From policy to results: How legal solutions drive development impact

Strong legal systems are essential to the goals of the world’s development agenda. They enable governments and institutions to design and implement the policies, laws, and regulations that encourage investment in fundamental sectors, support job creation, and sustain inclusive economic growth.

That’s why every year the World Bank Group brings together law and development experts to discuss the most pressing legal challenges for development and to explore solutions and reforms, including through sharing best practices and committing to collaborate in our shared objectives. 

This year’s Law, Justice and Development Week 2025 (LJD Week), taking place November 3-5, 2025, comes at an auspicious time. Its theme, Innovative Legal Solutions to Development Challenges, reflects a renewed emphasis on urgency, scale, and results to accelerate economic growth and job creation, and to reduce poverty in emerging markets and developing economies. LJD Week serves as a launchpad for action, bringing together diverse perspectives and expertise to advance legal innovations and reforms that strengthen public policies and legal systems to reduce risk and spur investment. 

Reflecting on today’s development imperatives

LJD Week follows on the heels of the World Bank Group’s Annual Meetings, and is aimed at identifying legal solutions  to the challenges highlighted there. 

Developing economies today face an investment shortfall of historic proportions. Investment needs are ballooning at an alarming rate—a classic misalignment of supply and demand and one that increasingly threatens the development agenda. At the same time, over the coming decade more than a billion young people will reaching working age in developing countries, far outpacing job creation. Without immediate action, millions of young men and women will be without a clear path to employment.

That’s why job creation must be the North Star of the global development agenda and is central to the World Bank Group’s efforts. President Ajay Banga described our three-pillar approach to job creation at the Annual Meetings:

1. Infrastructure: This is a top priority that includes both “hard” infrastructure such as roads, ports, energy, water, and “soft” infrastructure, like healthcare, education, job training, and social protection. Both are aimed at creating the essential, fundamental building blocks of the economic activities that support growth and job creation. 
2. Private sector engagement: Private sector businesses provide 90 percent of all jobs in developing economies, and micro, small and medium enterprises represent about 90 percent of all businesses and more than half of global employment. These enterprises need a business-friendly environment that facilitates their start-up, growth, and expansion.
3. Policy: Finally, governments need to establish policies that support and reinforce the first two pillars. These policies should target the sectors best suited to each country’s circumstances and be implemented through laws and regulatory frameworks designed to achieve clear outcomes. 

All three pillars require a “legal ecosystem”—a network of government bodies and other stakeholders that transform ambitions to results. This includes policies, laws, and regulations that are established, implemented, and applied fairly, efficiently, consistently, impartially, transparently, ethically, and with accountability. 

The role of legal function

Which is exactly where the legal function comes in. Our legal teams across the World Bank Group have now organized to help governments and institutions strengthen every link in this chain, and we are doing so with partners in government, multilateral development banks, international financial institutions, civil society, academia, and private sector law firms and law societies.

For example, we are developing and sharing legal knowledge and global public goods like model laws, toolkits, templates, and platforms. These can help governments create new laws or reform current ones covering such areas as digital, data, cyber, artificial intelligence, environment and biodiversity, carbon markets, women’s engagement, water, transport, minerals and extractives, and financial services. We’re also creating programs and networks to build more capacity and greater efficiency in ministries, judiciaries, and regulators and providing diagnostic tools to help countries identify ways to improve their business and investment environments to reduce risk and attract private investment. 

Over three days and more than 30 programmatic sessions across diverse themes and sectors at LJD Week, we will take this agenda forward by focusing on how the legal and development financing communities can work together with the public and private sectors to identify obstacles and design solutions. 

The challenges in economic development are daunting, but our creativity, determination, and the potential for a collaborative approach are formidable. By leveraging the collective experience and resources of our partners, we will focus, laser-like and at scale, to narrow the investment gap, grow businesses and jobs, and deliver on our shared mission to reduce poverty. We look forward to welcoming you to the effort.