The idea of a Global Development Network was conceived at a meeting organized by The World Bank in Washington in May 1997. Participants included the heads of GDN's regional network partners and representatives of various bilateral and multilateral organizations and academic associations including United Nations Development Programme, the International Economics Association and The World Bank. It was not until December 1999, when GDN was launched as a response to the perceived paucity of support for research emanating from the developing and transitional world. GDN moved out of the World Bank offices in Washington DC and started operating as an independent network of research and policy institutes with the goal of generating and sharing knowledge, building research capacity and bridging the gap between ideas and policies for development.

The Global Development Network (GDN) is a worldwide network of research and policy institutes working to provide new perspectives to the development challenges of our time. A spin-off of the World Bank

World Bank

The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...

, GDN works to make policy-relevant research accelerate the pace of global development. The Government of India

Government of India

The Government of India, officially known as the Union Government, and also known as the Central Government, was established by the Constitution of India, and is the governing authority of the union of 28 states and seven union territories, collectively called the Republic of India...

 has granted it the status of international organization

International organization

An intergovernmental organization, sometimes rendered as an international governmental organization and both abbreviated as IGO, is an organization composed primarily of sovereign states , or of other intergovernmental organizations...

. GDN is engaged in research issues related to social and economic development, and encourages researchers by providing platform for the research. Every year GDN invites researchers, policy-makers and policy analysts to its annual conference. Its 2010 annual conference was held in Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

, Czech Republic

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

 (co-organised by GDN's regional hub CERGE-EI

CERGE-EI

CERGE-EI is an academic institution that provides an American-style PhD program in economics, a US-chartered Master of Arts program in Applied Economics , and the UPCES study abroad program. CERGE-EI also conducts research in theoretical and policy-related economics...

) and the 2011 conference will be held in Bogotá

Bogotá

Bogotá, Distrito Capital , from 1991 to 2000 called Santa Fé de Bogotá, is the capital, and largest city, of Colombia. It is also designated by the national constitution as the capital of the department of Cundinamarca, even though the city of Bogotá now comprises an independent Capital district...

, Colombia

Colombia

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

.