World Bank

The World Bank, with headquarters in Washington, D.C., and with offices in more than 100 nations, is [Page 471]an international nongovernmental organization that provides financial and technical assistance to combat poverty around the world. The organization's motto is “Working for a World Free of Poverty.” The World Bank accomplishes this through financial assistance by providing loans, credits, and grants to low- and middle-income nations for investments in government, social services, medicine, business, and environmental protection. It also provides considerable technical assistance, usually in the form of policy or legal advice on reforms needed to reach poverty reduction goals, as well as data, donor aid coordination, research and evaluation, data analysis, and research capacity building. In fiscal year 2009, the World Bank provided nearly $47 billion ...