Publication: Ensuring an Equal Start for All Pakistani Children: What Will It Cost?
Loading...
Date
2024-05-06
ISSN
Published
2024-05-06
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Quality early childhood education improves childhood development outcomes and has long-term implications for school readiness, workforce participation, and economic growth. Despite this, in Pakistan, the net enrollment rate of children ages 3 to 5 in early childhood education was only 31 percent in 2022. This paper estimates the cost of expanding access to early childhood education using an adapted version of the early childhood education Accelerator Costing and Simulation model. Using available administrative data, the paper presents cost estimates for three packages: (i) a business-as-usual package, (ii) a core service delivery package, and (iii) an augmented service delivery package. It considers how these costs might vary using alternate delivery mechanisms, such as community construction and vouchers. To ensure 100 percent net enrollment in early childhood education by 2035, Pakistan must increase the amount of the education budget spent on early childhood education from the existing allocation of 5.3 percent to 10.4 percent by 2035. This means increasing the early childhood education budget from PKR 71 billion (US$0.3 billion) in 2022 to PKR 418 billion (US$1.85 billion) in 2035, suggesting an average annual increase of 14 percent. Using alternate delivery mechanisms, such as community construction and vouchers, the required budget can be reduced to PKR 311 billion (US$1.37 billion) in 2035.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Alam, Abdullah; Hasan, Amer; Hentschel, Elizabeth. 2024. Ensuring an Equal Start for All Pakistani Children: What Will It Cost?. Policy Research Working Paper; 10763. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/41509 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication Geopolitics and the World Trading System(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-23)Until the beginning of this century, the GATT/WTO system worked. Economic research provided a compelling explanation. It showed that if governments maximize the well-being of their own countries broadly defined, GATT/WTO principles would facilitate mutually beneficial cooperation over their trade policy choices. Now heightened geopolitical rivalry seems to have undermined the WTO. A simple transposition of the previous rationalization suggests that geopolitics and trade cooperation are not compatible. The paper shows that this is only true if rivalry eclipses any consideration of own-country well-being. In all other circumstances, there are gains from trade cooperation even with geopolitics. Furthermore, the WTO’s relevance is in question only if it adheres too rigidly to its existing rules and norms. Through measured adaptation to the geopolitical imperative, the WTO can continue to thrive as a forum for multilateral trade cooperation in the age of geopolitics.Publication Innovative Financial Instruments and Their Role in the Development of Jurisdictional REDD+(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-08)Achieving global net zero carbon emissions requires stopping deforestation and making full use of tropical forests as carbon sinks. Market instruments for the sale and purchase of emission outcomes coming from Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation framework programs could play a very significant role in achieving this goal. The development of these markets has been insufficient so far: their scale as of today is much lower than what would be required to generate meaningful resources for the countries that host tropical forests, and the quality of existing instruments is generally insufficient to allow a scaling up in demand. However, efforts to improve the transparency and integrity of these instruments are accelerating, particularly around jurisdictional Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation framework programs. In parallel with these efforts, innovations in financial instruments suited for the framework’s carbon markets are also taking place, but their scale is limited so far. This paper looks beyond the current state of the framework’s carbon markets to consider a set of innovative financial instruments that would allow completing the infrastructure of emissions trading, enhancing its utility for both issuers and buyers of carbon credits in the framework’s jurisdictional programs. The paper shows how a combination of forest carbon bonds, where countries sell forward (or commit) their emission reduction outcomes, as well as call and put options can be used to de-risk and encourage early investment in jurisdictional Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation framework programs. To quantify the value of these innovations, the paper evaluates the potential scale of these instruments for the case of Brazil. The estimates suggest that the amounts that could be mobilized would represent a critical contribution to effective forest conservation. The proposed instruments and methods can be used by other tropical nations that are prepared to implement a large-scale jurisdictional program. Although the paper acknowledges that the current state of carbon markets would still not allow their deployment in the short term, the conclusion is that these instruments have significant potential, and their future development could be an important contribution to the establishment of successful markets for the conservation of tropical forests.Publication Disentangling the Key Economic Channels through Which Infrastructure Affects Jobs(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-04-03)This paper takes stock of the literature on infrastructure and jobs published since the early 2000s, using a conceptual framework to identify the key channels through which different types of infrastructure impact jobs. Where relevant, it highlights the different approaches and findings in the cases of energy, digital, and transport infrastructure. Overall, the literature review provides strong evidence of infrastructure’s positive impact on employment, particularly for women. In the case of electricity, this impact arises from freeing time that would otherwise be spent on household tasks. Similarly, digital infrastructure, particularly mobile phone coverage, has demonstrated positive labor market effects, often driven by private sector investments rather than large public expenditures, which are typically