Myanmar exhibits poor health outcomes and lags regional peers. Myanmar's Human Capital Index (HCI) score is 0.47, compared to a regional average of 0.60. Every year, 2,000 pregnant women and 50,000 children die from preventable causes, and 29 percent of children under age 5 are stunted. While...

This note attempts to identify the factors associated with differences in overall school performance and efficiency. It draws on data from the Philippines Public Education Expenditure Tracking and Quantitative Service Delivery Study (PETS-QSDS), which tracked public education spending and...

Bangladesh has set up an ambitious target of attaining middle-income status by 2021. To achieve this objective, the economy needs to grow at a sustained rate of 7.5-8 percent annually and this would in turn require an increase in private investment to at least 26.6 percent of GDP from 22 percent...

This summary report presents the findings of the Ethiopia WASH Poverty Diagnostic (EWPD) study led by the World Bank`s Water and Poverty Global Practices. Though Ethiopia has made good progress in increasing access to water supply, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services in recent years, the...

The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS) and the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF), together with key Development Partners, conducted a Public Expenditure Tracking Survey (PETS) and Quality of Service Delivery Survey (QSDS) for the education sector in Cambodia. PETS identify...

Guinea-Bissau meets many, if not all, criteria that characterize health systems in fragile states. The country's health system faces persistent challenges related to low public spending, poor infrastructure, inadequate supply of health workers, inadequate clinical and managerial training...

This report presents findings from an assessment of quality of care in the health sector in Colombia, using a novel methodology developed by the World Bank Group to assess government oversight, promotion and stewardship of quality of care in the health sector. This assessment of quality of care...

This study aims to provide guidance to the Government of Sierra Leone in how to translate investments in education into quality learning. It centers on teachers, the single most important predictor of the quality of an education system. Joyful, rigorous, and focused learning happens when...

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)...