World Bank eLibrary Resources

Exploring Universal Basic Income
A Guide to Navigating Concepts, Evidence, and Practices

Universal basic income (UBI) is one of the most hotly debated ideas in development and social protection. Drawing from global evidence and experiences, this volume provides a compass to help navigate key issues and trade-offs. In addition, it offers new data and insights to better inform choices around the appropriateness and feasibility of UBI in different contexts. more ...
World Development Report 2020
Trading for Development in the Age of Global Value Chains

Global value chains (GVCs) powered the rapid expansion of international trade after 1990. Countries import not only for domestic consumption, but also to export, and transactions typically involve long-term, firm-to-firm relationships rather than anonymous spot market transactions. Trade and the rise of GVCs enabled an unprecedented convergence: poor countries grew faster and began to catch up with richer countries. More than 1 billion people escaped poverty as a result. more ...
International Debt Statistics 2020

International Debt Statistics 2019 is a continuation of the World Bank's publications Global Development Finance, Volume II (1997 through 2009) and the earlier World Debt Tables (1973 through 1996). This year's edition is designed to respond to user demand for timely, comprehensive data on trends in external debt among 121 low- and middle-income countries. more ...
Enabling the Business of Agriculture 2019

Doing Business in Agriculture measures how regulation affects the livelihood of domestic farmers. Farming is a challenging business-especially when undertaken on a smaller scale. Most farms are comparatively small, with about 84% of all farms having less than two hectares of land for growing crops and livestock. There are more than 475 million small farms with 3 billion people working on them, including the majority of the world's rural poor. Farmers manage numerous risks on a daily basis. Regulations often fail to support farmers and may even create obstacles for them. more ...
Violence without Borders
The Internationalization of Crime and Conflict

Like nearly every aspect of human experience, civil conflict, crime, and violence have become increasingly global. There are more civil wars today than at any time since the end of World War II, and these conflicts have been displacing more people ever further from their countries of origin. Transnational terrorism has reached a 50-year high in terms both of its incidence and of the number of reported fatalities. more ...
Obesity
Health and Economic Consequences of an Impending Global Challenge

Obesity is a global ticking time-bomb with huge potential negative economic and health impacts, especially for the poor. As of 2016, an estimated 44 percent of adults (more than 2 billion) worldwide are overweight/obese, and over 70 percent of them live in low- or middle-income countries, dispelling the myth that obesity is a problem only in high-income countries. more ...
The Hidden Wealth of Cities
Creating, Financing, and Managing Public Spaces

In every city, the urban spaces that form the public realm-ranging from city streets, neighborhood squares, and parks to public facilities such as libraries and markets-account for about one-third of the city's total land area, on average. Despite this significance, the potential for these public-space assets-typically owned and managed by local governments-to transform urban life and city functioning is often overlooked for many reasons: other pressing city priorities arising from rapid urbanization, poor urban planning, and financial constraints. more ...
The Mobility of Displaced Syrians
An Economic and Social Analysis

The war in Syria, now in its eighth year, continues to take its toll on the Syrian people. Over half of the population of Syria remains displaced (as of September 2018), with more than 5.6 million registered as refugees outside of country and another 6.2 million displaced within Syria's borders. The internally displaced include two million school-aged children, with less than half attending school. more ...