World Bank
The World Bank is a global organization founded in 1944 to support economic development and reconstruction efforts, particularly in the aftermath of World War II. It serves as a collective of five closely affiliated entities known as the World Bank Group, which includes the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA). The World Bank aims to alleviate poverty and improve living conditions for disadvantaged populations worldwide by providing financial resources, advisory services, and facilitating international cooperation among member nations.
The organization operates through a diverse team of over ten thousand professionals, including economists and social scientists, working in more than 130 offices globally. In addition to its core functions of lending and grants, the World Bank Group also encompasses agencies such as the International Finance Corporation (IFC), which focuses on private sector development, and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), which promotes foreign investment through political risk insurance. The World Bank collaborates with various partners to coordinate and implement development projects aligned with the United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, promoting goals like poverty reduction, health improvement, environmental sustainability, and education access. Through initiatives like its Open Data website and World Bank Live platform, it enhances knowledge sharing and engagement among global stakeholders, striving for impactful development outcomes.
World Bank
The World Bank is a membership-based organization founded in 1944 as the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), with the goal of facilitating post–World War II reconstruction and economic development among member countries. Since then, the enterprise has expanded to encompass five separate but closely associated development agencies—known collectively as the World Bank Group—that work together to alleviate poverty, hunger, disease, and illiteracy among the world’s disadvantaged populations. The World Bank Group organizations are owned by the governments of the member nations and governed by boards of executive directors and boards of governors, which retain ultimate decision-making power over all financial, membership, policy, and other matters. The operations of the World Bank Group are carried out by more than ten thousand personnel—ranging from economists and financial analysts to engineers, social scientists, and policy experts—in more than 130 offices across the globe.
Background
The entity known as the World Bank is made up of two organizations: the IBRD, which provides financial lending to governments of creditworthy low- and middle-income countries, and the International Development Association (IDA), which gives grants and interest-free loans known as “credits” to governments of the most impoverished nations.
The World Bank Group consists of the two World Bank organizations, IBRD and IDA, together with three others: the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). IFC is the world’s biggest development agency and is focused entirely on the private sector. Its mandate is to assist developing countries in achieving sustainable growth through financing investments, marshalling capital in international financial markets, and offering advisory services to government and business. MIGA provides political risk insurance, or guarantees, to investors and lenders as a means to promote foreign direct investment into developing countries that will serve to shore up economic growth, reduce poverty, and improve the overall quality of life. ICSID provides international facilities for arbitration and appeasement of investment-related disputes between or involving World Bank Group member states.
The World Bank also works with other international partners, including government, professional, and academic institutions, associations, and donors to improve the coordination of aid policies and practices among the many thousands of development projects that are under way at any given time worldwide. In working together, the goal is to protect and streamline global aid programs to ensure that needed resources reach the poor and disadvantaged at both the local and global levels. Representative among the many global partnerships in which the World Bank Group participates are the Financial Sector Reform and Strengthening Initiative, which provides assistance to developing countries to help them strengthen their financial systems and adopt international financial standards; the Water and Sanitation Program, which works with local and national governments of member nations to ensure affordable and sustainable access to safe water and water sanitation services; Education for All, which strives to ensure access to education for every individual in every society; and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, which endeavors to protect global public health through the extensive utilization of vaccines.
The World Bank Today
The World Bank is not a traditional lending institution. Together with its affiliate organizations and global partners, the World Bank provides critical assistance—financial, practical, and advisory—to emerging nations across the globe with the goal of reducing poverty and facilitating sustained development.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was adopted by all members of the United Nations in 2015, the concluding year for the World Bank's Millennium Development Goals, which were established in 1989. According to the World Bank, the 2030 Agenda is a blueprint for peace and prosperity throughout the future. Part of this agenda are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. These goals are an urgent call to action by all developed and developing countries. Among the goals are helping the world put an end to extreme poverty by reducing to 3 percent or less the percentage of the global population living on less than $1.25 per day; promoting good health and a healthy lifestyle; taking action to reduce climate change throughout the world; ending overfishing; and achieving gender equality.
In pursuit of its goals and to ensure that developing nations have access to the best global expertise and resources, the World Bank Group actively seeks ways to improve the sharing of knowledge among World Bank agencies, partners, local governments, and the public in both developed and emerging countries around the world. To facilitate knowledge acquisition and sharing, the World Bank created the Open Data website, which offers free and easy access to comprehensive, downloadable indicators about development efforts in countries throughout the world. Similarly, World Bank Live is a technology tool that enables real-time discussions among global participants during the World Bank’s annual meeting with the International Monetary Fund each spring.
Bibliography
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