The global financial crisis of 2008-09 did not just change the global economic order. It also changed the way we think about that order. Principles and practices that were once accepted wisdom are now in doubt or discredited. New, fundamental questions opened. And the search for answers has barely begun. For the developing world, that conceptual uncertainty is particularly uncomfortable-through a mix of good policies and good luck, they had begun to achieve real progress. Will all that now be derailed? What does the new horizon bring to them? Can they find new policy ideas that will turn the shock of the crisis into a final run toward "developed" status? How does the future look when seen from various geographic regions? Those are the kind of questions that we asked, in the summer of 2010, to some 40 development professionals working at the World Bank. This book is an unfiltered collection of their views. As seasoned practitioners in the leading development institution, they have a unique perspective from which to visualize, we would dare say "to sense," what may be coming.
Some of them look at the big picture of the role that the developing world is about to play, and how it will play it. Others walk us through the conceptual links around specific issues that will affect that world-say, the likely evolution of macro-financial regulation. And others take us to continents and countries, teach us about their realities, and tell us how things will differ in the coming years. Put together, they paint a picture of reasoned optimism.