Investing in skills has risen to the top of the policy agenda today in rich and poor countries alike. The World Bank supports its partner countries on this agenda in multiple ways: development finance, research and analysis, global knowledge exchange, and technical assistance. This report was...

Strong science, technology, and innovation links between universities and industry are of critical importance to Sri Lanka as it strives to become an upper-middle-income country. This report presents an overview of current U-I collaboration in Sri Lanka by analyzing responses to a survey of...

The health workforce must be able to cope with shifts in the pattern of causes of death and disease that are being seen worldwide—particularly with the rise in noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). This requires health personnel to have a set of skills and competencies that can adapt to meet the...

Uruguay’s population is slowly aging, driven by the demographic transition that started early in the 20th century. While this reflects significant improvements in mortality and fertility trends, it also creates important challenges for the fiscal sustainability of some social policies and for...

The natural endowment of the Democrat Republic of Congo, in the form of land, minerals, and forests, is unparalleled. The right mix of policies has the potential to unleash incentives that could transform the economy. However, transport infrastructure in the DRC is amongst the sparsest and most...

Argentina’s path to economic prosperity is through efficient, sustainable and economically thriving cities. Not only are cities a spatial concentration of people, but also they generate agglomeration economies by concentrating ideas, talent, and knowledge. Argentina is one of the most...

Within the past decade the Maldives moved from poverty to middle-income status, introduced democracy, and was hailed as a Millennium Development Goal Plus country. Women face little discrimination in basic aspects of life such as primary education, health and survival – unlike in much of South...

The Shanghai basic education system has garnered significant attention since its extraordinary performance in the 2009 and 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a global assessment of 15-year-olds’ educational abilities. Among the 65 participating economies in 2012,...

Inadequate electricity services pose a major impediment to reducing extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity in Sub-Saharan Africa. Simply put, Africa does not have enough power. Despite the abundant low-carbon and low-cost energy resources available to Sub-Saharan Africa, the region’s...