This paper outlines changes that have been made in the 2019 version of the Health Equity and Financial Protection Indicators database. On the financial protection side, the changes include an increase in the number of indicators from five to 14; revisions to several previous data points,...

This study uses loan-level data on syndicated lending to a large sample of developing countries between 1993 and 2017 to estimate the mobilization effects of multilateral development banks (MDBs), that is, their ability to crowd-in capital from private creditors. Controlling for a large set of...

This paper presents a review of studies that estimate the cost of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Although the Sustainable Development Goals provide useful benchmarks for fiscal authorities and donors, typical cross-country costing exercises can be misleading, for a variety of...

Rural accessibility is the only metric used in the Sustainable Development Goals to track progress toward better transport services in low- and middle-income countries. This paper estimates the rural accessibility index, defined as the proportion of the rural population who live within 2...

This paper provides an overview of research on out-of-pocket health expenditures, reviewing the various summary measures and the results of multi-country studies using these measures. The paper presents estimates for 146 countries from all World Bank income groups for all summary measures, along...

Countries regularly track gross domestic product (GDP) as an indicator of their economic progress, but not wealth-the assets such as infrastructure, forests, minerals, and human capital that produce GDP. In contrast, corporations routinely report on both their income and assets to assess their...

The new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development includes water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) at its core. A dedicated Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 6) declares a commitment to "ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all." Monitoring progress toward this...

Remarks delivered by Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group discuss the critical role of inclusive and sustainable industrialization in the future global development agenda, including to end extreme poverty by 2030. He speaks about working with UNIDO and the government of Ethiopia to...

The objective of this report is to better understand the challenges of meeting Sustainable Development Goal 6.1 from the perspective of off-grid services currently being used by a large and increasing proportion of the urban population. For this assessment, two key distinct areas with high...