The World Bank Knowledge for Development web site (http://www.worldbank.org/wbi/knowledgefordevelopment/) provides the following framework “to help countries articulate strategies for their transition to a knowledge-based economy:
· An economic and institutional regime to provide incentives for the efficient use of existing and new knowledge and the flourishing of entrepreneurship.
· An educated and skilled population to create, share, and use knowledge well.
· A dynamic information infrastructure to facilitate the effective communication, dissemination, and processing of information.
· An efficient innovation system of firms, research centers, universities, consultants, and other organizations to tap into the growing stock of global knowledge, assimilate and adapt it to local needs, and create new technology”
The Framework is echoed in the related Knowledge Economy page of the Development Gateway portal (http://www.developmentgateway.org/knowledge). I suggest that this framework is best understood within the context of the World Bank and its mission.

The Framework provides a focus on the economic and institutional regime, while emphasizing three sectors in which investments can be made. The Bank has rightly recognized that without an appropriate economic and institutional regime not much good will happen; it uses the leverage of its ability to mobilize financial resources to bargain for policy and institutional reforms, and indeed will fund technical assistance to improve these regimes. Thus policy conditions and reforms are frequently included in Bank projects.

The bottom line for the Bank is financing development, and so its initiatives are best conceptualized to result in “Bankable” projects. The above Framework suggests the development of projects that fund certain kinds of investments in education (especially higher education), in the information infrastructure (telephones, computers, etc.), and in the innovation system (involving firms innovating in products and processes, research centers, intellectual property rights, etc.).

It has been possible to conceptualize coherent projects combining financing for such activities, and relatively clear that such projects could be economically justified as producing economic returns consonant with their investment. Note that Bank projects have size constraints: too small and the development and implementation costs can not be justified by the return on the project; too large, and division of the project into smaller units tends to be preferred. Thus in large countries one might see a K4D program divided into several subprojects.

I think the Framework is a good one, which will work for many developing nations and stimulate useful Bank projects and efforts. It is not the only Framework however, and may not be adequate for some K4D needs or opportunities. In my next few postings I will try to consider some alternative ways to conceptualize K4D and projectize K4D approaches.