required for other large-scale infrastructure projects. The evidence on structural transformation is also positive, with some notable exceptions, such as studies that find no significant impact on structural transformation in rural India in the cases of electricity and roads. Even with better market connections, remote areas may continue to lack economic opportunities, due to the absence of agglomeration economies and complementary inputs such as human capital. Accordingly, reducing transport costs alone may not be sufficient to drive economic transformation in rural areas. The spatial dimension of transformation is particularly relevant for transport, both internationally—by enhancing trade integration—and within countries, where economic development tends to drive firms and jobs toward urban centers, benefitting from economies scale and network effects. Turning to organizational transformation, evidence on skill bias in developing countries is more mixed than in developed countries and may vary considerably by context. Further research, especially on the possible reasons explaining the differences between developed and developing economies, is needed.Publication Economic Consequences of Trade and Global Value Chain Integration(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2025-04-04)This paper introduces a new approach to measuring Global Value Chains (GVC), crucial for informed policy-making. It features a tripartite classification (backward, forward, and two-sided) covering trade and production data. The findings indicate that traditional trade-based GVC metrics significantly underestimate global GVC activity, especially in sectors like services and upstream manufacturing, and overstate risks in early trade liberalization stages. Additionally, conventional backward-forward classifications over-estimate backward linkages. The paper further applies these measures empirically to assess how GVC participation mediates the impact of demand shocks on domestic output, highlighting both the exposure and stabilizing potential of GVC integration. These new measures are comprehensively available on the World Bank’s WITS Platform, providing a key resource for GVC analysis.Publication Labor Market Scarring in a Developing Economy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-08)This paper estimates the magnitude of labor market scarring in a developing economy, a setting that has been understudied by the labor scarring literature dominated by advanced economies. The paper assesses the contributions of “stigma” versus “lost human capital,” which cause earnings losses among displaced workers relative to non-displaced workers. The findings indicate that job separations caused by plant closings result in sizable and long-lasting reductions in earnings, with an average decline of 7.5 percent in hourly wages over a nine-year period. The estimate for one year after a plant closing is larger, at a decline of 10.8 percent. In a common sample, after controlling for unobserved, time-invariant individual characteristics, the impact of a plant closing declines from 11.9 to 8.2 percent. These results imply that stigma in the labor market due to imperfect information about workers (captured by unobservable worker characteristics) accounts for 30.8 percent of the average earnings losses, whereas lost employer-specific human capital explains the remaining 69.2 percent. The paper explores the effects of job separations due to plant closings on other labor market outcomes, including hours worked and informality, and provides estimates across genders and levels of education.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Do Psychosocial Stimulation, Parental Distress and Early Childhood Education Enrollment Show Different Associations with Early Childhood Development Outcomes for Boys and Girls? Findings from a Phone Survey in Pakistan(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-25)This study examined whether psychosocial stimulation, parental distress, and enrollment in pre- primary education had different associations with early child development outcomes for boys and girls in Pakistan. Using data from a nationally representative phone survey in Pakistan, it assessed these relationships for two cohorts of children—those aged 0–35 months and those aged 36–72 months. The study found that among very young children (0–35 months), lower parental distress and higher psychosocial stimulation were strongly associated with better child development for both boys and girls. Girls were more sensitive to higher levels of parental distress and lower levels of psychosocial stimulation than boys. On average, girls in the sample fared worse compared to boys in their developmental outcomes in the context of low levels of stimulation and high levels of parental distress. Among the older age cohort (36–72 months), lower psychosocial stimulation and higher parental distress were each similarly associated with lower child development outcomes, regardless of child gender. Access to early childhood education was associated with better child development outcomes for both genders. The results confirm existing evidence that early learning opportunities in the first six years of life are important supports for promoting early child development for all children and suggest that girls aged 0–35 months in this sample may be uniquely sensitive to psychosocial stimulation and parental distress.Publication Risks to Child Development and School Readiness among Children under Six in Pakistan(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)This paper analyzes the risks to child development and school readiness among children under age 6 in Pakistan. Drawing on a nationally representative telephone survey conducted between December 2021 and February 2022, it presents the first nationally representative estimates of child development for children under 3 years of age and school readiness for children 3 to 6 years of age, using internationally validated instruments. The paper examines how risk factors such as parental distress, lack of psychosocial stimulation, food insecurity, low maternal education, no enrollment in early childhood education, and living in a rural area are associated with children’s outcomes. The data indicate that more than half (57 percent) of parents with children under age 3 were distressed and that 61 percent of households reported cutting down on the size of or skipping meals since the start of the pandemic. The data reveal that over half of parents fail to engage