• Submissions will be accepted until February 22, 2009.

• Each participant may submit entries in more than one category, but only one submission per category is allowed. This means that you may submit one essay, one video and one photo (although, of course, you can choose to submit, for example, only an essay), but you may not submit, for example, two essays.

• Participants must be between 18 and 25 years of age on June 15, 2009.

• Essays must not be longer than 4,000 words. Videos must not be longer than 2 minutes. There is no minimum length.

• Submissions can only be made online, in English, French, or Spanish. Essays and photos are submitted via the Essay Competition website and videos are submitted via YouTube. Each participant must fill in a submission form on the Essay Competition website.

• Each essay must be accompanied by a summary (max. 250 words). The summary will be used by the jury to make a pre-selection. Each photo must be accompanied by a description of no more than 150 words.

• All submissions will be blind reviewed. References to specific individuals, firms, or schools, which might reveal the author's identity, are discouraged. It is not allowed to indicate your name anywhere on your work.

• Quotes and references must be clearly marked throughout the essay and properly cited.

• All submissions must be original. No previously published material will be accepted. Any form of plagiarism will result in automatic disqualification. Please note that
all essays will be screened with specialized software to verify plagiarism.

• Essays are accepted in the .doc or .pdf format, while photos can only be submitted as .jpg files of maximum 2.5 MB.

• The World Bank reserves the right to publish and/or to make available to the public the winning submissions. The World Bank reserves the right to modify the format and content of the submissions for publication purposes. 

• The decision of the Jury is final and is not subject to an appeal.

• Participants of the previous editions of the Essay Competition are also encouraged to apply.

• Active (between the time of essay submission and the Final Jury in June 2009), paid staff (term or open-ended) of partner organizations (see list) of Essay Competition 2009 are not eligible to participate.