To a great extent, the quality of financial reporting depends on the quality of the Accounting and Auditing standards on which the reporting and auditing requirements are based. The objective of the auditing standards analysis is to compare the national standards used to conduct audits of...

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)...

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 purpose of this report is to gain an understanding of the regulatory environment for auditors in a jurisdiction and the extent of quality assurance and oversight that takes place. In the Report on the Observance of Standards and Codes (ROSC) Accounting and Auditing (A&A) diagnostic...

"In the early 2000s, the Government of Sri Lanka considered engaging private sector operators to manage water and sewerage services in two separate service areas: one in the town of Negombo (north of Colombo), and one stretching along the coastal strip (south from Colombo) from the towns of...

Mozambique is poised to meet the MDG goal of 100 percent primary education enrollment. The achievement will have limited impact if the quality of the education that pupil has access to is lacking. Education quality will critically determine whether the promise of the newfound mineral wealth is...

The "Public Service Unit" (PSU), or shiye danwei, is one of the four categories of public sector institutions in China. The country has more than one million public service units (PSUs), or shiye danwei, with a labor force of around 30 million. Most PSUs were created as public service providers....

This report presents detailed findings of a teacher performance study in Lebanon, one of four studies carried out under the Research for Results (R4R) program, a partnership between the Lebanese Ministry of Education and Higher Education and Development Partners. The objective of the research...

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 Service Delivery Indicators (SDI) program aims to document what results are obtained through public spending in the health and education sector. The focus is on the individual dimensions, whether effort (presence and workload) or knowledge (diagnostic accuracy, adherence to clinical...