Headband Homepage World Bank Spring Meetings 2023

Growth and Stability During Crises

In his speech from Niamey, Niger, World Bank Group President David Malpass addressed the challenges facing development policy, including the need for macroeconomic stability, the importance of private capital to international integration, and the increasing need to support global public goods.

Watch Replay Join Us: Spring Meetings 2023

Gas Flaring

Global Gas Flaring Falls to Lowest Level Since 2010

Progress in reducing gas flaring resumed in 2022, with gas flared worldwide falling by 5 billion cubic meters (bcm) to 139 bcm, its lowest level since 2010, according to new satellite data compiled by the World Bank's Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership (GGFR). Three countries, Nigeria, Mexico, and the United States, accounted for most of the decline in global gas flaring in 2022. Two other countries—Kazakhstan and Colombia— stand out for consistently reducing flaring volumes in the last seven years.

World Bank Live

Watch Replay: The Way Forward: A Conversation with Mohamed El-Erian

How can developing countries address rising interest rates, depreciating currencies, and stagnant growth? What can central banks and other financial institutions do to manage these crises? World Bank Group President David Malpass and President of Queens' College, Cambridge University, Mohamed El-Erian will have a conversation about global macroeconomic trends and their effects on development. Join us April 5 at 9:30am EDT for the conversation.

Economic Updates

World Bank Regional Economic Updates

Find out more about the macro-economic trends in each region in our latest economic updates for Africa, East Asia and the Pacific (EAP), Europe and Central Asia (ECA), Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and South Asia (SAR).

Our Mission

The World Bank has two goals: end extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity in a sustainable way.

Who we are

Learn About Our Priorities

Food Security

Food security is defined when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.

Global Food & Nutrition Security Dashboard
Food Security Update (Mar. 23)
Joint Statement by the Heads of the Food and Agriculture Organization, International Monetary Fund, World Bank Group, World Food Programme and World Trade Organization on the Global Food and Nutrition Security Crisis
Food Security
Climate Change

Climate change, poverty, and inequality are the defining issues of our age. The World Bank Group is the biggest multilateral funder of climate investments in developing countries.

World Bank Group Climate Change Action Plan 2021–2025
Climate Action Stories
BLOG - Climate Change and Paris Alignment: “The Climate is Changing, and So Are We”
Climate Change
International Development Association (IDA)

IDA is the part of the World Bank that helps the world’s poorest countries.

About IDA
IDA 20 Highlights
BLOG: World Bank support to the poorest countries: 5 things to know about IDA20
International Development Association (IDA)
World Bank Data

The Open Data site is designed to make World Bank data easy to find, download, and use. All of the data found here can be used free of charge with minimal restrictions.

Data Blog
BLOG: The challenge of estimating poverty in the pandemic
World Bank Data

Join Us

Data

We engage the development community with real-world statistics

View More Data

More than half of all reforms captured were implemented in Sub-Saharan Africa region by seven economies

Browse Data

In 2022, the global average score on the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law index rose just half a point to 77.1—indicating women, on average, enjoy barely 77 percent of the legal rights that men do. At the current pace of reform, in many countries a woman entering the workforce today will retire before she will be able to gain the same rights as men, the report notes. This year, 18 countries enacted 34 reforms, the lowest number of reforms in 20 years. But more than half of all reforms captured were implemented in the Sub-Saharan Africa region by seven economies. Learn More.

Globally, roughly half of working age women participate in the labor force, which is significantly lower than the male labor force participation rate of around 80%. This gap is virtually unchanged from what it was three decades ago. And there are sizeable differences in the level of female labor force participation across regions. Moreover, women tend to face inferior income opportunities and on average earn less than men. Explore more aspects of female labor force participation through this data story.

Today, in low-and middle-income countries 53 percent of children in late primary cannot read and understand a simple story. As reading is one important gateway skill, all children should be able to read in order to develop more complex foundational cognitive and socioemotional skills as they grow up. Learn More