This book and its companion volumes, The Little Data Book and The Little Green Data Book, are prepared by a team coordinated by M. H. Saeed Ordoubadi. Team members are Mehdi Akhlaghi, Augusto Clavijo, David Cieslikowski , Mahyar Eshragh-Tabary, Richard Fix, Amy Heyman, Masako Hiraga, Raymond Muhula, Murat Omur, Sulekha Patel, Juan Carlos Rodriguez, Eric Swanson, K. M. Vijayalakshmi, Vivienne Wang, and Estela Zamora, working closely with other teams in the Development Economics Vice Presidency’s Development Data Group. The CD-ROM development team included Azita Amjadi, Ramgopal Erabelly, Saurabh Gupta, Reza Farivari, and William Prince. The work was carried out under the management of Shaida Badiee.

The choice of indicators and text content was shaped through close consultation with and substantial contributions from staff in the World Bank’s five thematic networks—Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development, Human Development, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management, Private Sector Development and Infrastructure—and staff of the International Finance Corporation and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency. Most important, the team received substantial help, guidance, and data from external partners. For individual acknowledgments of contributions to the book’s content, please see the Credits section. For a listing of our key partners, see the Partners section.

Communications Development Incorporated provided overall design direction, editing, and layout, led by Meta de Coquereaumont and Bruce Ross-Larson. The editing and production team consisted of Joseph Costello, Christopher Trott, Timothy Walker, and Elaine Wilson. Communications Development’s London partner, Grundy & Northedge, provided art direction and design. Staff from External Affairs oversaw publication and dissemination of the book.