Publication: Interactive Learning Exchange : Exploring Strategies to Reach and Work with Adolescents
Loading...
Published
2004-03
ISSN
Date
2013-05-30
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have refocused global attention on still unaddressed needs of children and youth. In response to the MDGs, the World Bank is strengthening its attention to the most vulnerable populations such as children and adolescents, through a cross-sectoral approach to human development including education, health, nutrition, sexual and reproductive health, and social protection. One crucial component for healthy adolescent development is good nutrition. It affects health, learning, physical fitness and the ability to withstand stress. Yet this population has received little emphasis in nutrition programs, and nutrition, in turn, has received little attention from programs for youth. While some low-cost solutions to adolescent malnutrition are available, nutrition specialists and programs do not have the operational experience needed to access and work with youth. In order to learn from the experience of adolescent health and development specialists, and avoid reinventing the wheel, the World Bank Nutrition team hosted a consultation to explore best practice strategies for reaching and working with youth. The objectives of the workshop were (i) to gather and distill information from multiple sectors on the successful approaches and promising practices for identifying, reaching, and working with vulnerable adolescents in resource-poor settings; and (ii) to discuss how effective strategies from other sectors might be exploited for nutrition. The Learning Exchange resulted in dialogue between a diverse group of adolescent health and development and nutrition sector specialists that would not otherwise have occurred. It successfully raised awareness among youth specialists of the synergies between actions to address the healthy development of adolescents and improved nutrition. The consultation also streamlined the learning process for the nutrition sector about how to work with this age group.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Kennedy Elder, Leslie. 2004. Interactive Learning Exchange : Exploring Strategies to Reach and Work with Adolescents. HNP discussion paper series;. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/13690 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication How to Protect and Promote the Nutrition of Mothers and Children in Latin America and the Caribbean(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-12-10)The study includes: glossary; references; and annexes. A number of countries in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region have been severely hit by food-price crises in 2008 and are still very vulnerable to food-price volatility experienced since late 2010. Humanitarian responses to high food prices, crises, shocks, or emergency situations should help the poor avoid the consequences of the reduced affordability of a basic food basket. This is especially crucial in the first 1,000 days of life (that is, children from pregnancy until they reach 2 years of age and breastfeeding women), since most of the physical and cognitive damages due to improper nutrition in this period are irreversible. The World Bank is leading a regional study on how to improve LAC country responses so as to protect the nutritional status of the poorest and most vulnerable in times of crises and emergencies.Publication India's Undernourished Children : A Call for Reform and Action(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2006)The prevalence of child undernutrition in India is among the highest in the world; nearly double that of Sub-Saharan Africa, with dire consequences for morbidity, mortality, productivity and economic growth. Drawing on qualitative studies and quantitative evidence from large household surveys, this book explores the dimensions of child undernutrition in India and examines the effectiveness of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) program, India's main early child development intervention, in addressing it. Although levels of undernutrition in India declined modestly during the 1990s, the reductions lagged behind those achieved by other countries with similar economic growth. Nutritional inequalities across different states and socioeconomic and demographic groups remain large. Although the ICDS program appears to be well-designed and well-placed to address the multi-dimensional causes of malnutrition in India, several problems exist that prevent it from reaching its potential. The book concludes with a discussion of a number of concrete actions that can be taken to bridge the gap between the policy intentions of ICDS and its actual implementation.Publication Reproductive Health(Washington, DC, 2002-03)Reproductive health (RH) problems account for a significant part of the burden of disease suffered by poor people in developing countries. Poor women and men are more afflicted with RH problems and often lack access to minimal RH care even when average levels of RH in the country are good. Many RH problems are most cost-effectively managed by prevention - serious problems are costly and very difficult to solve once manifest. This article covers the types of interventions needed to sustain reproductive health including increasing girls' education, preventing and managing sexually transmitted disease, providing contraception to avoid abortion, improving pre-natal and delivery care, increasing the number of skilled providers of health care, post-abortion care, bolstering maternal health services, and reducing practices that increase reproductive health risks such as unsafe sex, female genital mutilation, and domestic violence.Publication Adolescent Health and Development (AHD) : A Resource Guide for World Bank Operations Staff and Government Counterparts(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2004-04)This resource guide begins with an overview of AHD issues, laying out the case for governments to direct attention and resources to AHD. It discusses