The report discusses how challenging it is for the World Bank Group to provide assistance when middle-income countries experience situations of fragility, conflict, and violence. The government may have its own views on how and when to tackle the underlying issues, or may be reluctant to...

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...

At the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015, world leaders endorsed 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a successor framework to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Placing economic, social, and environmental sustainability at the center of development, the new agenda...

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...

The World Bank Group is currently engaged in reflection and debate on how to improve the delivery of development support. Part of this debate concerns strengthening the knowledge agenda. The findings of this evaluation are particularly relevant because they speak directly to questions that the...

Access to adequate housing is critically important to the health and wellbeing of the world's population. Yet, despite the fact that this statement is part of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and has been on the global policy agenda for many years, hundreds of millions of...

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...

Transformational engagements are a critical pillar of the World Bank Group's strategy for achieving its twin goals of extreme poverty elimination and shared prosperity. This learning product uses evaluative evidence from the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) to understand the mechanisms and...

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 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,...