KNOWLEDGE IS LIKE LIGHT. Weightless and intangible, it can easily travel the world, enlightening the lives of people everywhere. Yet billions of people still live in poverty unnecessarily. Knowledge about how to treat such a simple ailment as diarrhea has existed for centuries but millions of children continue to die from it because their parents do not know how to save them. See the online CNN special Virtual Villages: Technology and the developing world Knowledge Sharing Fighting poverty requires a global strategy to share knowledge systematically and energetically and to ensure that people who need that knowledge get it on time. The World Bank has become a global development partner making it easier for people to find out who knows what and where the best expertise can be drawn upon, wherever it resides. Continuously sharing this global and local know-how with client countries, public and private partners, and civil society will better equip the development community to fight poverty. Knowledge Resources: Global Knowledge Program Knowledge Sharing Knowledge Utilization through Learning Technologies Education is the Key to Knowledge For individuals and for countries, education is the key to creating, adapting, and spreading knowledge. Basic education increases people's capacity to learn and to interpret information. But that is just the start. Higher education and technical training are also needed, to build a labor force that can keep up with a constant stream of technological advances, which compress product cycles and speed the depreciation of human capital. And outside the classroom, people's working and living environments are the setting for still more learning, well beyond the ages associated with formal education. Moreover, the benefits of education can spread well beyond the educated. The education of a mother pays off in better health care and better nutrition for her children. Educated farmers tend to adopt new technologies first, and in so doing provide those who follow with valuable, free information about how best to use the new methods. Education Resources: Education Girls Education World Links for Development (WorLD) Program Knowledge about Technology The World Bank has long recognized the critical role that knowledge about technology plays in promoting economic growth and social progress. Typically, developing countries have less technical know-how than industrial countries, and the poor have less than the nonpoor. The World Bank, together with its partners in the private sector and civil society, is committed to helping developing countries address the challenges and opportunities of new advances in science and technology. Technology Resources: Agricultural Biotechnology and the Poor InfoDev Science and Technology TechNet Telecommunications and Informatics