Specialists in Sri Lanka receive training on the InaSafe risk assessment platform. © World Bank ​​When I first heard about OpenStreetMap (OSM) – the so called Wikipedia of maps, built by…

First, we need to address “energy poverty” if we want to end poverty. We find that energy poverty means two things: Poor people are the least likely to have access to power. And they are more…

Turkey has radically transformed its land title registration system, and decreased the turnaround time for recording property transactions to just two hours. I just returned from Turkey where I…

Translating Words into Action World Bank Vice President and Special Envoy for Climate Change Rachel Kyte speaks from the World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction underway in Sendai, Japan,…

Every minute, dozens of people in East Asia move from the countryside to the city. The massive population shift is creating some of the world’s biggest mega-cities including Tokyo, Shanghai,…

Happy International Day of Older Persons! The United Nations established this day of observance in 1990 as a way to raise awareness about issues affecting the elderly and to appreciate the…

Find a good longread on development? Tweet it to @worldbank with the hashtag #longreads.  China’s prospects stirred interest as the BRICs met in South Africa and a new survey by the Organization…

In a new study on gender equality, researchers asked 4, 000 people in 20 countries to describe the gender norms in their communities and the influence those norms have on their lives and their…

Available in ไทย Elephant ivory is on the march. Not elephants, but their ivory. The elephants are left bloodied and dead on the range. So are many rangers who work to protect a country’s natural…