India s landmark Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (2009) guarantees education to all children aged 6-14 years. The Act mandates specific student-teacher ratios and emphasizes teacher quality. Writing this into legislation took seven years, but the seven years since has proven that ensuring effective teachers are recruited and placed in all schools in a time-bound manner is considerably more challenging. This report takes a detailed look at the complexity of the teacher management landscape in elementary and secondary schools in nine Indian states. On a daily basis, the...
India s landmark Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (2009) guarantees education to all children aged 6-14 years. The Act mandates ...
Vietnam is at a crossroads. It can grow as an export platform for GVCs, specializing in low value-added assembly functions with industrialization occurring in enclaves with little connection to the broader economy or society; or it can leverage the current wave of growth, enabled and accelerated by its successful participation in GVCs, to diversify and move up the chain into higher value-added functions. Success will require Vietnam's policymakers to view the processes of development differently, and to take new realities of the global economy more fully into account. The purpose of this...
Vietnam is at a crossroads. It can grow as an export platform for GVCs, specializing in low value-added assembly functions with industrialization o...
By most accounts, rural Malawi has lacked dynamism in the past decade. Growth has been mostly volatile, in large part due to unstable macroeconomic fundamentals evidenced by high inflation, fiscal deficits, and interest rates. When rapid economic growth has materialized, the gains have not always reached the poorest. Poverty remains high and the rural poor face significant challenges in consistently securing enough food. Several factors contribute to stubbornly high rural poverty. They include a low-productivity and non-diversified agriculture, macroeconomic and recurrent climatic shocks,...
By most accounts, rural Malawi has lacked dynamism in the past decade. Growth has been mostly volatile, in large part due to unstable macroeconomic fu...
Sub-Saharan Africa's natural resource-rich countries have poor human development. Children in these countries are more likely to die before their first birthday, more likely to be stunted, and less likely to attend school than children in other countries with similar income. Despite the current price downturn, extractives will remain an important part of Sub-Saharan Africa's growth story--using resource rents wisely remains a long term challenge. Governments must choose how to allocate resource rents between spending, investing in human or physical capital, or investing in global financial...
Sub-Saharan Africa's natural resource-rich countries have poor human development. Children in these countries are more likely to die before their f...
This book proposes a simple framework for understanding the political economy of subsidy reform and applies it to four in-depth country studies covering more than 30 distinct episodes of reform. Five key lessons emerge. First, energy subsidies often follow a life cycle, beginning as a way to stabilize prices and reduce exposure to price volatility for low-income consumers. However, as they grow in size and political power, they become entrenched. Second, subsidy reform strategies vary because the underlying political economy problems vary. When benefits are concentrated, satisfying (or...
This book proposes a simple framework for understanding the political economy of subsidy reform and applies it to four in-depth country studies coveri...
An Investment Framework for Nutrition: Reaching the Global Targets for Stunting, Anemia, Breastfeeding, and Wasting estimates the costs, impacts, and financing scenarios to achieve the World Health Assembly global nutrition targets for stunting, anemia in women, exclusive breastfeeding and the scaling up of the treatment of severe wasting among young children. To reach these four targets, the world needs US$70 billion over 10 years to invest in high-impact nutrition-specific interventions. This investment would have enormous benefits: 65 million cases of stunting and 265 million cases of...
An Investment Framework for Nutrition: Reaching the Global Targets for Stunting, Anemia, Breastfeeding, and Wasting estimates the costs, impacts, and ...
The Dominican Republic stands out as a fast growing economy that has not been able to generate a commensurate reduction in poverty. Three reasons have been raised before to explain this conundrum: (i) a labor market that does not translate productivity gains into salary increases; (ii) a domestic economy with weak inter-sectoral linkages; (iii) and a public sector that does not spend enough nor particularly well to reduce poverty. In addition, the country remains largely exposed to natural disasters and exogenous shocks that, if not mitigated properly, may affect the sustainability of growth...
The Dominican Republic stands out as a fast growing economy that has not been able to generate a commensurate reduction in poverty. Three reasons have...
The Skills Toward Employment and Productivity (STEP) Survey is an initiative of the World Bank in cooperation with other development partners and nongovernmental agencies and carried out in more than 14 countries globally. In Ghana, the first phase of the survey focusing on adults in urban communities was carried out in cooperation with the University of Ghana's Institute of Statistical, Social, and Economic Research (ISSER), the Ministry of Education, the Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (COTVET), and the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS).
The Skills Toward Employment and Productivity (STEP) Survey is an initiative of the World Bank in cooperation with other development partners and nong...
Higher education (HE) in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has expanded dramatically in the last fifteen years, as the average gross enrollment rate has grown from 21% to 43% between 2000 and 2013, and many new institutions and programs have opened. While HE access has become more equitable, and HE supply has become more varied, many of the system's "new" students are, on average, less academically ready than their more advantaged counterparts. Furthermore, only half of HE students, on average, complete their degree; while still high, labor market returns to HE are declining, and vary...
Higher education (HE) in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has expanded dramatically in the last fifteen years, as the average gross enrollment...
Named peril index insurance has great potential to address unmet risk management needs for agricultural insurance in developing economies, potentially contributing to increased agricultural sustainability and improved food security.
However, the development and appraisal of index insurance business lines is not without challenges. Insurers must rigorously evaluate the quality of the products they offer and take care to ensure that distributors and policyholders understand the benefits and limits of the purchased coverage. Without these important steps to ensure responsible...
Named peril index insurance has great potential to address unmet risk management needs for agricultural insurance in developing economies, potentia...
