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  • Publication
    The State of the Global Education Crisis: A Path to Recovery
    (UNESCO, Paris, UNICEF, New York, and World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-12-10) UNESCO; UNICEF; World Bank
    Even before Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) hit, the world was already experiencing a learning crisis. 258 million primary- and secondary-school age children and youth were out of school. Many children who were in school were learning very little: 53 percent of all ten-year-old children in low- and middle-income countries were experiencing learning poverty, meaning that they were unable to read and understand a simple age-appropriate text at age 10. This report spotlights how COVID-19 has deepened the education crisis and charts a course for creating more resilient education systems for the future. Section one gives introduction. Section two documents COVID-19’s impacts on learning levels by presenting updated simulations and bringing together the latest documented evidence on learning loss from over 28 countries. Section three explores how the crisis has widened inequality and had greater impacts on already disadvantaged children and youth. Section four reviews evidence on learning recovery from past crises and highlights current policy responses that appear most likely to have succeeded in stemming learning losses, while recognizing that the evidence is still in a nascent stage. The final section discusses how to build on the investments made and the lessons learned during the pandemic to accelerate learning recovery and emerge from the crisis with increased education quality, resilience, and equity in the longer term.
  • Publication
    Renewing with Growth
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2021-03-29) World Bank
    Latin America and the Caribbean suffered the largest death toll from Covid‐19 across developing regions and the sharpest decline in economic activity. With fewer school days and lower employment rates, with higher public debt and more firms under stress, the effects could be long‐lasting. The crisis also triggered large‐scale economic restructuring, with productivity higher in the expanding than in the contracting sectors. Accelerated digitization could instill dynamism in finance, trade and labor markets, but it may amplify inequality within and across the countries in the region. Technology could transform the energy sector as well. Latin America and the Caribbean has the cleanest and potentially cheapest electricity generation matrix of all developing regions. But its electricity is the most expensive, due mainly to inefficiencies. Distributed generation within countries and electricity trade across countries, could make energy greener and cheaper, provided that the pricing is right.
  • Publication
    Building a Green, Resilient, and Inclusive Recovery
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2021-03-29) Malpass, David
    World Bank Group President David Malpass acknowledged the importance of the United Kingdom within the World Bank Group. He spoke about the Coronavirus (COVID-19) which descended on the poor like wildfire. He highlighted the Bank's approach to the interlinked crises of green, resilient, inclusive development (GRID). The World Bank is working to help countries build “Country Platforms” to engage with wider groups of development actors as they develop the programs with Bank support. He focused on three of the most pressing challenges of climate, debt, and inequality. There is a need for integrated, long-run strategies that emphasize green, resilient, and inclusive development. He concluded we can generate a recovery that ensures a broad and lasting rise in prosperity especially for the poorest and most marginalized.
  • Publication
    The Cost of Staying Healthy
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020-10-09) World Bank
    Latin America and the Caribbean was hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, which arrived on the back of years of disappointing economic growth and limited social progress, and after a wave of social unrest. This report reviews the impacts of the crisis as well as the policy responses by countries, which often involved sizeable social transfers. It also presents growth forecasts, and quarterly growth estimates based on satellite imagery. With countries experiencing a diverse mix of health costs and economic costs, the report analyzes how the effectiveness of containment policies, and their impact on economic activity, differ between richer and poorer countries. It also assesses the cost of staying healthy in normal times, showing how it is affected by the structure of the domestic pharmaceutical sector and by the effectiveness of public procurement of medicines. As the region may have to live with the virus for a while, four policy directions are proposed for discussion.
  • Publication
    Reversing the Inequality Pandemic
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-10-05) Malpass, David
    World Bank Group President David Malpass spoke about the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that has already changed our world decisively and forced upon the world a painful transformation. He explained the World Bank Group’s approach that has been comprehensive by focusing on saving lives, protecting the poor and vulnerable, ensuring sustainable business growth, and rebuilding in better ways. He focused on four urgent aspects of this work: (i) first, the need to redouble efforts to alleviate poverty and inequality; (ii) second, the associated loss of human capital and what must be done to restore it; (iii) third, the urgent need to help the poorest countries make their government debt more transparent and permanently reduce their debt burdens, two necessary steps to attract effective investment; and (iv) finally, how we can cooperate to facilitate the changes needed for an inclusive and resilient recovery.
  • Publication
    Trade Integration as a Pathway to Development?
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2019-10-10) World Bank
    After a period of rapid economic growth associated with high commodity prices, the Latin America and Caribbean region has again entered a phase of lackluster performance. Overall this slowdown seems more self-inflicted than imported, and the outlook for the region is not encouraging either. A tepid export response constrains the prospect of growing through external demand whereas limited fiscal space leaves little room to stimulate domestic demand. The outlook could deteriorate further if the international environment became less conducive. This report explores whether inward-looking development strategies could be one of the reasons for slow growth in Latin America and the Caribbean. Trade barriers are higher than in other developing regions, and while numerous preferential trade agreements have been signed, many of them are intra-regional. The report shows that South-North agreements are associated with increases in economic complexity and faster economic growth than South-South agreements. It illustrates the point by assessing the economic, social, spatial and environmental impacts of two major: South-North agreements signed over the last year.
