Education plays a central role in preparing individuals to enter the labor force, as well as equipping them with the skills to engage in lifelong learning experiences. The objective of this study is to review what is known about the role of education in improving labor market outcomes, with a...

This book takes a look at the past to gain insights for the future. Nearly 30 years ago, when the world urban population was only about half of the 3 billion that it is today, when most Less Developed Countries (LDCs) were primarily rural, and before the wave of decentralization of the 1980s and...

The objective of this report is to analyze the important roles of labor markets, employment, productivity, and labor income in facilitating shared growth and promoting poverty reduction in Bangladesh. First, the report provides a background discussion of poverty, reform, and growth in...

Realizing the potential of Latin America and the Caribbean's (LAC) youth is essential not only to their well-being, but also to the long-term welfare of the whole region. Young people's families, communities, and governments as well as private, nonprofit, and international organizations, have a...

This assessment, reflecting poverty's many dimensions in Mozambique, combines multiple disciplines and diagnostic tools to explore poverty. It draws on a combination of approaches and tools from three separate analytical diagnostics developed by the World Bank: poverty assessment, country gender...

Gender equality is not just a women's issue, it is a development issue. Women's economic empowerment is essential for economic development, growth, and poverty reduction not only because of the income it generates, but also because it helps to break the vicious cycle of poverty. Educating girls...

Youth and Africa have received increased attention in recent policy discussions and World Bank work, as articulated in the Africa action plan and the World Development Report 2007: development and the next generation. The Africa action plan offers a framework to support critical policy and...

The objective of the study is to examine, identify, and quantify the factors behind Africa's high prices for road transport. Such prices are a major obstacle to economic growth in the region, as shown in several studies. For example, Amjadi and Yeats (1995) concluded that transport costs in...

Presented in this study are nine development initiatives in six less developed countries - Afghanistan, Cambodia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Timor Leste and Uganda. The cases show that development initiatives, which engage local communities and local level governments, are often able to have...

This study was initiated in 1999 with the objective of identifying the most promising path to development in light of emerging global and regional changes. The purpose of this volume is to examine the role of universities in enhancing technological capability in Asian as well as other industrial...