Paul Wolfowitz, President of the World Bank, remarked that the millennium development goals (MDGs) created a metric of accountability for which humanity will hold the World Bank answerable. It also created a vital tool for measuring progress. The MDGs call for developing countries to improve...

After falling out of fashion somewhat (Schmitz, 2006) there has been a resurgence of interest in conditional or results-based instruments over the last few years. Faced with increasing pressure on budgets and sometimes frustrated with the perceived ineffectiveness of development spending, policy...

Robert B. Zoellick, President of the World Bank, discussed the following priorities: (i) understanding fragile states; (ii) building legitimacy of the state; (iii) security; (iv) rule of law and the legal order; (v) local and national ownership; (vi) economic stability, as a foundation for growth...

Liberia's status as a fragile state is deeply rooted in the political and economic exclusion practiced by the country's founders. Although they constituted just 5 percent of the population, freed American slaves and their descendants dominated the country's intellectual and ruling class from...

Favorable global economic conditions supported a turnaround in economic activity in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2017, easing pressure on weak policy frameworks. Output growth rebounded to an estimated 2.6 percent after decelerating to 1.5 percent in 2016 amid challenging external and domestic...

The Afghanistan Development Update is a twice-annual publication providing analysis of recent developments and presenting the World Bank team's most-recent macroeconomic projections. The August 2018 edition focuses on the state of the economy in the context of upcoming elections, and the...

Access to justice is a 'big tent' for law programs broadly writ and has been so for over 25 years. Traditionally, access to justice has been treated as a category of interventions rather than a heuristic device from which to learn and experiment. In the old, old days, access to justice meant...

Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group, discussed the following topics. The Bank is helping many manage the humanitarian and development challenge. The Bank supports the global knowledge partnership on migration and development (KNOMAD), which helps countries develop evidence-based...

Security and development remain inextricably linked in Afghanistan, with the poor security environment continuing to exert a significant constraint on confidence, investment, and growth. As a result, in 2015, the economy grew at only 0.8 percent. In addition to the security situation, adverse...

Donors supporting countries affected by fragility conflict and violence face a difficult trade-off. Should they deliver urgently needed water supply infrastructure through non-state actors or build the country institutions that deliver water supply? This report confirms that the current response...