Many African countries, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa, continue to grapple with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic while simultaneously confronting the challenges posed by slowing global growth, private capital outflows, debt distress, and the impacts of climate change. An estimate...

To hear talk of it, you might think educating girls is a silver bullet to solve all the world’s ills. A large and still growing collection of research demonstrates the wide-ranging benefits of girls’ education. Recent research has nuanced some of those findings, but the fundamental result stands: Ed...

As global health threats evolve, countries’ capacity to prepare for and respond to disease outbreaks is increasingly a global imperative. Now is the time to take concrete steps toward establishing sustained financing for pandemic PPR to help bring an end to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, combat futu...

With the COVID-19 pandemic hitting government balance sheets especially hard in low-income countries, the World Bank’s shareholders—including the United States—agreed to an advance replenishment of its grant and low-interest loan window, the International Development Association (IDA). By holding a ...

Following the outbreak and spread of COVID-19 in 2020, schools around the world closed for significant periods of time. Many scholars provided projections of the likely impacts on educational outcomes, with potentially dire impacts on learning loss and—especially in low-income contexts–dropout rates...

USAID recently released a draft Local Capacity Development (LCD) Policy. While USAID routinely invests in interventions designed to strengthen local capacity, this is the first time the agency has attempted to articulate principles that will govern its approach and propose, in broad terms, the steps...

Student attendance at school is a necessary condition for learning and for other benefits derived from schooling, yet absenteeism is a significant issue for students in many countries. Policies, programs, and research seeking to reduce absenteeism need to measure it accurately. This article describe...