Blog Posts
Posts written for the World Bank’s blogs, most recent first.
Failed twice: weak learning in school, few skills learned on the jobJune 2026Atlas of Global Development data show that while school enrollment has risen, learning outcomes remain weak and many workers lack opportunities to build skills on the job, limiting human capital and earnings growth.
Can we even measure progress? The state of development dataMay 2026The World Bank Group Atlas of Global Development 2026 shows how outdated surveys, missing learning assessments, and weak statistical systems are limiting countries’ ability to track poverty, health, education, and economic progress.
Five things you can learn from the new Human Capital Index Plus (HCI+)April 2026The World Bank’s Human Capital Index Plus shows how health, education, and jobs shape lifetime earnings. Explore global data, gender gaps, and policy simulations through the HCI+ app.
New Statistical Performance Indicators (SPI) data release: How are national statistical systems performing?November 2025The 2025 update of the Statistical Performance Indicators shows global progress has stalled since COVID-19—while lower-income countries continue to close gaps in data services and infrastructure.
Inside the World Development Indicators: How do we select the indicators?March 2025The World Development Indicators (WDI) database selects indicators based on quality, coverage, relevance, and usability. Learn how the World Bank ensures global development data remains rigorous and reliable.
Global academic research is skewed toward rich countries. How do World Bank policy research papers fit in?July 2024Explore how World Bank Policy Research Papers address the skew in global academic research favoring rich countries, offering vital insights for low- and middle-income nations often overlooked in scholarly studies.
Missing evidence: tracking academic data use around the worldFebruary 2024The full value of data rests in its conversion to public policies or when is used to increase accountability. Academic research is a major source of these insights. But how can we tell if countries are getting the most of the data they produce through academic research?
New SPI data: Seven charts to understand the performance of national statistical systems around the worldJanuary 2024The World Bank released new data for the Statistical Performance Indicators (SPI)—a set of 50+ indicators which measure the performance of national statistical systems around the globe.
Unpacking the Mystery of Missing Gender DataSeptember 2023In a recent working paper, “Missing SDG Gender Indicators”, we examine coverage of gender data in the SDG monitoring framework and find that only a third of gender related SDG data are available. Moreover, we try to unpack what drives this lack of data.
Rebuilding economies after COVID-19: Will countries recover?September 2023SDG 8 aims to promote sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, full employment, and decent work for all. But COVID-19 caused the deepest global recession in decades, reducing global GDP by 3.1 percent in 2020.
Rebuilding education systems after COVID-19: How the pandemic has impacted schooling and learningAugust 2023Progress towards SDG 4, which aims to provide high-quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all children, was severely disrupted by COVID-19.
Beyond hunger: A healthy diet for a healthy lifeJuly 2023SDG 2 calls for ending hunger and achieving nutrition security for all through increased access to healthy diets. Today, 3.1 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet – that is 40 percent of the global population.
What is driving the learning crisis? Clues from the initial rollout of the Global Education Policy DashboardMay 2023With an estimated 70% of 10-year-olds unable to read a simple text, education systems are in a learning crisis. There is an urgent need to invest in education, but given strained budgets, that investment ought to be strategic.
Better data for boosting student learningJanuary 2023In our previous post, we emphasized the need for rigorous data that can inform investment and guide policy making for education in low- and middle-income countries. This need has only grown since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has sharply worsened learning outcomes while also tightening education budgets and in many cases forcing countries to do more with less.
Not all data are created equal: why the adoption of international data standards pays offSeptember 2021In 2010, Ghana made international headlines when its nominal GDP grew 63% overnight as a result of adopting revised standards for its system of national accounts. When Nigeria rebased its GDP in 2014 for the first time in 24 years…
Are we there yet? Many countries don’t report progress on all SDGs according to the World Bank’s new Statistical Performance IndicatorsAugust 2021The 17 SDGs lay out a uniquely ambitious and comprehensive agenda for global development until 2030. However, achieving these goals is not the only challenge. Monitoring progress towards these goals represents an enormous task for countries’ statistical systems.
The Statistical Performance Indicators: A new tool to measure the performance of national statistical systemsMarch 2021Today, the World Bank is launching the Statistical Performance Indicators (SPI) – a new set of indicators to measure the performance of national statistical systems in 174 economies from 2016 to 2019.