This policy brief highlights the key messages for policy makers from the World Bank report "Seeing the Invisible: A Strategic Report on Groundwater Quality" (Ravenscroft and Lytton 2022a). This report and “A Practical Manual on Groundwater Quality Monitoring" (Ravenscroft and Lytton 2022b)...

Indonesia has seen vast improvements in access to education over the past thirty years. It is a good example of a country that has followed a disciplined linear approach to EFA: Indonesia focused first on primary school access, next on lower secondary school access, and is only now attempting to...

"Over the past two decades, globalization, and more specifically the increased exposure to competition from low-price producers in China and India, has created a new economic environment for other emerging economies. The most advantageous way for manufacturing firms in those economies to...

The certification program aimed to certify all teachers by 2015. The program was rolled out at a rate of approximately 200,000 teachers each year. This report evaluates the certification program as it was implemented, in terms of its impact on student-learning outcomes. Results of the analysis...

The main objective of this report is to present the Government of Chile with policy options related to the institutional distribution of roles and responsibilities for effective quality assurance in education. Following the introduction, the report is structured as follows. Chapter II presents...

The study sought to assist governments in introducing school-focused programming into reforms of primary education. The included: (i) an assessment of how well 26 World Bank-assisted project designs for primary education met criteria for educational effectiveness; (ii) the preparation of a...

The paper is part of a program to provide support to a major recommendation in the Philippine Review of Standards and Codes on Accounting and Auditing (ROSC-A&A). The ROSC-A&A brought out that there were major improvements in the accounting and auditing scene since the last assessment made in...

Bulgaria has undertaken several significant health sector reforms during the past decade, but a large unfinished policy agenda remains. Compared to other EU countries, the share of out-of-pocket spending is significantly higher in Bulgaria, while government spending on health is relatively low....