World Development Report 2011

Extract from the Foreword:

The 2011 World Development Report looks across disciplines and experiences drawn from around the world to offer some ideas and practical recommendations on how to move beyond conflict and fragility and secure development. The key messages are important for all countries—low, middle, and high income—as well as for regional and global institutions:

• Institutional legitimacy is the key to stability.
• Investing in citizen security, justice, and jobs is essential to reducing violence.
• Confronting this challenge effectively means that institutions need to change.
• We need to adopt a layered approach.

The stakes are high. A civil conflict costs the average developing country roughly 30 years of GDP growth, and countries in protracted crisis can fall over 20 percentage points behind in overcoming poverty.

Finding effective ways to help societies escape new outbursts or repeated cycles of violence is critical for global security and global development—but doing so requires a fundamental rethinking, including how we assess and manage risk.

Robert B. Zoellick, President, The World Bank Group