  • Publication
    Remarks from World Bank Group President David Malpass at the G20 Leaders Summit
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-06-29) Malpass, David
    These remarks were delivered by David Malpass, President of the World Bank Group, at the G20 Leaders Summit held in Osaka, Japan. He spoke about how giving women better access to economic opportunities is critical to eliminate differences in living standards between men and women. He highlighted We-Fi which is so important and how the Bank was proud to celebrate its two-year anniversary in Osaka. He spoke about the developing countries and the Bank's role in actively identifying changes in the private sector environment that will attract investment and enable higher living standards and better lives. He explained the Bank's work in fragile states, such as the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, to help countries build stronger foundations so that young people are more able to stay rather than seeking to immigrate. He discussed reducing inequality and realizing inclusive and sustainable growth around the world, and how addressing these requires jobs, education, healthcare, attention to the environment, and robust commerce and trade among neighbors and nations. He concluded by saying that the Bank would continue to work with all the nations on these challenges.
  • Publication
    Effects of the Business Cycle on Social Indicators in Latin America and the Caribbean: When Dreams Meet Reality
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2019-04-04) Vegh, Carlos A.; Riera-Crichton, Daniel; Puig, Jorge; Camarena, José Andrée; Galeano, Luciana; Morano, Luis; Venturi, Lucila; Vuletin, Guillermo
    After mediocre growth in 2018 of 0.7 percent. LAC is expected to perform only marginally better in 2019 (growth of 0.9 percent) followed by a much more solid growth of 2.1 percent in 2020. LAC will face both internal and external challenges during 2019. On the domestic front. the recession in Argentina; a slower than expected recovery in Brazil from the 2014-2015 recession, anemic growth in Mexico. and the continued deterioration of Venezuela. present the biggest challenges. On the external front. the sharp drop in net capital inflows to the region since early 2018 and the monetary policy normalization in the United States stand among the greatest perils. Furthermore, the recent increase in poverty in Brazil because of the recession points to the large effects that the business cycle may have on poverty. The core of this report argues that social indicators that are very sensitive to the business cycle may yield a highly misleading picture of permanent social gains in the region.
  • Publication
    Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2018: Piecing Together the Poverty Puzzle
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2018-10-17) World Bank
    The World Bank Group has two overarching goals: End extreme poverty by 2030 and promote shared prosperity by boosting the incomes of the bottom 40 percent of the population in each economy. As this year’s Poverty and Shared Prosperity report documents, the world continues to make progress toward these goals. In 2015, approximately one-tenth of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty, and the incomes of the bottom 40 percent rose in 77 percent of economies studied. But success cannot be taken for granted. Poverty remains high in Sub- Saharan Africa, as well as in fragile and conflict-affected states. At the same time, most of the world’s poor now live in middle-income countries, which tend to have higher national poverty lines. This year’s report tracks poverty comparisons at two higher poverty thresholds—$3.20 and $5.50 per day—which are typical of standards in lower- and upper-middle-income countries. In addition, the report introduces a societal poverty line based on each economy’s median income or consumption. Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2018: Piecing Together the Poverty Puzzle also recognizes that poverty is not only about income and consumption—and it introduces a multidimensional poverty measure that adds other factors, such as access to education, electricity, drinking water, and sanitation. It also explores how inequality within households could affect the global profile of the poor. All these additional pieces enrich our understanding of the poverty puzzle, bringing us closer to solving it. For more information, please visit worldbank.org/PSP
  • Publication
    Guatemala’s Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene Poverty Diagnostic: Challenges and Opportunities
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2018-03) World Bank
    Poverty rates in Guatemala are among the highest in Latin America and the Caribbean, and Guatemala is now the second poorest country in the region, with only post-earthquake Haiti being poorer. Guatemala is an extreme outlier in the region in terms of chronic malnutrition, and almost half of all children in the country suffer from stunting. This report is part of a global initiative to improve the evidence base on the linkages between water supply, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), human development, and poverty and seeks to understand this paradigm through a careful examination of trends in access to water and sanitation and in corresponding linkages to poverty and health. It also reviews the governance structure and expenditure plans underpinning service delivery in WASH sectors in Guatemala. Finally, the report the challenges facing the water and sanitation sector in Guatemala are significant and will require, among other things, stronger political leadership to successfully reform and regulate the sector, greater focus on rural sanitation, and increased spending and budget execution. One of the key elements of this diagnostics is highlight what conditions led to a struggling WASH sector, particularly in rural areas. Despite a steep increase in water and sanitation coverage in the last 15 years, sanitation coverage is falling far behind drinking water coverage, with the lowest levels of coverage in rural areas affecting predominantly indigenous populations.