Person:
Evans, David K.
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Education,
Social Development
Degrees
ORCID
Departments
Africa Chief Economist’s Office
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
July 27, 2023
Biography
Bio: David is a Lead Economist in the Chief Economist's Office for the Africa Region of the World Bank. He coordinates impact evaluation work across sectors for the Africa Region. In the past, he worked as Senior Economist in the Human Development Department in the Latin America and the Caribbean Region of the World Bank, and as an economist designing and implementing impact evaluations in Africa. He has designed and implemented impact evaluations in agriculture, education, health, and social protection, in Brazil, the Gambia, Kenya, Mexico, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania. He has taught economic development at the Pardee RAND Graduate School of Public Policy, and he holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.
Publication Search Results
1 - 6 of 6
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Publication
Early Child Education : Making Programs Work for Brazil’s Most Important Generation
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2012-05-29)This report draws deeply on the extraordinary efforts and innovations demonstrated by early child development policy makers around Brazil. This report draws on background papers about innovations in early child education in Rio de Janeiro and in caregiver training and supervision in two municipalities within Sao Paulo state. The year 2011 marked the beginning of a new administration in Brazil. The Ministry of education clearly identified early child education (ECE) as one of the top priorities of the new administration, along with secondary school and improving the reputation of the teaching profession. Early child development interventions are essential to both increasing the productivity of Brazil as a whole and to providing equitable opportunities for the disadvantaged. These programs benefit the poor more than other populations, and the poor are most in need of these benefits. Education interventions are crucial. Creches and preschools provide opportunities for stimulation and development that can wire children for future success. Therefore, early child education can particularly benefit the poor, helping to close the gap in cognitive development across income groups. A World Bank study compares adults from two regions of Brazil (the Northeast and the Southeast) who attended preschool to those who did not and found that pre-school attendance is associated with additional total years of education. -
Publication
Early Childhood Development Operations in Latin and Caribbean Region (LCR) : Jamaica, Mexico, and Brazil in Focus
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-02)The rationale and evidence of the effectiveness of investing early in children is compelling: early childhood is the most rapid period of development in a human life, with incredible brain development occurring (85 percent of the brain is wired by age 5). Investments in Early Childhood Development (ECD) are among the most effective and cost-effective investments a country can make in its people. Simply put, investing in ECD is an investment for life. Children who participate in ECD programs demonstrate improved school readiness, success, and completion; improved health; reduced risky behavior and crime; and higher productivity and income. Perhaps most importantly for public policy, delays in early childhood are difficult and costly to reverse later in life. The World Bank is particularly well-poised to help clients further the ECD agenda in their countries and improve medium and long-term development for generations to come. Given the inherently multi-sectoral nature of ECD interventions, including inter alia health, education, social protection, and the water sectors, the Bank also multi-sectoral in nature has a comparative advantage in working in this area, and can truly be more than the sum of its parts leveraging its deep sectoral expertise on issues from water and urban development to education and health and creating synergies across those areas. This note discusses how the Bank can work with clients to develop the policies and strategies for comprehensive child development, and to scale-up quality services to children. It presents case studies from three diverse countries and highlights a wide range of the types of operations offered: a multi-sector investment project with disbursements linked to specific results achieved in Jamaica, a traditional sector-specific project in Mexico, and a program of impact evaluations in Brazil. The purpose is to demonstrate the variety of instruments the Bank has, and the tailored approach that the Bank uses to respond to specific client demands for collaborating in the area of ECD. -
Publication
Cash Transfers and Temptation Goods : A Review of Global Evidence
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-05)Cash transfers have been demonstrated to improve education and health outcomes and alleviate poverty in various contexts. However, policy makers and others often express concern that poor households will use transfers to buy alcohol, tobacco, or other "temptation goods." The income effect of transfers will increase expenditures if alcohol and tobacco are normal goods, but this may be offset by other effects, including the substitution effect, the effect of social messaging about the appropriate use of transfers, and the effect of shifting dynamics in intra-household bargaining. The net effect is ambiguous. This paper reviews 19 studies with quantitative evidence on the impact of cash transfers on temptation goods, as well as 11 studies that surveyed the number of respondents who reported they used transfers for temptation goods. Almost without exception, studies find either no significant impact or a significant negative impact of transfers on temptation goods. In the only (two, non-experimental) studies with positive significant impacts, the magnitude is small. This result is supported by data from Latin America, Africa, and Asia. A growing number of studies from a range of contexts therefore indicate that concerns about the use of cash transfers for alcohol and tobacco consumption are unfounded. -
Publication
The State of Ceara in Brazil is a Role Model for Reducing Learning Poverty
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06)This report presents the case of the state of Ceara in Brazil that overcame adverse socioeconomic conditions to substantially improve education outcomes with efficient use of resources. Despite having the 5th lowest GDP per capita among the 26 Brazilian states, the 9-million-inhabitant state of Ceara has experienced the largest increase in the national education quality index in both primary and lower secondary education since 2005, with 10 municipalities of Ceara being among the top 20 national ranking, including Sobral which has the highest score. The state of Ceara pioneered the use of results-based financing as part of a comprehensive education reform program that among other elements included strong support to its municipalities to achieve universal literacy by the end of grade 2. The reforms allowed the state to considerably improve learning levels of students in primary and lower secondary education with a high level of efficiency in the use of resources. The main aspects of the reforms are presented and discussed. -
Publication
Achieving World-Class Education in Brazil : The Next Agenda
(World Bank, 2012)Education is improving in Brazil. The average years of education has almost doubled over the last 20 years, as has the proportion of adults who have completed secondary school. Brazil's high school students have improved consistently in math and language performance over the last decade. These gains stem from the federal government's priority attention to education through both reforms and resources over the past 15 years. The progress laid out in this book is impressive and praiseworthy, but Brazil still trails its competitors in several of the ways that matter most. Student learning, while improving, still lags far behind wealthier nations. Many secondary schools lose the majority of their students well before graduation. Teachers are drawn from among the lowest achievers and have few performance incentives, and it shows in how class time is used. This important book explores not only the basis for Brazil's progress, but also what it must do to bridge the remaining quality gap to a first-rate education for its children. It provides detailed recommendations for strengthening the performance of teachers, supporting children's early development, and reforming secondary education. In Brazil's highly decentralized basic education system, each level of government has an integral role to play. -
Publication
Why Do Students Learn so Little?: Seeking Answers Inside Haiti's Classrooms
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-05)The Haitian education system made substantial improvements in access over the last decade, such that today the majority of Haiti’s children are in school. Despite improvements, the primary education system is highly inefficient: children start primary school 2 years late on average, and fewer than 60 percent will reach the last grade of the cycle. At each school, classroom observations were conducted using the Stallings Classroom Snapshot instrument, and questions about the school calendar and daily schedule asked. The results provide a representative picture of class time and teacher classroom practice in the Nord and Nord Est departments, and while not representative of Haiti as a whole, do provide a starting point for better understanding the major constraint to achieving a high-quality education for all children: the quality of teacher instruction. Section two describes the sample of schools and the stallings instrument; sections three and four present the main results of the classroom observations on teacher time use and pedagogical practices; section five provides estimates of overall class time that students receive; and section six concludes.