In 'At the Frontlines of Development' former World Bank country directors recount their experiences, both as managers of the World Bank's programs in global economic hotspots of the 1990s as well as throughout their careers in development economics. These essays detail, among many stories of development in the 1990s, how China and India lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, while Russia collapsed; how Bosnia and Herzegovina and Mozambique remade their war-ravaged economies; and how Thailand, Turkey, and Argentina fell into financial crisis. These remarkable stories, told in first-person...

Governments often expect more from their vocation education and training (VET) systems than the systems have been able to provide. These high expectations have resulted in heavy government involvement in VET. However, the exaggerated expectations and overly involved governments appear to be responsible for the disappointments that have plagued VET in many countries. Some countries are now realizing that demands from the VET systems may have been unrealistic and that the government's heavy involvement may be unnecessary. Based on the experiences of countries worldwide, 'Vocational Education...

Development policy discussions in Eurasia often become debates about how economies can be made more diversified. For a region that is resource-rich, this is to be expected. But Eurasian economies have in many ways become less diversified during the past two decades. At the same time, people are much better off today than they were in the 1990s: poverty has been cut in half, incomes have increased fivefold, and education and health have improved noticeably since the tumultuous days following the collapse of communism. Eurasia s economies have become more efficient: they are more integrated...