Recent Posts
The World Bank Should Harness Evidence to Deliver Greater Impact
June 5, 2023Introduction At a recent CGD event, new World Bank president Ajay Banga called for the institution to deepen its role as a knowledge bank. In his words, “we won’t win the fight ahead of us without taking some risks. The trick is: don’t make the same mistake twice.” We were pleased to hear this commitment to knowledge generation and use as core to the World Bank’s mission. Simply put, the World Bank cannot enhance its impact, much less lead global development policy, without systematic measurement and evaluation—and knowing what works [...]
Gender Integration in Multilateral Development Banks’ COVID-19 Response Efforts
May 11, 2023Research demonstrates that the COVID-19 pandemic has had differential effects by gender, with women experiencing higher job and income loss, increased rates of domestic violence, and mounting care burdens globally. While governments and civil society organizations were pivotal to mitigating the impacts of the pandemic, international institutions, and multilateral development banks (MDBs) in particular, also played a role in financing and informing the design and implementation of COVID-19 response programs. MDBs are institutions with significant financial resources and policy leverage, but relatively little is known about their impact on narrowing [...]
The Future of IDA: How Does Gender Equality Factor In?
April 10, 2023This blog is one in a series by experts across the Center for Global Development ahead of the IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings. Each post in the series will put forward a tangible policy “win” for the World Bank or the broader MDB system that the author would like to see emerge from the Spring Meetings. Read the other posts in the series, and stay tuned for more. The World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) is the largest source of concessional loans and grants for the world’s poorest countries. Its financing, if well-deployed, will continue [...]
A Dual Evidence Agenda: Delivering Greater Impact for Development and Global Challenges
March 20, 2023The World Bank’s evolution is a large part of the international response to global challenges like climate change and pandemic risks, with significant attention on amounts and sources of money. But less attention is paid to an inconvenient truth: few policymakers and experts know what works to make measurable progress against global challenges. On climate and development, for example, knowledge is sparse; demonstrating that a project or policy’s climate impact is “real, measurable and additional” remains a work in progress. Generating and using evidence is imperative to enhance both the [...]