The Global Collaborative Co-Financing Platform: A Big Step Forward for Development Finance

One Year Anniversary of the Co-financing Platform

Launched in April 2024, the Co-financing Platform currently has 16 members, including MDBs and bilateral partners. It presently hosts over 160 pipeline projects and 10 projects have had their financing needs met.

Read more about the Platform’s journey in this immersive story!

Robust Policies for Better Public Services in Africa: The 2025 Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) Report in 6 Charts

Since 2006, The World Bank’s annual Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) Report has been a guide for countries, policymakers, and investors, identifying key trends and best practices that support effective public service delivery and foster a more resilient and prosperous future for Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The CPIA is an annual diagnostic tool for SSA countries eligible for financing from the International Development Association (IDA), the part of the World Bank that helps the world’s low-income countries by providing grants and low to zero-interest loans for projects and programs that boost economic growth, reduce poverty, and improve people’s lives. The CPIA Report aims to capture the quality of each country’s policies and institutional arrangements, focusing on the elements within the country’s control. The scores are designed to assess sustainable growth and poverty reduction. The CPIA provides scores for each country, and an overall regional score, on a scale of 1 (lowest) to 6 (highest) in four clusters: economic management, structural policies, social inclusion and equity policies, and public sector management and institutions. The scores inform governments of the impact of each country’s efforts to support inclusive growth and poverty reduction, and the overall score helps determine the size of the World Bank’s concessional lending and grants to low-income SSA countries. The report includes scores for IDA-eligible countries and acts as a touchstone for country monitoring and regional best practices.

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Reforms to Boost Job Creation Could Help Transform the Philippines into a Middle-Class Society by 2040

MANILA, July 15, 2025 – Strategic reforms that enhance foundational investments in connectivity and human capital, promote smarter regulations and competition, and mobilize private investments for stronger job creation could propel the Philippines closer to a 7-percent growth trajectory, transforming it into a middle-class society by 2040.

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Safer, Climate-Resilient Roads Set to Improve Lives of 13,000 people in Comoros

Washington, July 7, 2025—Comoros is set to rehabilitate 12 kilometers of climate-resilient roads, restoring vital connectivity and strengthening disaster resilience for 13,000 people in one of the country’s most cyclone-affected regions. Additional financing of $12.5 million through a grant from the World Bank Group’s International Development Association (IDA), will complete the critical Mtsangadjou–Foumbouni corridor, enhancing access and safety for vulnerable coastal communities.

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Unlocking Futures: How the IDA Private Sector Window Is Creating Jobs Where They Are Needed Most

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

  • By leveraging IFC and MIGA business platforms, the IDA PSW creates an opportunity for the strategic use of public resources to catalyze private investment, making it possible for companies and industries to operate in high-risk, fragile, and conflict-affected settings.
  • A total of $5.4 billion from the IDA PSW has catalyzed over $31 billion in commercial investments in low-income and fragile countries and is expected to create 3 million jobs, provide 4 million additional loans to micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), and expand digital connectivity to 31 million subscribers.
  • From agribusiness in Mozambique to telecom infrastructure in West Africa and clean water access in Haiti, IDA PSW-supported investments are building the ecosystems needed to sustain jobs, boost resilience, and spark inclusive economic growth.
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Tracking SDG 7 – The Energy Progress Report 2025

Highlights

  • In 2023, the number of new electricity connections outpaced population growth, increasing global access to electricity to 92%. While this means 19 million fewer people are without electricity compared to the previous year, 666 million people are still without power. In addition, this rate of growth is not fast enough to ensure universal access to electricity by 2030.
  • 85% of the world’s population without electricity lives in Sub-Saharan Africa, up from 50% in 2010. In 2023, 35 million people in this region got electricity, but due to population growth, the number of people without electricity only decreased by 5 million, from 570 million in 2022 to 565 million in 2023.
  • Most people without electricity live in remote areas, places facing conflict or violence, and low-income regions, making it hard to expand the electricity grid. However, new technologies and business models for decentralized renewable energy (DRE) – such as solar home systems and solar mini grids- offer flexible solutions for these areas. These solutions are expected to help over 561 million people worldwide in 2023, and they provided 55% of new electricity connections in Sub-Saharan Africa from 2020 to 2022.
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Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations: Intertwined Crises, Multiple Vulnerabilities

Economies in fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS) are burdened by weak institutions and are particularly vulnerable to overlapping shocks—including conflict, natural disasters, commodity price swings, and global downturns. Nearly three-quarters of FCS economies have remained classified as such for over a decade, highlighting the persistence of their challenges and underlying fragility. Limited fiscal space further constrains these economies from responding to shocks and investing in essential services such as education, health, and infrastructure.

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World Bank Group, IAEA Formalize Partnership to Collaborate on Nuclear Energy for Development

PARIS, June 26, 2025—The World Bank Group and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) sealed an agreement today to work together to support the safe, secure and responsible use of nuclear energy in developing countries. The partnership agreement, signed by World Bank Group President Ajay Banga and IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, formalizes multiple engagements between the two institutions over the last year, and marks the World Bank Group’s first concrete step to reengage with nuclear power in decades.

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Slovenia Increases Contribution to World Bank’s IDA by 30%

The Radical Debt Transparency report—an update to 2021’s Debt Transparency in Developing Countries—shows that despite significant improvements in recent years, major debt transparency deficiencies continue to plague many developing countries. As the global financing environment tightens, several governments are turning to off-budget and increasingly complex debt instruments such as collateralized loans, private placements, and central bank swaps, that risk giving rise to new hidden debts. Gaps in legislative frameworks, institutional fragmentation, and limited oversight can contribute to debt reporting challenges, as seen in recent experiences. Transparency in debt restructuring processes also remains uneven. This report calls for a radical shift toward debt transparency as critical to debt sustainability, urging legislative reforms, stronger oversight of unconventional debt, broader loan-level reporting, and greater use of automation and reconciliation tools.

REPORT