Person:
di Gropello, Emanuela
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Economics of education
Degrees
Departments
Mali, Niger and Chad Country Management Unit, The World Bank
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
January 31, 2023
Biography
Emanuela di Gropello is a Program Leader in the Mali, Niger and Chad Country Management Unit. She was previously a Lead Economist in the East Asia and Latin American Education Sector Units where she worked and published extensively on governance, financing and skills issues. She holds a Doctorate in Economics from the University of Oxford.
Publication Search Results
1 - 10 of 12
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Publication
Decentralized Systems of Health Care Delivery and the Role of Large Cities : A Comparative Analysis
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2002-07)South Africa is going through an important political and administrative reorganization and a series of structural reforms. The responsibility for primary health care, which was mostly provincial, is about to be decentralized to the Local Government level. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the on-going decentralization process in the Gauteng province and determine the role that Great Johannesburg can play within this new decentralized framework. To extract lessons and recommendations for Gauteng and Johannesburg, the paper takes a close look at the case of three middle -income Latin American countries, Chile, Colombia and Brazil, which offer valuable experience in the design and implementation of decentralized systems of health care delivery at the country and city level. It also looks at other international experiences. At the city level, the paper concludes that the case of Bogota in Colombia seems to be particularly relevant to the selection of a decentralized health care model for Johannesburg. It also shows that, in the longer run, the experiences provided by the current reforms in the UK and New Zealand would be worth looking at. Finally, a more general conclusion of the report is the finding that there is a wide range of possible roles for large cities in primary health care delivery and that the extent of this role will very much depend on the decentralization strategy adopted at the national level and on a number of key characteristics at the city level, among which the political and administrative structure, the fiscal and institutional capacity and the demographic structure could be identified. -
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Education Decentralization and Accountability Relationships in Latin America
(World Bank, Washington, D.C., 2004-11)The author analyzes decentralization reforms in the education sector in Latin America (their status, impact, and ongoing challenges) by making use of the accountability framework developed by the World Development Report 2004: Making Services Work for Poor People. She starts by identifying three main groups of models according to the subnational actors involved, the pattern adopted in the distribution of functions across subnational actors, and the accountability system central to the model. She then reviews the impact of these models according to the available empirical evidence, and explores determinants of this impact, extracting lessons useful to the design of future reforms. The author concludes that the single most important factor in ensuring the success or failure of a reform is the way the accountability relationships are set to work within each of the models and provides some lessons on how to get these relationships to work effectively. She also provides three main general lessons for selecting "successful" models: (1) avoid complicated models; (2) increase school autonomy and the scope for "client power," maintaining a clear role for the other accountability relationships; and (3) place more emphasis on the "management" accountability relationship and the sustainability of the models. -
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A Comparative Analysis of School-Based Management in Central America
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-06)El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua introduced education decentralization reforms, including school-based management (SBM) in some schools. As applied in Central America, (SBM) is a decentralization mechanism that shifts certain decision-making powers to the school level, emphasizing the role of community, and parental management in school affairs. The SBM programs aim to increase enrollments, efficiency, and parental and local community participation. Greater participations are also seen as a means to achieve other goals. In three cases-EDUCO (El Salvador), PRONADE (Guatemala), and PROHECO (Honduras)-the main objective is increasing enrollment in isolated rural areas affected by conflict, poverty, or natural disasters. The School Autonomy Program in Nicaragua aims to increase operational efficiency, by giving voice to parents and civil society on educational issues. The note discusses two key questions that arise: What effect have the reforms had on community empowerment, and educational outcomes? What can be learned by comparing the circumstances, reform designs, and contexts in the four countries? -
Publication
Out-of-School Youth in Sub-Saharan Africa : A Policy Perspective
