Results At-a-Glance

In the past decade, the World Bank’s fund for the poorest countries has helped people build a better future for themselves, their families and their countries. IDA projects have opened a path to prosperity for schoolgirls in Afghanistan and small business owners in India’s Andhra Pradesh. Millions now have access to schools and clean water, job opportunities and life-preserving medicine.

IDA is delivering concrete results to help developing countries meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 and, in the longer term, find solutions to poverty and conflict.

Here, a snapshot of key achievements from 2000 to 2010:

Education

• More than 3 million teachers recruited and/or trained – more than 4 times the number of primary and secondary school teachers in France.
• Over 2 million classrooms built or rehabilitated benefiting over 105 million children per year. Through IDA-supported projects in India, 20 million more school-age children are now attending school, and 98 percent now have a school within walking distance.
• Around 300 million textbooks purchased and/or distributed – 15 times the number of books in the New York Public Library.

Health

• More than 47 million people – equivalent to two-thirds of the population of the UK – were provided with access to basic health, nutrition, or population services. With support from IDA, millions of people in rural Afghanistan now have access to primary health care for the first time, as national coverage rates rose from 9 percent of the general population in 2003 to 85 percent in 2008.
• 310 million children immunized – equivalent to four times the number of children in the United States.
• 23,000 health facilities constructed, renovated, and/or equipped, and 1.8 million health personnel trained to improve quality of health services delivered.
• About 33 million mosquito nets purchased and/or distributed to prevent malaria.  A study of bed net usage in Western Kenya reports a 25 percent reduction in death among children.

Transportation

• Over 118,000 km of roads – enough to circle the globe nearly three times - constructed or rehabilitated and over 134,000 km of roads maintained.
• Over 1,600 bridges built or rehabilitated.  IDA-funded reconstruction of the “old Bridge” in Mostar, Bosnia, contributed to the reconciliation of war-divided people and led to a resurgence in tourism, which boosted the local economy through construction and the opening of new hotels and restaurants.
• 26 million people provided with access to an all-season road.  In India, IDA-funded all weather roads upped household incomes in rural communities by 50% to 100%.  In Lao PDR, the travel time for transportation of key commodities along the country’s major artery decreased from 5 hours to less than three, which boosted local economic activity. 

Water Supply and Sanitation

• Over 113 million people given access to an improved water source. For every $1 invested in water and sanitation, $8 is returned. The cost of meeting the sanitation MDG target every year until 2015: $9.5 billion, an estimated one-third of what the world spends on bottled water every year.
• Almost 500,000 improved community water points and more than 1.5 million piped household water connections constructed or rehabilitated.  In Nepal, the IDA-financed Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project improved the water supply for more than 1.2 million people across Nepal and helped to reduce diarrheal death rates among children by more than 10%.
• 5.8 million people Provided with access to almost 600,000 improved sanitation facilities. 11% more girls attend school when sanitation becomes available.

Private Sector

• Some 120,000 loans valued at more than $792 million have been made to micro, small and medium enterprises.
• Access to credit and technical expertise has helped nearly 44,000 firms operate more efficiently and upgrade the quality of their products and services.
• In India’s Andhra Pradesh, 6.5 million low-income households have gained access to credit, up from fewer than 500,000 in 2000.

September 2010