In the past decade, the GCC countries have made a number of steps towards improving women’s access to education, health care, and employment, as well as encouraging women to participate in…
Houses under construction. © John Hogg/World Bank [[tweetable]]Affordable housing is a major challenge across West Africa, where fewer than 7 percent of households can afford to buy their own home…
Last month, I attended the International Family Planning Conference in Kigali, Rwanda, where policymakers from across the world gathered to strategize about ways to achieve a demographic dividend—…
On Wednesday, November 14, we joined more than 170 volunteers at the World Bank’s Washington, D.C. headquarters to draw little red boxes on a map of Alajo—a small town in the coastal metropolis of…
© Dominic Chavez/Global Financing Facility [[tweetable]]Still today, in almost all societies around the world, women are less well-off than men.[[/tweetable]] Women are still paid less than men;…
Running a local government is not sexy. It’s making sure that roads are maintained, there is water to drink, health clinics are stocked and staffed, and schools are equipped to teach. Often, it…
© Dominic Chavez/Global Financing Facility [[tweetable]]When countries invest in people—particularly young people—they're investing in the future and giving the next generation an…
As an urban dweller in Beijing, a rapidly modernizing city, my daily life would look like a science-fiction movie for people from just a few decades ago. I use my mobile phone to buy groceries,…
In Gaile Parkin's novel Baking Cakes in Kigali, two women living in Kigali, Rwanda – Angel and Sophie – argue over the salary paid to a development worker: "Perhaps these big…
Those of you who have visited Dubai in recent years may relate to what I am going to say: Dubai is in the middle of the desert, and its land, not that long ago, was really worth nothing. Now it is…