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2015-02-27)The economic and social prospects are daunting for the 89 million out-of-school youth who comprise nearly half of all youth in Sub-Saharan Africa. Within the next decade, when this cohort becomes the core of the labor market, an estimated 40 million more youth will drop out, and will face an uncertain future with limited work and life skills. Furthermore, out-of-school youth often are policy orphans, positioned between sectors with little data, low implementation capacity, lack of interest in long-term sustainability of programs, insufficient funds, and little coordination across the different government agencies. This report provides a diagnostic analysis of the state of out-of-school youth in Sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on the 12- to 24-year-old cohort. This report also examines the decision path youth take as they progress through the education system and the factors that explain youth's school and work choices. It finds that individual and household characteristics, social norms, and characteristics of the school system all matter in understanding why youth drop out and remain out of school. In particular, six key factors characterize out-of-school youth: (i) most out-of-school youth drop out before secondary school; (ii) early marriage for female youth and (iii) rural residence increase the likelihood of being out of school; (iv) parental education level and (v) the number of working adults are important household factors; and (vi) lack of school access and low educational quality are binding supply-side constraints. Policy discussions on out-of-school youth are framed by these six key factors along with three entry points for intervention: retention, remediation, and integration. This report also reviews policies and programs in place for out-of-school youth across the continent. Ultimately, this report aims to inform public discussion, policy formulation, and development practitioners' actions working with youth in Sub-Saharan Africa. -
Publication
Scaling Up Nutrition for a More Resilient Mali: Nutrition Diagnostics and Costed Plan for Scaling Up
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-02)This paper builds on the global experience and Mali s context to identify an effective nutrition approach as well as costs and benefits of key nutrition programs, as part of a resilience agenda after the crisis. It is intended to help guide the selection of the most cost-effective interventions as well as strategies for scaling these up. The paper looks at both relevant nutrition-specific interventions, largely delivered through the health sector, and at multisectoral nutrition-sensitive interventions delivered through other sectors such as agriculture, social protection, and water and sanitation that have the potential to strengthen nutritional outcomes in Mali. We first estimate that the costs and benefits of implementing 10 nutrition-specific interventions in all regions of Mali would require a yearly public investment of $64 million. The expected benefits are large: annually about 480,000 Disability-adjusted Life Years (DALYs) and more than 14,000 lives would be saved and over 260,000 cases of stunting among children under five would be averted. However, because it is unlikely that the Government of Mali or its partners will find the $64 million necessary to reach full national coverage, we also consider three potential scale-up scenarios based on considerations of their potential for impact, the burden of stunting, resource requirements, and implementation capacity. Using cost-benefit analyses, we propose scale-up scenarios that represent a compromise between the need to move to full coverage and the constraints imposed by limited resources. We identify and cost six nutrition-sensitive interventions that are relevant to Mali s context and for which there are both evidence of positive impact on nutrition outcomes and some cost information. These findings point to a powerful set of nutrition-specific interventions and a candidate list of nutrition-sensitive approaches that represent a highly cost-effective approach to reducing child malnutrition in Mali. -
Publication
Skills for the Labor Market in Indonesia : Trends in Demand, Gaps, and Supply
(World Bank, 2011)Creating jobs and increasing productivity are key concerns for policy makers across the globe. For East Asian countries seeking to reduce poverty, expanding employment and productivity is at the top of the agenda. This book is a comprehensive look at the demand and supply of skills in Indonesia how skills have changed, how they will continue to evolve, and how the education and training sectors can be improved to be more responsive and relevant to the needs of the labor market and the economy as a whole. Using an innovative firm survey, the authors shed light on the functional skills that workers must possess to be employable and to support firms' competitiveness and productivity. They also assess the role of the education and training systems in providing those skills. Although this book focuses specifically on Indonesia, its methodologies, messages, and analysis will be instructive for researchers and policy makers who shape the delivery of education and training in other middle-income countries around the world. -
Publication
Skills for the Labor Market in the Philippines
