Logistics Performance Index (LPI) often wonder why one country can perform well on one of the rankings but…

Valentina Saltane, Dorina Georgieva |

On November 26, 2016, UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon will convene the first-ever Global Conference on Sustainable Transport, in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. What is at stake in this capstone two-day…

Nancy Vandycke |

Will cash and checks still exist 15 or 20 years from now given the increasing digitization of money? Is the smartphone our new bank? Will many people working in the financial sector industry lose…

José de Luna-Martínez, Wei Zhang |

In the past decade, the Islamic finance industry has grown at double digits despite the weak global economic environment. By 2020, the Islamic finance industry is projected to reach $3 trillion in…

José de Luna-Martínez, Sergio Campillo Diaz |

College students in Vietnam. © World Bank As in much of the rest of the developing world, developing countries in East Asia and the Pacific (EAP) have made progress in closing many gender…

Sudhir Shetty |

In the past several decades Malaysia has witnessed strong economic growth and has become one of Asia’s newly industrialized countries. In one generation it transitioned successfully from low to…

Smita Kuriakose |

One of the most cited of Martin Ravallion’s many papers implores researchers to “look beyond averages” if they want to better understand development processes. One fruitful area in which this…

Michael Woolcock |

A motorized tricycle fitted with a small tank provides desludging services in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. Photo credit: Kathy Eales / World Bank Our last blog outlined the neglect of Fecal Sludge…

Peter Hawkins, Isabel Blackett |

Malaysia has been able to reach remarkable achievements over the past decades, including extreme poverty eradication and promotion of inclusive growth. It aims to reach a high-income nation status…

Rafael Munoz Moreno |

Two recently released World Bank reports — one on commodities and the other on remittances — lend insight into an unfolding dynamic in the world today. As oil prices dropped from more than $100…

Donna Barne |