The World Development Report 1999/1998 was launched in October 1998 . The Report analyzes the risks and opportunities that the global information revolution is creating for developing countries, and concludes that access to financial, technical, and medical knowledge is crucial to improving the health and living standards of the poor. Presentation of the launch.

 

"Knowledge can make the difference between sickness and health, between poverty and wealth.  Governments that adopt policies to make the most of knowledge will have major advantage in improving the lives of their citizens " — Carl Dahlman, WDR Director

 The report focuses on two types of knowledge-and two types of problems-that are critical for developing countries:

• How-to knowledge, such as nutrition, birth control, engineering, or accounting. Typically, developing countries have less know-how than industrial countries, and poor people have less know-how than wealthier people. The report argues that closing these knowledge gaps-for example, through education, better phone systems, and openness to exchanges with foreign countries, including trade-can do much to help the world's poorest people to improve their lives.
• Second, knowledge about attributes or characteristics, such as the quality of a product, diligence of a worker, or creditworthiness of a firm. The report describes this lack of knowledge as "information problems" and argues that this in turn leads to market failures, such as lenders' refusal to offer loans to poor people, because of the difficulty in assessing their ability to repay.