January 22, 2008—The theme of the upcoming World Economic Forumin Davos, Switzerland, January 23-27, is "The Power of Collaborative Innovation," and will include sessions on economic insecurity, climate change, and bridging global divides among others.
Here's an overview of World Bank research related to the five pillars of the forum's program.
Doing Business provides objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement across 178 countries and selected cities at the sub-national and regional level.
Governance Indicators project reports indicators for 212 countries and territories between 1996–2006, for six dimensions of governance: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, Control of Corruption.
Logistics Performance Index identifies the challenges and opportunities countries face in their performance on trade logistics.
Economics and Finance: Addressing Economic Insecurity
Global Economic Prospects 2008: Developing countries will cushion rich-country slowdown in 2008, according to the just released report.
World Development Report 2008, Agriculture for Development, says farming has been neglected over the past 20 years, yet 75% of the world’s poor still live in rural areas. The agriculture sector must be placed at the center of development to cut in half extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.
Unleashing India's Innovation: While India is becoming a top global innovator for high-tech products and services, the country needs to aggressively harness its innovation potential to sustain competitiveness, economic growth, and rising living standards.
East Asia Update: East Asian economies are likely to remain robust in 2008 despite growing concerns about the U.S. sub-prime crisis and increasing global oil prices, according to a report published in November.
Geopolitics: Aligning Interests across Divides
African Development Indicators: After years of stop-and-start results, many African economies appear to be growing at the fast and steady rates needed to put a dent in the region's high poverty rate and attract global investment.
Science and Technology: Exploring Nature's New Frontiers
Ageing Societies: Old-Age Income Support in the 21st Century draws on Bank experiences and research that have significantly increased knowledge and insight regarding how best to proceed in the future. The Bank has been involved in pension reforms in nearly 60 countries, and the demand for its support continues to grow.
Climate Change: Can the world put the brakes on global warming and climate change without threatening economic growth that has lifted millions out of poverty?
Disease Eradication: Communicable diseases are are the world's biggest killers of children and important causes of preventable deaths among adults in the developing world. More information on HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis.
Natural Resource Management: Who has access to and control over land and natural resources? These resources are often used by many users for different purposes, and are subject overlapping and contested claims, all of which raise governance and assurance problems and hinder poverty reduction efforts.
Values and Society: Understanding Future Shifts
Migration and Remittances Website: Recorded remittances to developing countries reached some $240 billion in 2007. But the true size of remittances, including unrecorded flows, is even larger.
Migration and Remittances in East Europe and the Former Soviet Union: Migration within and from East European and Central Asian countries has been large and will likely continue to increase as declining birthrates across much of the region will lead to an increased demand for a young labor force.
Female Migration: Women make up almost half the migrant population in the world and their numbers are increasing.
International Migration, Remittances, Brain Drain: While the mobility of highly skilled workers can offer many benefits, the consequences of the brain drain could be serious for many small developing countries.
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