School closures and learning loss during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic can have a long-term negative impact on the current cohort of school children. Global evidence from past health and disaster-related emergencies show that the impact extends well beyond the period of the disaster or...

Education policy makers around the world marvel at Vietnam's success in access to general education and learning outcomes. Despite the country's relatively low level of economic development, Vietnamese students outperform students in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)...

This paper examines how different types of workers in 17 middle-income countries were affected by labor market retrenchment during the great recession. Impacts on different types of workers varied by country and were only weakly related to the severity of the shock. Among active workers, youth...

The informal sector is generally believed to be more vulnerable to various risks due to limited access to social insurance, but little empirical evidence exists to support this statement. This paper examines the relationship between informality and protection from health risks in Yemen. The...

This paper provides a synthetic and systematic review on the effectiveness of various entrepreneurship programs in developing countries. It adopts a meta-regression analysis using 37 impact evaluation studies that were in the public domain by March 2012, and draws out several lessons on the...

This paper provides experimental evidence on the effects of vocational and entrepreneurial training for Malawian youth, in an environment where access to schooling and formal sector employment is extremely low. It tracks a large fraction of program drop-outs-a common phenomenon in the training...

Since the mid-1990s, Sub-Saharan Africa has experienced unprecedented levels of high economic growth. A key question follows: What accounts for the turnaround of the growth performance in the mid-1990s? The answer can provide insight into whether the recent growth spurt in Sub-Saharan Africa is...

The number of individuals who have crossed borders has mushroomed over recent years. The phenomenon of international migration, however, is heterogeneous in terms of the underlying motives and aspirations of migrants. Forced international migrants are involuntarily displaced refugees who flee...

This multisectoral Jobs Diagnostic provides a comprehensive overview of Pakistan's job market, with the aim of informing key policy areas. It investigates a host of factors associated with labor outcomes, such as the general macroeconomic environment and job-specific conditions, workers'...

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has caused a dramatic disruption in the delivery of education and health services in the Philippines. With school closures and challenges in the delivery of distance learning, students learning losses are expected to be enormous. Meanwhile, the health system...