The World Bank has published a knowledge framework — a structured guide — for understanding how cities become engines of regional and national economic development. The framework helps policymakers and development agencies see which city-level conditions (infrastructure, institutions, labor markets, connectivity) actually predict whether a city will attract investment and create jobs, rather than guessing based on intuition or copying policies from unrelated places.
Why it matters
Most development spending on cities still follows inherited playbooks or donor preferences rather than evidence about what actually works; a shared analytical framework lets governments test their assumptions against data and learn which interventions move the needle on growth.