World Development Report 2025: Standards for Development

Standards play a simultaneously central and unsung role in our modern world. From the first attempts to unify weights and measures in ancient empires to today's complex web of international protocols governing everything from the internet to food safety, standards have been the bedrock upon which societies build their economic, political, and social structures. But who sets standards, and why does that matter? And what roles do standards play in the progress of nations?

Because development ...