Person:
Nikaein Towfighian, Samira

Education Global Practice, Middle East and North Africa Region
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Fields of Specialization
Teacher policy, Early childhood education, Education economics, Refugee education, Gender discrimination
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Education Global Practice, Middle East and North Africa Region
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Last updated: July 11, 2023
Biography
Samira Nikaein Towfighian is an Education Specialist at the World Bank, where she works on lending operations and education research in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region. As the Early Childhood Education (ECE) Focal Point for MENA, Samira leads ECE projects at the regional-level, as well as in West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, and Egypt. Her work focuses on improving access and quality of early childhood education, particularly for vulnerable children, and enhancing parental practices that are conducive to children’s early stimulation, nutrition and healthy development. Samira also leads a number of research projects to strengthen the evidence base for early childhood development through experimental research and measurement of early learning outcomes. Beyond ECE, Samira works on a range of education and development policy issues including learning assessments, teacher policy (recruitment, training, motivation, and career development), refugee education, education-to-work transition, and gender discrimination in the labor market. Samira holds a Master’s Degree in International Education Policy, with a concentration in economics and statistics, from Harvard University.  

Publication Search Results

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  • Publication
    The Last Mile to Quality Service Delivery in Jordan
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2017-05-11) Rabie, Tamer Samah; Nikaein Towfighian, Samira; Clark, Cari
    A growing body of research suggests that the quantity and quality of structural inputs of education and healthcare services such as infrastructure, classroom and medical supplies, and even teacher and medical training are largely irrelevant if teachers and healthcare providers do not exert the requisite effort to translate these inputs into effective teaching and medical service. To exert adquate effort, providers must feel they are accountable for the quality of service they provide. Yet a sense of accountability among providers does not necessarily occur naturally, often requiring mechanisms to monitor and incentivize provider effort. The literature on improving provider accountability has under-emphasized the role of monitoring practices by school principals and chief medical officers. This study begins to fill this gap by investigating the role of within-facility accountability mechanisms in the education and health sectors of Jordan. To do this, an analysis of existing and original data from these sectors was conducted in which the association of within-facility monitoring and provider effort was quantified. The results indicate that within-facility monitoring is underutilized in both sectors and is a consistent predictor of higher provider effort.