Most wars are now civil wars. Even though international wars attract enormous global attention, they have become infrequent and brief. Civil wars usually attract less attention, but they have become increasingly common and typically go on for years. This report argues that civil war is now an...

The connections between transport infrastructure and economic development have been extensively analyzed in previous research, but little is known about the cost of infrastructure investments in poor countries. This paper examines drivers of unit costs of construction and maintenance of...

Although the provision of security to all their citizens is a state's fundamental duty, over 50 countries experienced armed conflict in 2021. The international development community has identified armed conflict as an impediment to development and provides considerable resources to reduce armed...

July 2000 - Poverty in the developing world will decline by roughly half by 2015 if current growth trends and policies persist. But a disproportionate share of poverty reduction will occur in East and South Asia, poverty will decline only slightly in Sub-Saharan Africa, and it will increase in...

In the efficient allocation of aid, aid is targeted disproportionately to countries with severe poverty and adequate policies. For a given level of poverty, aid tapers in with policy reform. In the actual allocation of aid, aid tapers out with reform. - Aid now lifts about 30 million people a...

Aid is still an important feature of the development landscape. Fragile states, in particular, have the greatest development needs but due to their poor governance they are the least likely countries to use aid effectively to meet their development challenges. In this paper, we explore which...