| The analytical skills of the World Bank's researchers and its vast experience in tackling development problems provide a foundation for research on critical policy issues facing the developing world. As this volume attests, Bank research projects investigate a broad range of issues in a wide variety of settings. But the policy challenges around the world are profuseand the World Bank's research resources scarce and declining. |
| Ideally, research projects would be conducted both concurrently and collaboratively by the World Bank and developing countries. Those facing the policy problemsand their consequencesare best able to identify which are priorities. And local researchers can better account for local conditions, institutions, and cultures. But policy research requires extensive education and training, access to current data and information, computing technology, institutional support, and financeresources that many developing and transition economies lack. |
| Thus a single developing country may be unable to support research institutions independently. But cofinancing by several countries can make many research activities feasible. International collaboration also allows researchers to address common issues jointly, and to learn from the experience of countries facing similar problems. |
| To help foster regional collaboration and build research capacity, the World Bank has supported the development of regional networks over the past decade. These networks create regional communities of researchers who share data and new methods, critique and encourage one another's work, and help train one another's students. Prominent international experts provide tutorials or review the reports of junior researchers in workshops, present their own work at regional conferences, and teach at local universities through international exchange programs. Grant competitions motivate researchers to develop new and creative approaches to investigating policy problems. Fellowships encourage students and scholars working abroad to return, introducing them to the budding local research community and to new opportunities for applying their skills to their country's needs. The networks establish new channels for communication among fragmented research groups and often isolated researchers: journals, newsletters, Websites, electronic mail, and working papers series. |
| The Bank has provided grant funds to help establish and strengthen regional research networks, such as the African Economic Research Consortium and the program for Economic Education and Capacity Building in Transition Economies.But its role is intended to be catalytic, and after an initial period the networks have obtained long-term support from other international agencies, private foundations, and local businesses and institutions. |
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