YOUR CONCERNS ARE THE WORLD BANK'S PRIORITIES
Our work in more than 100 countries is challenging, but our mission is simple: to help reduce poverty. Over the past 20 years the proportion of people living in poverty in the developing world fell by half—from 40 percent to 21 percent. Meanwhile, in the past few decades, life expectancy in developing countries has increased by 20 years, the number of children dying before the age of five has been reduced 50 percent, and adult illiteracy has been halved to 25 percent. And yet, over a billion people still struggle to survive on a dollar a day. The World Bank seeks to help those people through our support for social services like health, nutrition, and education as well as for infrastructure and policies to improve governance and fight corruption. Today, countries themselves are coming to us with their own plans for helping poor people, and we work together in real partnership.
