World Bank

If data wants to be free, then PovcalNet, the world’s leading dataset on global poverty, is happier today because it was recently made available for download in bulk by my guests on this week’s Wonkcast CGD research fellow Justin Sandefur and research assistant S...

Earlier this year, Uganda’s President signed into law an Anti-Homosexuality Act  that strengthens penalties against gay people and defines some homosexual acts as crimes punishable by life in prison.  If enforced to its full extent, the law is expected to endanger public he...

One of the biggest hopes people expressed about Jim Kim’s nomination to become president of the World Bank was that he would bring a fresh perspective, focused on achieving results, rather than reinforce the institution’s bureaucratic machinery. Unfortunately, President Kim’s ...

We just ran 23 million queries of the World Bank's website. Technically, a piece of computer code did the work, occupying a PC in an empty cubicle in our office for about 9 weeks, gradually sweeping up nearly every bit of information available in the World Bank’s global database on poverty...

This year, a common theme of those discussions was financing for infrastructure investment in developing countries.  I’m disappointed, but not surprised, that these conversations tend to focus exclusively on the need for new bricks-and-mortar infrastructure to meet needs for ene...

The World Bank loves to talk about the importance of “good governance” and “strong institutions” and “rule of law” as keys to development success.  Presumably that means that organizations are managed in accordance to their own legal procedures.  The Int...

The World Bank’s governors will meet this weekend to check in on president Jim Kim’s ambitious reform agenda. Anticipating the weekend’s meetings, the bank has rolled out a series of measures through press releases and speeches over the past two weeks, including the announcement of...