good practices to improve a range of youth health outcomes. The next section focuses on the relationship between poverty and young people's health and outlines strategies to provide health services to poor youth. The final section of the guide examines the current efforts of the World Bank to promote AHD. Technical appendixes provide further examples and concrete information for use in project design and analysis. More information will be found on the Bank's AHD website, which is currently under development. The guide supports the effort to better integrate adolescent health and development (AHD) concerns into the analytic and lending work of the World Bank. It also has been created to give Bank staff members essential information with which to engage their counterparts in policy dialogue on AHD and to advocate for greater government attention to the needs of youth. Increasing the effectiveness of Bank efforts directed at AHD will help the Bank to improve the health and well-being of youth in developing countries. The main audience for the guide is Bank operations staff members and government counterparts associated with poverty reduction strategies and human development sector projects. External Bank partners and other organizations interested in youth may also find the guide useful.Publication Early Life Nutrition and Subsequent Education, Health, Wage, and Intergenerational Effects(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008)This paper first summarizes recent research in developing countries that is surveyed in prominent Lancet articles and that reports, albeit based on relatively few systematic studies, substantial associations between early life nutrition and subsequent education, health, wage, and intergenerational outcomes. The rest of the paper summarizes further evidence. The next section summarizes some of the strongest micro-level evidence available based on panel data over 35 years from Guatemala on causal effects of early life nutritional improvements on adult cognitive skills and wage rates and offspring anthropometric outcomes. The subsequent section summarizes some benefit-cost analyses for early life nutritional interventions that led to such interventions being ranked highly among interventions of all types, largely on the basis of benefit-cost ratios by prominent economists in the 2004 Copenhagen Consensus. The studies reviewed in this paper indicate that improved early life nutrition in poorly nourished populations may have substantial causal effects on improving productivity and saving resources over the life cycle and into the next generation and may have benefits that substantially outweigh the costs. Thus, in addition to important direct intrinsic welfare benefits, better early life nutrition in such contexts should be a high priority in strategies for increasing growth and productivity.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.Publication Doing Business 2014 : Understanding Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises(Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2013-10-28)Eleventh in a series of annual reports comparing business regulation in 185 economies, Doing Business 2014 measures regulations affecting 11 areas of everyday business activity: Starting a business, Dealing with construction permits, Getting electricity, Registering property, Getting credit, Protecting investors, Paying taxes, Trading across borders, Enforcing contracts, Closing a business, Employing workers. The report updates all indicators as of June 1, 2013, ranks economies on their overall “ease of doing business”, and analyzes reforms to business regulation – identifying which economies are strengthening their business environment the most. The Doing Business reports illustrate how reforms in business regulations are being used to analyze economic outcomes for domestic entrepreneurs and for the wider economy. Doing Business is a flagship product by the World Bank and IFC that garners worldwide attention on regulatory barriers to entrepreneurship. More than 60 economies use the Doing Business indicators to shape reform agendas and monitor improvements on the ground. In addition, the Doing Business data has generated over 870 articles in peer-reviewed academic journals since its inception.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication World Development Report 2011(World Bank, 2011)The 2011 World development report looks across disciplines and experiences drawn from around the world to offer some ideas and practical recommendations on how to move beyond conflict and fragility and secure development. The key messages are important for all countries-low, middle, and high income-as well as for regional and global institutions: first, institutional legitimacy is the key to stability. When state institutions do not adequately protect citizens, guard against corruption, or provide access to justice; when markets do not provide job opportunities; or when communities have lost social cohesion-the likelihood of violent conflict increases. Second, investing in citizen security, justice, and jobs is essential to reducing violence. But there are major structural gaps in our collective capabilities to support these areas. Third, confronting this challenge effectively means that institutions need to change. International agencies and partners from other countries must adapt procedures so they can respond with agility and speed, a longer-term perspective, and greater staying power. Fourth, need to adopt a layered approach. Some problems can be addressed at the country level, but others need to be addressed at a regional level, such as developing markets that integrate insecure areas and pooling resources for building capacity Fifth, in adopting these approaches, need to be aware that the global landscape is changing. Regional institutions and middle income countries are playing a larger role. This means should pay more attention to south-south and south-north exchanges, and to the recent transition experiences of middle income countries.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.