(World Bank, 2010-10-01)This book investigates trends in skills demand and supply over the past two decades for insights into ways to build (and use) the critical skills needed to sustain competitiveness of the Philippine economy. Part one of the book investigates trends in demand for skills in the country overall and by sectors, explores its possible determinants, and attempts to identify emerging skills gaps. Part two turns to the analysis of the supply of skills in the country with a focus on the ability of education and training to provide highly skilled labor, keeping workers' skills updated, and providing skills development opportunities for the unskilled. It explores employers' perceptions on the quality of institutions and provides detailed analysis of the main characteristics, outcomes, and challenges in four key (or growing) subsectors of the provision of skills in the country: higher education, postsecondary technical-vocational education, non-formal secondary education, and postemployment training. It concludes with a summary of policy recommendations. -
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Equatorial Guinea Education Sector Diagnostic
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-06-22)The Government of Equatorial Guinea (GoEG) requested financial, analytical, and technical support from the World Bank during the country’s protracted economic recession. Given the prioritization of education in the country’s national development plan, the World Bank agreed to undertake an education sector diagnostic study to: (a) help the World Bank better understand the education sector, including the main challenges and policy priorities of the government; (b) facilitate dialogue between the World Bank and GoEG in the education sector and suggest options to move forward in the current economic downturn; (c) provide supporting background for a parallel activity that is focusing on public expenditures in the social sector (public expenditure review (PER)); (d) support the activities that are planned as part of the national development plan’s programa mayor educación para todos; and (e) provide education sector stakeholders with an updated summary of the sector including a review of recent indicator trends and program activities. This diagnostic focuses primarily on primary and secondary education, while also providing some information on technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and higher education, especially where relevant to the other subsectors. It is also intended to update an earlier World Bank-supported education sector diagnostic. The diagnostic is divided into three main parts. Part A focuses on country context, background on the education sector, and recent trends in education (for example, enrollment, and repetition). Part B moves into the education sector diagnostic by topic, focusing on the main challenges in areas such as education finance, quality, and learning outcomes. Part C introduces possible policy actions, framed with the current crisis context, that address some of the main issues identified in Part B. -
Publication
Industry and Skill Wage Premiums in East Asia
( 2010-07-01)This paper focuses on the estimation of skill/industry premiums and labor force composition at the national and sector levels in seven East Asian countries with the objective of providing a comprehensive analysis of trends in demand for skills in the region. The paper addresses the following questions: Are there converging or diverging trends in the region regarding the evolution of skill premiums and labor force composition? Are changes in skill premiums generalized or industry-related? How have industry premiums evolved? The analysis uses labor and household surveys going back at least 10 years. The main trends emerging from the analysis are: (a) increasing proportions of skilled/educated workers over the long run across the region; (b) generally increasing demand for skills in the region; (c) the service sector has become the most important driver of demand for skills for all countries (except Thailand); (d) countries can be broadly categorized into three groups in relation to trends and patterns of demand for skills (Indonesia, Philippines, and Thailand; Vietnam and China; and Cambodia and Mongolia); and (e) industry premiums have increased in three countries of the region (Philippines, Thailand, and Cambodia). These trends point to several policy implications, including that governments should focus on policies promoting access to education to address the increasing demand for skills and/or persistent skill shortages; support general rather than specific curricula given broad-based increases in skill premiums in most countries; better tailor curriculum design and content and pedagogical approaches to the needs of the service sector; and target some social protection programs to unskilled workers to protect them from the "unequalizing" impact of education. -
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Decentralization and Educational Performance : Evidence from the PROHECO Community School Program in Rural Honduras
( 2011)We analyze the effectiveness of the Programa Hondureno de Educacion Comunitaria (PROHECO) community school program in rural Honduras. The data include standardized tests and extensive information on school, teacher, classroom, and community features for 120 rural schools drawn from 15 states. Using academic achievement decompositions we find that PROHECO schools do a better job of maximizing teacher effort and involving parents in the school, both of which translate into higher levels of achievement. But these efficiency advantages are offset (to some degree) by lower levels of teacher experience, training, parental education, as well as a reliance on smaller class sizes. The results help extend the community school and school based management (SBM) literatures by identifying plausible mechanisms in the chain linking increased community involvement with better student outcomes, while also highlighting the importance of local capacity.