In principle, the efficiency of poverty-oriented social programs can be increased dramatically through "targeting" an infelicitous term applied to efforts to focus development programs more directly on the poor. By one widely-cited estimate, a set of "perfectly targeted" programs -- that is,...

Barber B. Conable, President of the World Bank Group addressed the topic of Australian International Development at the 1989 annual meetings. Poverty, and its persistence alongside such wellbeing, is both a moral outrage and a threat to security. The challenge of poverty is an economic,...

The World Bank Group (WBG) has been active in public and private sector pollution management for the past several decades. The Bank has mainstreamed environmental health concerns into its rural and urban services through projects that improved the management of solid and hazardous waste and...

Community-driven development (CDD) projects seek to empower communities, reduce poverty, and improve economic and social conditions of the poor, typically in rural and remote areas. No less important, CDD also typically addresses two persistent gender gaps: (1) women's lack of voice in public...

Outside of China, despite rapid economic growth in many low and middle income countries, there has been little progress in meeting the MDG1 target of halving the incidence of global poverty by 2014. Part of the explanation for this weak poverty-reducing performance has been the historic...

Shared Prosperity through Inclusive Business: How Successful Companies Reach the Base of the Pyramid summarizes the practical lessons learned from IFC clients that successfully reach low-income people as suppliers or customers. There are lessons for each phase of the value chain-including...

Poverty has remained stubbornly high in Africa for decades. Top-down plans and donor driven investment programs have been less than successful. Past experience suggests that decentralization will not work without vibrant, participatory communities. And enhanced participation will at some point...