The World Development Report 2024 identifies what developing economies can do to avoid the “middle-income trap.” Lower-middle-income countries must go beyond investment-driven strategies—they must also adopt modern technologies and successful business practices from abroad and infuse them across their economies.
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World Development Report 2023 proposes an integrated framework to maximize the development impacts of cross-border movements on both destination and origin countries and on migrants and refugees themselves. The framework it offers, drawn from labor economics and international law.
World Development Report 2022: Finance for an Equitable Recovery examines the central role of finance in the economic recovery from the pandemic. It highlights the consequences of the crisis most likely to affect emerging economies, and advocates a set of policies to mitigate the interconnected financial risks stemming from the pandemic and steer economies toward a sustainable and equitable recovery.
WDR 2021 explores the tremendous potential of the changing data landscape to improve the lives of poor people, while also acknowledging its potential to open back doors that can harm individuals, businesses, and societies. To address this tension between the helpful and harmful potential of data, this Report calls for a new social contract that enables the use and reuse of data to create economic and social value, ensures equitable access to that value, and fosters trust that data will not be misused in harmful ways.
Trading for Development in the Age of Global Value Chains
The World Development Report 2020 examines whether there is still a path to development through GVCs and trade. It concludes that technological change is at this stage more a boon than a curse.
The World Development Report 2019 studies how the nature of work is changing as a result of advances in technology today. Fears that robots will take away jobs from people have dominated the discussion over the future of work, but the World Development Report 2019 finds that on balance this appears to be unfounded.
This World Development Report 2018 is the first ever devoted entirely to education. It explores four main themes: 1) education’s promise; 2) the need to shine a light on learning; 3) how to make schools work for learners; and 4) how to make systems work for learning.
This WDR 2017 addresses these fundamental questions: Why are carefully designed, sensible policies too often not adopted or implemented? When they are, why do they often fail to generate development outcomes such as security, growth, and equity? And why do some bad policies endure?
The World Development Report 2016 on Digital Dividends assembles the best available evidence on the Internnet potential impact on economic growth, on equity, and on the efficiency of public service provision. The report analyzes what factors have allowed some governments, firms and households to benefit from the Internet, and identify the barriers that limit gains elsewhere.
The World Development Report 2015 shows how a richer view of human behavior can help achieve development. It shows how a more subtle view of human behavior provides new tools for interventions.
The 2014 World Development Report examines how improving risk management can lead to larger gains in development and poverty reduction. It argues that improving risk management is crucial to reduce the negative impacts of shocks and hazards, but also to enable people to pursue new opportunities for growth.
The 2013 World Development Report on Jobs helps explain and analyze the connection between jobs and important dimensions of economic and social development. It provides analytical tools to identify the obstacles to sustained job creation and examine differences in the nature of jobs.
The 2012 World Development Report on Gender Equality and Development finds that women's lives around the world have improved dramatically, but gaps remain in many areas. The authors use a conceptual framework to examine progress to date, and then recommend policy actions.
Conflict causes human misery, destroys communities and infrastructure, and can cripple economic prospects. The goal of this World Development Report is to contribute concrete, practical suggestions to the debate on how to address and overcome violent conflict and fragility.
Places do well when they promote transformations along the dimensions of economic geography: higher densities as cities grow; shorter distances as workers and businesses migrate closer to density; and fewer divisions as nations lower their economic borders and enter world markets to take advantage of scale and trade in specialized products. WDR 2009 2009 concludes that the transformations along these three dimensions of density, distance, and division are essential for development and should be encouraged.
In the 21st century, agriculture continues to be a fundamental instrument for sustainable development and poverty reduction. WDR 2008 concludes that agriculture alone will not be enough to massively reduce poverty, but it is an essential component of effective development strategies for most developing countries.
Developing countries which invest in better education, healthcare, and job training for their record numbers of young people between the ages of 12 and 24 years of age, could produce surging economic growth and sharply reduced poverty, according to this report.
Inequality of opportunity, both within and among nations, sustains extreme deprivation, results in wasted human potential and often weakens prospects for overall prosperity and economic growth, concludes this report.
Accelerating growth and poverty reduction requires governments to reduce the policy risks, costs, and barriers to competition facing firms of all types - from farmers and micro-entrepreneurs to local manufacturing companies and multinationals - concludes this report.
his report warns that broad improvements in human welfare will not occur unless poor people receive wider access to affordable, better quality services in health, education, water, sanitation, and electricity. Without such improvements, freedom from illness and from illiteracy â two of the most important ways poor people can escape poverty â will remain elusive to many.
Without better policies and institutions, social and environmental strains may derail development progress, leading to higher poverty levels and a decline in the quality of life for everybody, according to this report.
Weak institutions â tangled laws, corrupt courts, deeply biased credit systems, and elaborate business registration requirements â hurt poor people and hinder development, according to this report.
This report focuses on the dimensions of poverty, and how to create a better world, free of poverty. The analysis explores the nature, and evolution of poverty, and its causes, to present a framework for action.
This report notes that localization--the growing economic and political power of cities, provinces, and other sub-national entities--will be one of the most important new trends in the 21st century.
Knowledge for Development
This report analyzes the risks and opportunities that the global information revolution is creating for developing countries, and concludes that access to financial, technical, and medical knowledge is crucial to improving the health and living standards of the poor.
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