World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick, in his speech ahead of the Bank´s annual meetings in Washington, said that development economics needs to address the pressing questions facing developing country leaders and to recognize that different approaches may be needed at different stages of development in order to become more relevant for policy makers.[break]
“Too often research economists seem not to start with the key knowledge gaps facing development practitioners, but rather search for questions they can answer with the industry´s currently favorite tools,” Zoellick said.
Zoellick said the global economic crisis had made the need for a rethink of development economics even more compelling. “Development knowledge should become multi-polar to recognize the rising importance of developing countries as new poles of growth and experience,” said he.
He even noted that as the largest single source of development knowledge, the WB´s role must change if it wanted to keep its status as a pioneer in development economics research.
Under the new model of its research, Zoellick said WB would give outsiders software tools and access through the Internet to the Bank´s store of data so that they could do their own research and data analysis and thereby contribute to knowledge about development.
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