According to the prestigious ranking of The KNOW Network, which evaluates the organizations with the best knowledge management solutions, the World Bank ranked fourth and was the only non-profit organization in the top 20 (2001). The mission of the Bank focuses on the creation, use and sharing of knowledge. The knowledge management strategy in the World Bank is based on three pillars. These are: effective knowledge use, sharing knowledge with the Bank's partners and customers, as well as assistance to the Bank's customers in improving their skills of creating, using and accessing knowledge. The Bank's deliverable is consultancy, while a bank loan is but a complement to the Bank's offer.

The World Bank has been transformed into an institution whose major resource is the knowledge of its employees. The development vision relies on the appropriate use of that knowledge. The knowledge, understood as a strategic resource, has double significance in the World Bank:

1. it is a special product; the World Bank offers knowledge to its customers to solve their problems;
2. it is a resource that increases the effectiveness of the Bank's operations from the internal point of view.

The strategy of economic development support, pursued by the World Bank, is based on four pillars. As a result, any investment and development-supporting projects are evaluated in the context of their compliance with these assumptions. Before the Bank starts using knowledge to develop, it must acquire knowledge about development.

Communities of practitioners are a specific organizational form of work of professionals/experts dealing with similar problems. In the World Bank, as in many other organizations and companies with a large scope and distribution of activities, the communities are becoming a priceless tool to achieve the organizational objectives.

The Word Bank is a bank managed in a modern way. The solutions worked out there may also be an inspiration for the transformation of the Polish banking sector.