Improved outcomes for women and children - more education, lower fertility rates, higher nutritional status, and lower incidence of illness, among other outcomes - have broad individual, family, and societal benefits. For nearly 15 years, the targets of the millennium development goals (MDGs)...

The World Bank Group's self-evaluation systems have expanded since they started 40 years ago, and compliance with requirements is mostly strong. They systems mesh well with the independent evaluation systems for which they provide information and the systems have been emulated and adapted by...

Land rights and the systems that administer them can vary significantly across the world and within countries (World Bank 2003). For a number of reasons, land rights may be unclear or insecure. Securing land rights plays an important role in driving economic growth and poverty reduction. In...

The World Bank offers three main categories of financing: investment project financing directly finances specific investments; Program for results financing uses country systems and disburses based on achievement of specific results; and Development Policy Financing (DPF) supports a government...

This learning product draws upon existing IEG evaluations, project documents and analytical work relating to the World Bank Group's (WBG's) experience with supporting efforts towards the rapid scale up of off-grid electrification (pico-solar products, individual solar home systems, and micro and...

Access to essential health services is an important aspect of development. Governments from both developed and developing countries are increasingly looking at public-private partnerships (PPPs) as a way to expand access to higher-quality health services by leveraging capital, managerial...

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...