in adequate psychosocial stimulation with their child and enrollment in early childhood education is very low (39 percent). The paper finds that child development outcomes decline rapidly as the number of risks increase. Specifically, for children under 3 years, lack of psychosocial stimulation at home and higher levels of parental distress were most significantly associated with lower child development levels. For a child aged 3 to 6 years, early childhood education enrollment and the amount of psychosocial stimulation the child receives at home had the strongest association with school readiness scores.Publication Maternal Mental Health and Its Influence on Children’s Early Development(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-11-20)This paper reports on the prevalence of three facets of mental health—depression, anxiety, and parenting stress—among mothers of children ages 0–6 years in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Data from mother-child dyads were analyzed to examine differences in maternal mental health and early childhood development outcomes by maternal educational attainment, urban versus rural setting, and refugee versus non-refugee status. The analysis finds a higher prevalence of self-reported mental health concerns among refugee, less-educated, and rural mothers relative to non-refugee, more-educated, and urban mothers. Maternal mental health concerns are significantly associated with lower levels of early childhood development. This paper also analyzes how exposure to stressors such as food insecurity, financial insecurity, being impacted by flooding, community crime, discrimination, and domestic violence exacerbate both maternal mental health and child outcomes. The regression analyses indicate a significant and negative compounding interaction of maternal depression, anxiety, and parenting stress on early childhood development for younger (0–3 years) and older (3–6 years) children, even after controlling for stressors and other covariates. Policy improvements are needed that focus on at-risk communities, providing mental health services and reducing exposure to stressors within communities and households.Publication Equality of Opportunity for Children in Egypt, 2000-2009 : Achievements and Challenges(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-08)This paper provides relevant indicators and measurements useful for public policies seeking the expansion of equitable human development opportunities for Egyptian children and youth. To measure equitable access to opportunities, the authors use the Human Opportunity Index to examine the evolution of 16 basic opportunity indicators grouped in four sectors: education, basic housing services, early childhood development, and nutrition and hunger. The main findings show that during the last decade most opportunities for children and youth improved unambiguously,for the first two sectors, but were stagnant for nutrition and early childhood development opportunities. Although the urban-rural and interregional gaps were partially reduced, there are still substantial opportunity gaps between children in favorable and unfavorable circumstances. Parents' education, income per capita, urban-rural location, number of siblings, and regional location, are the five most important factors affecting equality of opportunity, although their impact varies across indicators.Publication Do Our Children Have a Chance? A Human Opportunity Report for Latin America and the Caribbean(World Bank, 2012)This book reports on the status and evolution of human opportunity in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). It builds on the 2008 publication in several directions. First, it uses newly available data to expand the set of opportunities and personal circumstances under analysis. The data are representative of about 200 million children living in 19 countries over the last 15 years. Second, it compares human opportunity in LAC with that of developed countries, among them the United States and France, two very different models of social policy. This allows for illuminating exercises in benchmarking and extrapolation. Third, it looks at human opportunity within countries, across regions, states, and cities. This gives us a preliminary glimpse at the geographic dimension of equity, and at the role that different federal structures play. The overall message that emerges is one of cautious hope. LAC is making progress in opening the doors of development to all, but it still has a long way to go. At the current pace, it would take, on average, a generation for the region to achieve universal access to just the basic services that make for human opportunity. Seen from the viewpoint of equity, even our most successful nations lag far behind the developed world, and intracounty regional disparities are large and barely converging. Fortunately, there is much policy makers can do about it.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Global Economic Prospects, January 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-16)Global growth is expected to hold steady at 2.7 percent in 2025-26. However, the global economy appears to be settling at a low growth rate that will be insufficient to foster sustained economic development—with the possibility of further headwinds from heightened policy uncertainty and adverse trade policy shifts, geopolitical tensions, persistent inflation, and climate-related natural disasters. Against this backdrop, emerging market and developing economies are set to enter the second quarter of the twenty-first century with per capita incomes on a trajectory that implies substantially slower catch-up toward advanced-economy living standards than they previously experienced. Without course corrections, most low-income countries are unlikely to graduate to middle-income status by the middle of the century. Policy action at both global and national levels is needed to foster a more favorable external environment, enhance macroeconomic stability, reduce structural constraints, address the effects of climate change, and thus accelerate long-term growth and development.Publication Media and Messages for Nutrition and Health(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06)The Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) has experienced rapid and significant economic growth over the past decade. However, poor nutritional outcomes remain a concern. Rates of childhood undernutrition are particularly high in remote, rural, and upland