World Development Report

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The World Bank’s World Development Report, published annually since 1978, is an invaluable guide to the economic, social, and environmental state of the world today. Each report provides in-depth analysis and policy recommendations on a specific and important aspect of development—from agriculture, the role of the state, transition economies, and labor to infrastructure, health, the environment, and poverty. Through the quality and timeliness of the information it provides, the report has become a highly influential publication that is used by many multilateral and bilateral international organizations, national governments, scholars, civil society networks and groups, and other global thought leaders to support their decision-making processes. This corporate flagship undergoes extensive internal and external review and is one of the key outputs of the World Bank's Development Economics unit.

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    World Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development
    (World Bank, 2012) World Bank
    The main message of this year's World development report: gender equality and development is that these patterns of progress and persistence in gender equality matter, both for development outcomes and policy making. They matter because gender equality is a core development objective in its own right. But greater gender equality is also smart economics, enhancing productivity and improving other development outcomes, including prospects for the next generation and for the quality of societal policies and institutions. Economic development is not enough to shrink all gender disparities-corrective policies that focus on persisting gender gaps are essential. This report points to four priority areas for policy going forward. First, reducing gender gaps in human capital-specifically those that address female mortality and education. Second, closing gender gaps in access to economic opportunities, earnings, and productivity. Third, shrinking gender differences in voice and agency within society. Fourth, limiting the reproduction of gender inequality across generations. These are all areas where higher incomes by themselves do little to reduce gender gaps, but focused policies can have a real impact. Gender equality is at the heart of development. It's the right development objective, and it's smart economic policy. The World development report 2012 can help both countries and international partners think through and integrate a focus on gender equality into development policy making and programming.
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    World Development Report 1982
    (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982) World Bank
    This report reviews development prospects in the international economy and supplements the extensive discussion of adjustment issues in the 1981 World Development Report. It finds that, although international prospects have worsened over the past year, during the remainder of the decade the middle-income countries should be able to continue narrowing the income gap between themselves and the industrial countries. The prospects for many of the low-income countries, however, remain a matter of grave concern. The report concentrates on agriculture, which remains the chief source of income for close to two-thirds of the population in developing countries and for the vast majority of the world's poor. Informing the discussion is the experience gained by the World Bank in helping to finance some 800 agricultural and rural development projects in more than 70 countries - experience supported by its broad, intensive programs of economic, scientific, and social research. Numerous tables and multicolor maps and graphics supplement the main body of the report; case studies are interspersed to provide analyses directly related to the substance of the text. The final portion of the report comprises world development indicators, 25 two-page tables containing economic and social profiles of more than 120 countries.
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    World Development Report 1978
    (Washington, DC, 1978) World Bank
    This first report deals with some of the major development issues confronting the developing countries and explores the relationship of the major trends in the international economy to them. It is designed to help clarify some of the linkages between the international economy and domestic strategies in the developing countries against the background of growing interdependence and increasing complexity in the world economy. It assesses the prospects for progress in accelerating growth and alleviating poverty, and identifies some of the major policy issues which will affect these prospects.