Bad governance undermines development. Two important types of World Bank support for local governance are social funds and broadly based support for governments committed to decentralizing responsibility and power to local governments and other local institutions. But there are concerns that these two...

Sub-Saharan Africa's long-term growth performance will need to improve significantly for the region to visibly reduce poverty and raise the standard of living to an acceptable level. Appropriate actions will also be needed to ensure that an adequate share of the growing income is devoted to reducing p...