World Development Report 1998/99: Knowledge for Development

by World Bank Group

World Development Report 1998-1999 , now in its twenty-first edition, focuses on the role of knowledge and information as a factor of development, including the important trade-offs in strategies and policies and many other challenges. It examines such important questions as why have some
developing countries been able to exploit the rapidly increasing stock of global knowledge more than others and what can be done to help those falling behind? The Report also looks at the challenge of finding the balance between private initiative and public intervention that encourages innovation
and manages attendant risks. It deals with the role of international assistance and international organizations, which can help develop understanding about these complex processes, help to transfer lessons of development experience across countries, and help finance crucial knowledge investments of
importance to developing countries. Known as the standard reference for international economic data, the World Development Report 1998-1999 provides a set of Selected World Development Indicators as an appendix, presenting social and economic statistics for more than 200 countries.

264 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1998

About the author

The World Bank Group (WBG) is a family of five international organizations that make leveraged loans to developing countries. It is the largest and most famous development bank in the world and is an observer at the United Nations Development Group. The bank is based in Washington, D.C. and provided around $61 billion in loans and assistance to "developing" and transition countries in the 2014 fiscal year. The bank's stated mission is to achieve the twin goals of ending extreme poverty and building shared prosperity. Its five organizations are the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International Development Association (IDA), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).

The World Bank's (the IBRD and IDA's) activities are focused on developing countries, in fields such as human development (e.g. education, health), agriculture and rural development (e.g. irrigation and rural services), environmental protection (e.g. pollution reduction, establishing and enforcing regulations), infrastructure (e.g. roads, urban regeneration, and electricity), large industrial construction projects, and governance (e.g. anti-corruption, legal institutions development). The IBRD and IDA provide loans at preferential rates to member countries, as well as grants to the poorest countries. Loans or grants for specific projects are often linked to wider policy changes in the sector or the country's economy as a whole. For example, a loan to improve coastal environmental management may be linked to development of new environmental institutions at national and local levels and the implementation of new regulations to limit pollution, or not, such as in the World Bank financed constructions of paper mills along the Rio Uruguay in 2006.