The World Bank

Created in 1944, the World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans for capital programs to developing countries. The World Bank is a component of the World Bank Group, which is part of the United Nations system. The World Bank is comprised of 189 member countries represented by a board of governors. Although headquartered in Washington, D.C., the World Bank has a presence in almost every nation in the world. The World Bank’s primary function is providing low-interest loans and grants to developing countries. It tends to fund projects focused on education, infrastructure, the environment and natural-resource management, and public health. In many instances, the World Bank provides technical assistance as well as research and policy advice to developing nations.

The World Bank has set two goals to achieve by 2030:

1. End extreme poverty by decreasing the percentage of the world’s population that live on less than US$1.90 per day to no more than 3 percent
2. Promote shared prosperity by fostering the income growth of the bottom 40 percent in every country

The World Bank has provided financial and technical support in response to natural disasters such as volcanic eruption and tsunami in Tonga in the South Pacific and flooding and earthquakes in Morocco in Africa.^[1] To improve educational and business opportunities online, the World Bank improved access to better quality and high‐speed broadband services in the European country of Kosovo, making online knowledge sources, services, and labor markets available to individuals as well as public and academic institutions.^[2]

Other World Bank projects are aimed at improving basic infrastructure, such as building and maintaining safe water supplies and sanitary sewer systems in Africa and parts of Asia. For developing nations, many of these improvements would be impossible without the World Bank’s help.