South Asia has been hit hard by the COVID19 pandemic. Countries need to prepare for future shock and re-envision the delivery of essential services such as health, education, and social protection…

Hartwig Schafer |

Today, after 25 years of progress reducing global poverty, we are at a precarious moment. Poverty is on the rise. The pandemic is estimated to have increased the number of people living in extreme…

Juergen Voegele |

As South Asian countries intensify the fight against COVID-19, it is imperative that social protection programs, including cash transfers, food vouchers, unemployment benefits, pensions, wage…

Lynne Sherburne-Benz, Stefano Paternostro, Zaineb Majoka |

The World Bank’s fund for the poorest countries, IDA has been a reliable partner in South Asia for more than six decades and contributed to a sharp decline in poverty in the region. Yet, for…

Hartwig Schafer |

It is undeniable that progress has been made in reducing extreme poverty over the last quarter century—from 36 percent of the world population in 1990 to an estimated 8.6 percent in 2018—and that…

Philippe H. Le Houérou, Antoinette Sayeh |

Registered nurses look after newborns at a maternity hospital in Freetown Sierra Leone. © Dominic Chavez/World Bank Last week on World Population Day, I was thinking of the joy of children and the…

Kristalina Georgieva |

Yemen is facing an unprecedented political, humanitarian, and development crisis. Long the poorest country in the Arab region, over half its population was living below the poverty line before the…

Auke Lootsma |

Photo credit: Graham Crouch/World Bank In my blog “The Governance Gap – can we bridge it?”, I stressed that strengthened institutions and improved governance are especially critical for the world’…

Deborah Wetzel |

For the first time in history, the proportion of people living in extreme poverty has fallen below 10%. The world has never been as ambitious about development as it is today. After adopting the…

Sri Mulyani Indrawati |

Just two weeks ago, the citizens of Sierra Leone celebrated the end of Ebola transmission in their country with cheering and dancing in the streets of Freetown. It’s a milestone worth celebrating…

Joachim von Amsberg |