The substantial infrastructure needs in Sub-Saharan Africa cannot be met without sizeable private-sector financing. Anecdotal evidence from a recent IFC study shows improved regulatory frameworks…

As I head to Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia on my first official visit as Vice President for Eastern and Southern Africa at the World Bank, I am eager to meet and engage with various…

March 22 is World Water Day. Water is vital for human health and survival, and access to water is recognized as a human right. Over the past 21 years, global access to safely managed drinking…

Zimbabwe’s services exports are dominated by tourism and transport; largely missing are higher value services such as telecommunications, finance, and business process outsourcing and should be…

Natural capital - nature’s bounty - is the wealth of the poor. Its degradation and loss are their burden to carry. Degradation of nature could cause the poorest countries to lose 10% of their GDP…

Helping beneficiary households better cope with adverse life events is one of the main assurances of social protection programs.

This blog is a biweekly feature highlighting recent working papers from around the World Bank Group that were published in the World Bank’s Policy Research Working Paper Series. This entry…

The global use of mobile phones generates a vast amount of data, which can be used effectively and responsibly for development work and emergency response.

What we’re reading about the social externalities from jobs

In the early 1990s, there was a near complete overlap between poor people and poor countries, with more than 9 out of 10 of the world’s extreme poor living in low-income countries at the time.