areas. Media have the potential to play an important role in shaping health and nutrition–related behaviors and practices as well as in promoting sociocultural and economic development that might contribute to improved nutritional outcomes. This report presents the results of a media audit (MA) that was conducted to inform the development and production of mass media advocacy and communication strategies and materials with a focus on maternal and child health and nutrition that would reach the most people from the poorest communities in northern Lao PDR. Making more people aware of useful information, essential services and products and influencing them to use these effectively is the ultimate goal of mass media campaigns, and the MA measures the potential effectiveness of media efforts to reach this goal. The effectiveness of communication channels to deliver health and nutrition messages to target beneficiaries to ensure maximum reach and uptake can be viewed in terms of preferences, satisfaction, and trust. Overall, the four most accessed media channels for receiving information among communities in the study areas were village announcements, mobile phones, television, and out-of-home (OOH) media. Of the accessed media channels, the top three most preferred channels were village announcements (40 percent), television (26 percent), and mobile phones (19 percent). In terms of trust, village announcements were the most trusted source of information (64 percent), followed by mobile phones (14 percent) and television (11 percent). Hence of all the media channels, village announcements are the most preferred, have the most satisfied users, and are the most trusted source of information in study communities from four provinces in Lao PDR with some of the highest burden of childhood undernutrition.Publication Remarks at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-10-12)World Bank Group President David Malpass discussed biodiversity and climate change being closely interlinked, with terrestrial and marine ecosystems serving as critically important carbon sinks. At the same time climate change acts as a direct driver of biodiversity and ecosystem services loss. The World Bank has financed biodiversity conservation around the world, including over 116 million hectares of Marine and Coastal Protected Areas, 10 million hectares of Terrestrial Protected Areas, and over 300 protected habitats, biological buffer zones and reserves. The COVID pandemic, biodiversity loss, climate change are all reminders of how connected we are. The recovery from this pandemic is an opportunity to put in place more effective policies, institutions, and resources to address biodiversity loss.Publication Digital Progress and Trends Report 2023(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-05)Digitalization is the transformational opportunity of our time. The digital sector has become a powerhouse of innovation, economic growth, and job creation. Value added in the IT services sector grew at 8 percent annually during 2000–22, nearly twice as fast as the global economy. Employment growth in IT services reached 7 percent annually, six times higher than total employment growth. The diffusion and adoption of digital technologies are just as critical as their invention. Digital uptake has accelerated since the COVID-19 pandemic, with 1.5 billion new internet users added from 2018 to 2022. The share of firms investing in digital solutions around the world has more than doubled from 2020 to 2022. Low-income countries, vulnerable populations, and small firms, however, have been falling behind, while transformative digital innovations such as artificial intelligence (AI) have been accelerating in higher-income countries. Although more than 90 percent of the population in high-income countries was online in 2022, only one in four people in low-income countries used the internet, and the speed of their connection was typically only a small fraction of that in wealthier countries. As businesses in technologically advanced countries integrate generative AI into their products and services, less than half of the businesses in many low- and middle-income countries have an internet connection. The growing digital divide is exacerbating the poverty and productivity gaps between richer and poorer economies. The Digital Progress and Trends Report series will track global digitalization progress and highlight policy trends, debates, and implications for low- and middle-income countries. The series adds to the global efforts to study the progress and trends of digitalization in two main ways: · By compiling, curating, and analyzing data from diverse sources to present a comprehensive picture of digitalization in low- and middle-income countries, including in-depth analyses on understudied topics. · By developing insights on policy opportunities, challenges, and debates and reflecting the perspectives of various stakeholders and the World Bank’s operational experiences. This report, the first in the series, aims to inform evidence-based policy making and motivate action among internal and external audiences and stakeholders. The report will bring global attention to high-performing countries that have valuable experience to share as well as to areas where efforts will need to be redoubled.Publication Economic Recovery(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-04-06)World Bank Group President David Malpass spoke about the world facing major challenges, including COVID, climate change, rising poverty and inequality and growing fragility and violence in many countries. He highlighted vaccines, working closely with Gavi, WHO, and UNICEF, the World Bank has conducted over one hundred capacity assessments, many even more before vaccines were available. The World Bank Group worked to achieve a debt service suspension initiative and increased transparency in debt contracts at developing countries. The World Bank Group is finalizing a new climate change action plan, which includes a big step up in financing, building on their record climate financing over the past two years. He noted big challenges to bring all together to achieve GRID: green, resilient, and inclusive development. Janet Yellen, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, mentioned focusing on vulnerable people during the pandemic. Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, focused on giving everyone a fair shot during a sustainable recovery. All three commented on the importance of tackling climate change.