More than a decade has passed since the global economic and financial crisis rocked the world. A clear lesson that emerged from it was the importance of identifying and addressing country-specific vulnerabilities ex ante to build resilience when a shock occurs. The 2020 global economic and...

Population aging-resulting from falling fertility rates, declining mortality, and increased longevity-shapes the profile and the needs of a growing number of countries. How effective has the World Bank been in tailoring its support to provide an adequate response to this evolving challenge? This...

Cities will be home to 2 billion new residents by 2045, and the pressure to develop land in and around cities is growing. This will pose a great challenge to lower-income cities since they tend to grow through slums and other informal settlements. Slum residents have inadequate and inequitable...

The World Bank Group's Gender Strategy (fiscal year [2016-23) presents gender equality as integral to smart development policy and posits that successful implementation of the strategy will help achieve the Bank Group's twin goals and the Sustainable Development Goals. The strategy focuses on...

Many of the world's poor people depend on natural resources for their well-being. Four-fifths of the world's poor people live in rural areas, and most rural poor people depend on natural resources for their livelihoods. The renewable natural resources on which poor people depend are increasingly...

This evaluation assesses the development effectiveness of the World Bank Group's country engagement in Albania over the period Fiscal Years 11-19. The Bank Group made a substantial contribution to many reforms relevant to Albania's development priorities, including Albania's EU accession goals....

Disruptive and transformative technologies (DTT) have far-reaching implications for development. Traditional development models are being disrupted by the accelerating pace of technological change and the convergence of multiple technologies, among other things. Recognizing the implications of...

Sound public financial management and public debt management are critical to informing and implementing fiscal policy and to achieving the World Bank Group's twin goals. When support for these two areas is complementary, public finance and debt management (PFDM) ensures that scarce public...

IEG's Country Program Evaluation (CPE) covers the period FY05-13. The period spans three World Bank Group country strategies and one progress report. It also covers the last years of the Ben Ali regime and the transition to a new political dispensation following the revolution of January 2011....

The year 2015 is pivotal in international development. As the era of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) concludes, work continues to take forward the unfinished MDG agenda and to define and meet the more ambitious Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In preparation for the new challenges,...