The World Bank is one of the world’s largest sources of development assistance. Its primary focus is on helping the poorest people and the poorest countries. This site provides an overview of how the Bank uses its financial resources, its highly trained staff, and its extensive knowledge base to help developing countries onto paths of stable, sustainable, and equitable growth. In 2002 the World Bank provided $19.5 billion to developing countries and worked in more than 100 developing economies, bringing finance and/or technical expertise toward helping them reduce poverty. We live in a world so rich that global income is more than $31 trillion a year. In this world, the average person in some countries earns more than $40,000 a year. But in this same world, 2.8 billion people-more than half the people in developing countries-live on less than $700 a year. Of these, 1.2 billion earn less than $1 a day. |
