During the last few International Development Association (IDA) replenishment negotiations, several large donors have pressed for reforms to further increase the share of IDA resources provided to the neediest and most vulnerable countries. While the proposed reforms take different forms, the...

With the Millennium Development Goals deadline only five years away, the international donor community faces significant challenges due to the global economic crisis, record government deficits, and simultaneous funding requests from nearly every multilateral development institution. This paper...

The global community faces a number of critical challenges ranging from climate change to crossborder health risks to natural-resource scarcities. Many of these so-called global commons problems carry grave risks to economic growth in the developing world and to the livelihoods and welfare of...

With the Millennium Development Goals deadline only five years away, the international donor community faces significant challenges due to the global economic crisis, record government deficits, and simultaneous funding requests from nearly every multilateral development institution. This paper...

In recent years, a number of private foundations and organizations have launched ambitious initiatives to support promising entrepreneurs in developing countries, on both a for-profit and not-for-profit basis. Many of these programs have focused exclusively on building business capacity. While...

Four years ago, the G-7 pushed through an unprecedented initiative forcing the international financial institutions to cancel 100 percent of their outstanding debt claims on the world's poorest countries. Through the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI), these heavily indebted poor...

Zimbabwe is embarking on a long, complex, and difficult journey to rebuild its economy, which has been shattered by years of neglect and destructive government policies. If the final political hurdles are overcome hopefully sooner rather than later - the new coalition government will be faced...

Even under conservative assumptions, IDA will likely face a wave of country graduations by 2025. We project that it will lose more than half of its client countries and that the total population living in IDA-eligible countries will plunge by two thirds. The remaining IDA-eligible countries will...

The people of Southern Sudan are scheduled to vote in a referendum on whether to remain unified with the central government in Khartoum or break away to form a new, fully independent country. While the Khartoum government remains committed to a unified Sudan, all indications suggest that the...

In this working paper, the authors introduce an MDG Progress Index to assess how on or off track countries are toward MDG targets. They find evidence of dramatic achievements by many poor countries, such as Honduras, Laos, Ethiopia, Uganda, Burkina Faso, Nepal, Cambodia, and Ghana. These...