A series of global initiatives have been launched over the last decade by the international community to accelerate progress toward meeting the Millennium Development Goals. These initiatives entailed commitments to provide more aid and efforts to strengthen aid effectiveness. They culminated in...

The way countries finance health care influences how well a health system performs and achieves its expected outcomes, including how equitable and efficient it is. Countries decide how to mobilize revenues from different sources for financing health care, how to pool revenues in public and...

The aim of this report is to inform the design and the implementation of Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA's) new Strategic Directions FY12-14 by drawing lessons from recent experience with one of the main pillars of the MIGA, financial sector guarantees, the fastest growing...

This second report of a two-phase evaluation of the World Bank Groupapos;s unprecedented response to the 2008-09 global economic crisis addresses questions raised by the findings of the first phase evaluation regarding the Bankapos;s crisis lending in the financial, fiscal, and social protection...

The principal purpose of this Global Program Review (GPR) is to learn lessons from the experience of the Global Fund and its interaction with the Bank in three areas: (a) the design and operation of large global partnership programs like the Global Fund that are financing country-level...

Beyond the terrible toll in human lives and suffering, the Ebola epidemic currently afflicting West Africa is already having a measurable economic impact in terms of forgone output; higher fiscal deficits; rising prices; lower real household incomes and greater poverty. These economic impacts...

Latin America's population is aging, and many among the growing elderly population are not protected by traditional pension schemes. In response, policy makers have been reevaluating their income protection systems so that between 2000 and 2013, the majority of Latin American countries reformed...

Looking at the economic growth of seemingly similar countries one can find striking differences. Why has Australia gotten so much ahead of New Zealand, in spite of the latter being held up as a paragon of free market reform? How is it possible that Austria, with its persistently oversized state...

One out of every three dollars invested abroad in 2012 was originated in multinationals from developing countries. This study sheds light on the characteristics, motivations, strategies, and needs of emerging market investors. By including information on investors, potential investors, and...

Africa will be undergoing substantial demographic changes in the coming decades with the rising working age share of its population. The opportunity of African countries to convert these changes into demographic dividends for growth and poverty reduction will depend on several factors. The...