Women, Business, and the Law

Last year, despite multiple overlapping global crises, most parts of the world strengthened legal gender equality across all areas measured. Find out more in the latest Women, Business and the Law report, which shows how equal legal rights and freedoms for women can be achieved around the world.

Learn More Launch Event

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Watch Replay - Report Launch: Women, Business and the Law 2023

An economy is stronger when all citizens can contribute equally. By revealing how laws affect women’s economic participation, Women, Business and the Law 2023 presents persuasive evidence that an equal sharing of legal rights and freedoms is also instrumental for better economic performance. Join our launch event Thursday, March 2 at 10am EDT as we discuss what can be done to improve women’s economic opportunities and empower them at work and at home.

Food Security

Latest Food Security Update

Our newest update from February 23 shows that domestic food price inflation remains high around the world, with high inflation in almost all low- and middle-income countries, with inflation levels above 5% in 88.9% of low-income countries, 87.8% of lower-middle-income countries, and 93.0% of upper-middle-income countries and many experiencing double-digit inflation. Since the last update on February 9, 2023, the agricultural and export price indices have risen 1 percent and the cereal price index closed at the same level.

Earthquake Resilience

Disaster Risk Management

Disasters hurt the poor and vulnerable the most. Over the past decade, the World Bank has emerged as the global leader in disaster risk management, supporting client countries to assess exposure to hazards and address disaster risks.

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

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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.

NEW: Global Food & Nutrition Security Dashboard
Food Security Update (Feb. 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 - To meet the climate crisis head-on, our approach to water storage must change
Climate Change
International Development Association (IDA)

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

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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.

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BLOG: How much do countries spend on education, and how do the price levels of education compare? Three charts from the International Comparison Program
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Data

We engage the development community with real-world statistics

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Refugee population by country or territory of asylum, 2021

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In 2021, the number of refuges worldwide reached 27 million. While many refugees were hosted in high income countries in Europe and beyond, more than 86% of refugees found asylum in neighboring low-and middle-income countries. Middle-income countries host more than 63% of people displaced across borders. This included the largest global refugee population in Türkiye (3.8 million), followed by Jordan (3 million). Among the low-income countries, Uganda was home to 1.5 million refugees, most of whom have fled conflicts in South Sudan and Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In 2021, refuges from just five countries – Syrian Arab Republic, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Myanmar and Democratic Republic of the Congo – accounted for more than two thirds of all refuges in the world. The largest number of refugees came from Syrian Arab Republic, with 6.8 million people displaced during the continued civil war. Afghans were the second-largest refugee population displaced across border, with 2.7 million.

Unlike refugees who cross national borders and benefit from an established system of international protection and assistance, those forcibly uprooted within their own countries, by armed conflict, large-scale development projects, systematic violations of human rights, or natural disasters, lack predictable structures of support. Internal displacement has become one of the more pressing humanitarian, human rights and security problems confronting affected countries and the international community at large.