This is a companion to the Global Economic Prospects 2010. Most commodity prices reached historical highs in mid-2008, giving rise to the longest and broadest commodity boom of the post-WWII period. Apart from strong and sustained economic growth, the boom was fueled by numerous factors...

While all infrastructure public-private partnerships (PPPs) inevitably deal with financing, construction, regulatory, demand, and operational risks, among others, projects in disaster-prone regions must additionally develop commercially and technically viable solutions for managing disaster and...

Providing universal coverage and barrier-free access to ID systems is one of the three pillars of the Principles on Identification for Sustainable Development and is vital to achieving Target 16.9 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to "provide legal identity for all" by 2030....

This technical note is intended to contribute to understanding of how to leverage open source software (OSS) for global public goods particularly in resource-constrained environments. The aim is to enable a more deliberate approach to building information systems that can serve as a global...

Low, and middle-income countries (LMICs) are facing a major challenge in road safety. Each year, 1.35 million people are killed on the worlds' roads, and a further 50 million are injured, with the vast majority of these (over 90 percent) occurring in LMICs. There is an upward trend in road crash...

This note looks at the experience countries have had in introducing reforms that improved the business environment. Instead of examining what was done (that is, the content of reforms), the focus is placed on how reform programs came to be successful. The note aims to provide an overview of...