The article presents the evolution of World Bank's assistance policy and the Bank's role in working towards the Millenium Development Goals adopted by the United Nations in 2000. World Bank's statutory obligation is to improve the standards of living for people around the world, and in particular to reduce poverty. It is therefore the largest and most important organization that contributes to the development goals adopted by the UN. World Bank's activities in this area have recently become systemic in nature. They are aimed both at creating Country Assistance Strategies, Poverty Reduction Strategies and sector strategies in collaboration with beneficiary countries' governments, and at providing financial assistance in the form of grants and concessional loans. A key element of the activities is World Bank's lobbying on behalf of low-income countries, aimed at liberalizing the world trade and obtaining bilateral and multilateral financial assistance for such countries. These factors - the more open trade and well-spent, increased assistance from developed countries - will contribute to sustained improvement of the standards of living in developing countries.

Although the achievement of the Millenium Development Goals worldwide by 2015 does not seem feasible, there has been considerable progress. The benefits of World Bank's systemic approach to poverty reduction are beginning to emerge, including the decreased percentage of population that live on less than 1 USD per day, reduced mortality of children, and improved access to elementary education.