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Publication
Shaping First Steps: A Comprehensive Review of Preschool Education in Malaysia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-05-31)The potential benefits from supporting early childhood development range from healthy development to a greater capacity to learn and increased productivity in adulthood. Despite undertaking various preschool education reforms and initiatives, issues of access and quality remain and continue to grow. The Malaysia Education Blueprint (2013-2025) set a target to achieve universal preschool enrollment by 2020, and Malaysia, along with many other developing countries, has yet to achieve this. Findings from the World Bank’s preschool survey and stakeholder interviews carried out for this report point to a range of issues, such as a lack of preschool seat availability in certain areas, low awareness among parents on the benefits of sending their children to preschools, affordability of preschool expenses, low teacher quality, and concerns over the overlapping roles between the multiple ministries and agencies that oversee ECCE in Malaysia. This review is carried out in collaboration with the Ministry of Education (MOE) and is a comprehensive assessment of Malaysia’s current preschool education landscape. The review aims to identify the gaps between the targets and aspirations set by MOE and the government under various policy documents and the outcomes to date. It also aims to deep-dive into the underlying reasons for these gaps, and seek solutions to close them and achieve the aspirations. This report synthesizes the findings from research, analysis, and stakeholder engagement activities, and is organized by a framework of targets, pillars, and enablers. -
Publication
A Blue Transformation for Pacific Maritime Transport: Overarching Regional Transport
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-05-31)This report has eight chapters. Following the introduction (Pacific Peoples and the Sea), the next six chapters each focus on a separate significant component of Pacific maritime transport, analyzing the major influences and challenges, and, where relevant, key areas for future attention. The topics are: international shipping, gateway ports, domestic maritime transport, four related sectors, cruise ship tourism, tuna fisheries, fossil fuel imports, and bulk shipping, natural disasters and climate resilience, and sector governance and institutions. The final chapter, transforming pacific maritime transport, ways forward, distils the report’s findings into the most significant and far-reaching opportunities to transform maritime transport in the Pacific. These are grouped into three broad themes, infrastructure, services, and governance and capacity building. Ways Forward comes at the end and, for readers unable to view the whole report, is a good place to begin. The rest of this executive summary explains why the Pacific is a special case for investment and provides a summary of the main chapters and findings. But first, it describes which Pacific Island countries contributed to the study. -
Publication
Options to Support Workers through a Transition away from Coal in Eastern Wielkopolska (March 2022)
(World Bank, WAshington DC, 2023-05-30)The objective of this policy note is to provide an overview of the three draft project proposals and to recommend key design principles and implementation arrangement options for a coordinated outplacement program in the Eastern Wielkopolska region that would provide a package of services to motivate and help affected workers find suitable jobs in alignment with the TJTP. The focus of the note is on interventions supporting the social and labor transition in Eastern Wielkopolska, rather than the economic, spatial, and energy transformations which are also part of the JTM Pillar. Efforts to promote local economic development and environmental rehabilitation of affected subregions as well as to develop stakeholder engagement and public communication strategies are beyond the scope of this note. -
Publication
Tools and Resources for Nature-Based Tourism - Second Edition
(Washington, DC, 2023-05-30)Nature-based tourism (NBT) plays an important role in sustainable development. It can support poverty alleviation, economic growth, and biodiversity conservation and contribute to key global agreements and frameworks, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. NBT’s singular potential to create jobs and growth, while protecting wildlife and ecosystems, makes it an enticing prospect for developing countries seeking to align those interests. The World Bank commissioned a comprehensive review of the tools and knowledge resources that could be used by practitioners in the field of NBT, to prepare and implement projects that promote sustainable NBT practices and policies. Impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic have reverberated across the tourism sector since first publication of this report in July 2020. Those working in nature-based tourism, from tour operators to community organizations to protected area authorities, have faced particular challenges – and opportunities – as tourism revenues plummeted and slowly rebound. This second edition in 2022 aims to collect and share the many resources that have emerged to support nature-based tourism destinations and stakeholders to recover and reset in the face of the pandemic, including a new chapter on COVID-19 resources. -
Publication
Private Cities: Outstanding Examples from Developing Countries and Their Implications for Urban Policy
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-05-30)Institutional constraints and weak capacity often hamper the ability of local governments in developing countries to steer urbanization. As a result, there are not enough cities to accommodate an unabated rural-urban migration and many of those that exist are messy, sprawling, and disconnected. The flipside is the emergence of entire cities—more than gated communities or industrial parks—led in whole or in part by private actors. To date, little systematic research has been conducted on the conditions that are necessary for such unusual entities to emerge, on the roles played by private actors, or on the consequences for efficiency and equity. Private Cities: Outstanding Examples from Developing Countries and Their Implications for Urban Policy aims to fill this gap. Using an analytical framework that draws on urban economics and political science, it includes inventories of private cities in the Arab Republic of Egypt, India, Indonesia, and Pakistan and provides structured reviews of 14 outstanding examples across all developing regions. Nongovernment actors turn out to be diverse—they include not only major companies and large developers but also business associations, civil society organizations, and even foreign countries. The way local governments interact with these nongovernment actors varies as well, from deliberate neglect to joint ventures. Private actors take on some—but not all—local government functions, while at times embracing unconventional roles. And while private cities tend to be economically successful, they can lead to environmental degradation, social segregation, and even institutional secession. Increasing the capacity of local governments in developing countries will take time.Along the way, inefficient spatial development patterns may be locked in. There is a case for selectively tapping into the comparative advantage of significant private actors while actively using policy tools to avoid the potential shortcomings. In the spirit of a publicprivate partnership for urbanization, land value capture would be at the center of this approach.