One hundred days into the war in Ukraine, civilians continue to bear the brunt of its hardships. More than 6.4 million people now have fled the country, another 8 million have been displaced internally—the most significant upheaval in Europe since World War II.

The geography of poverty is changing. Extreme poverty is increasingly concentrated in places characterized by fragility and violent conflict: by 2030, 85 percent of the extreme poor—some 342 million people—will live in fragile and conflict-affected states.1 Yet just one in five fragile states are on track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).2 Meaningful progress on the goal of reducing global extreme poverty requires meeting the development needs of vulnerable populations in fragile contexts; but assistance in these contexts has traditionally been limited to short-term humanitarian aid, ill-equipped to address underlying development challenges. World Bank leadership, staff, and shareholders recognize that protracted crises and associated mass displacement and chronic extreme hunger, as well as threats from sudden-onset emergencies such as climate disasters and pandemics, threaten development progress. Driving progress in these complex environments is the only way that the World Bank will meet its twin goals of reducing global poverty and improving shared prosperity, and address the underlying drivers of some of the world’s most protracted crises.

The Ukraine war has pushed the number of people forced to flee conflict, violence and persecution over the staggering milestone of 100 million, the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) announced in late May.