 The World Bank is a vital source of financial and technical assistance to developing countries around the world. The Bank is made up of two unique development institutions owned by 186 member countries—the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA).
Each institution plays a different but collaborative role to advance the vision of an inclusive and sustainable globalisation. The IBRD focuses on middle income and creditworthy poor countries, while IDA focuses on the poorest countries in the world. Together they provide low-interest loans, interest-free credits and grants to developing countries for a wide array of purposes that include investments in education, health, public administration, infrastructure, financial and private sector development, agriculture, and environmental and natural resource management.
Reducing global poverty – the world’s challenge - is World Bank’s main challenge. The Bank focuses on achievement of the Millennium Development Goals that call for the elimination of poverty and sustained development. The goals provide with targets and yardsticks for measuring results.
World Bank addresses the issues of poverty by its mission to help developing countries and their people reach the goals by working with their partners to alleviate poverty. The global challenges are thus addressed in ways that advance an inclusive and sustainable globalisation—that overcome poverty, enhance growth with care for the environment, and create individual opportunity and hope.
In South Asia, the World Bank partners the respective governments of the respective countries by providing them with loans for goods, work and services to support economic and social development projects in a broad range of sectors. The World Bank then supervises how each loan is used and evaluates the results. All loans are governed by operational policies, which make sure that operations are economically, financially, socially and environmentally sound.
World Bank’s assistance in helping South Asia develop and grow has been tremendous. The financial loans provided by the Bank over the years have proved to be an asset for this developing region. Be it healthcare, poverty reduction or infrastructure development, education or governance, the rate of development has been huge in different countries of South Asia.
World Bank’s strategy in South Asia is to accelerate economic growth and bring income poverty down. This it seeks to achieve through addressing the vast infrastructure needs and improving the urban and rural climate for investment. World Bank has provided financial assistance in the past to help the countries reduce the infrastructure gap so that other areas of social upliftment can be properly addressed. Well-being of the people of South Asia has always remained on the agenda of the World Bank. It has, with the help of the respective governments, taken important initiatives in overcoming the lacking in health, environment, gender disparity, agriculture, rural and urban infrastructure, social protection, employment opportunities etc. 
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