In 1996, former World Bank Group President James D. Wolfensohn announced a change in the way the World Bank would work to combat global poverty. Moving beyond its role as a financial institution, the World Bank would strive to be a “knowledge bank,” with a special focus on disseminating knowledge and building capacity in poor and developing countries. As an extension of this initiative, the World Bank Institute launched B-SPAN as an Internet-based broadcasting service in 2000.

Since its inception, B-SPAN has featured over 800 events held by World Bank departments and their partners, attracting thousands of development practitioners, government officials, academics, journalists, NGO representatives, and others to its Web site. Each month, a newsletter highlighting B-SPAN’s newest features goes out via e-mail to 18,000 recipients around the world.

B-SPAN is presently operated by the Global Development Learning Network’s Multimedia Center of the World Bank Institute.

B-SPAN is the webcasting service of the World Bank Group, presenting seminars, workshops and conferences on a variety of sustainable development and poverty reduction issues via streaming video.

The World Bank and its partners play host to numerous seminars, workshops and conferences where the world's leading development experts and practitioners discuss the latest developments in a range of sectors, including agriculture, sustainable development, finance, poverty reduction, health, education, governance, environment, energy, infrastructure, rural and urban development, and more. Through B-SPAN, the discussions, debates, and key points of these events can be preserved and made available to a worldwide audience.

B-SPAN webcasts are free to view. World Bank staff, academics, students, researchers, journalists, NGO representatives, and members of the public-at-large can virtually "attend" events from anywhere in the world where the Internet is accessible. By bringing World Bank events to the computer screen, B-SPAN is an invaluable tool for the World Bank’s missions of promoting transparency and sharing knowledge.

All B-SPAN events appear in their original format — videos are not edited for content. We also provide indexing for quick access to specific speakers, display an accompanying summary to assist in watching the video, archive videos on the B-SPAN Web site, and inform World Bank officials of new releases which might be of interest to them.