The World Bank supports cybersecurity skills development initiatives in developing countries to help close the cybersecurity skills gap and enhance cyber resilience as a catalyst for socio-…

Ghislain de Salins, Anat Lewin |

The West African Economic and Monetary Union community, which comprises Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo, is facing a deficit of decent housing of…

Mazen Bouri |

Africa is not on track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal of eradicating extreme poverty. While many countries were successful in reducing poverty during the years before the pandemic,…

Camilla Holmemo, Christian Bodewig, Robert S. Chase, Suleiman Namara |

Banking supervisors in Central Asia need to be prepared for a potentially sharp rise in NPLs. A recent World Bank policy paper assesses the NPL resolution framework in four Central Asian countries…

Emiko Todoroki, Ismael Ahmad Fontan, Fernando Dancausa, Maksym Iavorskyi |

Digital public infrastructure can enable essential society-wide functions and services such as identification, payments, and data exchange.

Vyjayanti T Desai, Jonathan Marskell, Georgina Marin, Minita Varghese |

Businesses worldwide feel the repercussions of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but how exactly is the private sector faring in Central Asia—a region with deep trade and investment ties to Russia…

Mariana Iootty, Martin Melecky |

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…

Martin Spicer |

Also available in: Français Brainstorming session at the Bamako Policy Hackathon. Photo: World Bank What would happen if you put all the relevant players for the entrepreneurial ecosystem —…

Alexandre Laure, Jon Stever |

In the Africa Chief Economist’s Office, we seek to generate knowledge on key development issues around the continent. We also host the Gender Innovation Lab, which – as the name suggests –…

David Evans |