93206 EDUCATION NOTES November 2014 Investing in Young Children: A Review of the World Bank’s Recent Experience I ncreasing recognition that investments in early childhood Between July 2000 and June 2013, the World Bank’s development (ECD) are essential for children to reach Education; Health, Nutrition, and Population; and Social their full potential has led development agencies – Protection and Labor Global Practices invested $3.6 billion including the World Bank – to place a higher priority on in ECD. There was a dramatic increase in investments young children in their partnership with countries. A recent toward the end of that period after the adoption of review of the World Bank’s experience in ECD suggests strategic documents emphasizing the importance of ECD. rapidly increasing commitments and provides selected lessons from operations and documents promising new initiatives (Sayre et al., 2014). The review considered ECD Operational Commitments activities for the period June 2000 to July 2013 within the Education (ED), Health, Nutrition, & Population (HNP), and All six World Bank regions have been investing in ECD Social Protection & Labor (SP) Global Practices. This brief through both operational and analytical work. As shown summarizes key findings and messages from the review in Figure 1, the Africa (AFR) and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) regions have been leading the way with the largest operational investments from IBRD and IDA. The cumulative IBRD/IDA operational portfolio for LAC Overall ECD Portfolio over the period reaches $1.3 billion invested through 37 projects. Globally, more than half of the operational In the 13 years from June 2000 to July 2013 (fiscal 2001 commitments for ECD were implemented by the Health, to fiscal 2013), the World Bank three Global Practices Nutrition, & Population Global Practice, which accounted for invested $3.6 billion in 273 activities in real terms (in 2013 $2.2 billion of the IBRD/IDA portfolio through 59 operations. U.S. dollars,). In nominal terms, the amount Table 1: Summary Data on the ECD Portfolio, FY01-FY13 invested was $3.3 billion, but the analysis in this note was carried out to analyze trends over time and assess whether commitments have increased after controlling for inflation. A total of 166 operations (IBRD/IDA grants or loans, as well as trust-funded projects) and 107 analytical and advisory activities were implemented in this period. Table 1 disaggregates the overall amounts in terms of commitments (for operations) and expenditures (for analytical, advisory, and partnership activities) by category. EDUCATION NOTES Box 1: Methodology To track the World Bank’s ECD activities in a consistent and comprehensive manner, 3,681 activities implemented by the three Global Practices between June 2000 and July 2013 were screened. These activities included operations (loans or grants given to client countries), as well as analytical, advisory, and partnership activities that help improve the effectiveness of the Bank’s work and country systems, policies, and programs related to ECD. Due to the diversity of projects and tasks targeting young children, all activity documents related to the three Global Practices sectors were first reviewed electronically for keywords. Activities with matching keywords were then reviewed manually to identify activities focusing entirely or partially on ECD. When estimating funding commitments for ECD projects and activities, investments committed specifically to ECD were calculated from the information available in the documents (for projects with ECD components, only commitments for those components were included in the estimates of investments in ECD). In addition to direct ECD investments that are the focus of the review, 232 activities were identified that did not explicitly focus on ECD but were very likely to benefit young children. These projects include 152 projects in Health, Nutrition & Population, 59 projects in Social Protection & Labor, and 21 projects in Education. Examples of areas of focus included health sector reforms resulting in improved maternal and child health services, HIV/AIDS interventions including the prevention of mother-to-child transmission, safety net projects targeting poor mothers to address food insecurity, and education sector reforms designed to improve basic education, including preschool (but with no direct investment in a preschool component). While these 232 projects in all likelihood resulted in significant benefits for young children, they were not included in the analysis for this note. It is also important to emphasize that other areas of World Bank investments benefiting young children were excluded from the analysis because the review focused on investments managed by the three Global Practices — Education; Health, Nutrition, &Population; and Social Protection & Labor. The review did not include operations in, for example, agriculture or water and sanitation, even though children are among their main beneficiaries. This is substantially more than Education, which invested The increase of IBRD/IDA investments in ECD in recent years $935 million through 42 operations, and Social Protection may be related in part to sectoral policy statements made by & Labor, which invested $241 million in ECD through 15 the World Bank on the importance of ECD. In 2010, through projects during the same period. the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) initiative, the World Bank, along with international partners—including the European In real terms, World Bank funding for ECD operations Commission, the United Nations Standing Committee on increased over time. As shown in Figure 2, between fiscal Nutrition, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the 2001 and fiscal 2011, commitments remained fairly flat, but World Food Programme, and World Health Organization— they increased sharply in the last two years (fiscal 2012 set forth priorities for action to address undernutrition. In and fiscal 2013). Between 2001 and 2011, operational 2011, the Bank’s Education Global Practice put forth its investments averaged $211 million per year (in 2013 Education Strategy 2020, Learning for All, where investing U.S. dollars). However, in 2012 and 2013, investment early is one of the three pillars. The new social protection dramatically increased. In 2012, the three Global Practices strategy adopted in 2012 emphasizes the need to invest invested $524 million in ECD operations, and in 2013, their in stronger systems to protect the health and well-being operational investments reached $707 million. of young children. The more detailed analysis available in Sayre et al. (2014) suggests that Health, Figure 1: ECD IBRD/IDA operations by region and sector (FY01-FY13) Nutrition, & Population investments dramatically increased since the SUN initiative was launched, with investments in Education also increasing after the release of the education strategy. Investments in Social Protection & Labor operations have not yet increased, but in the next few years, this trend can be reassessed. The period from fiscal 2001 to fiscal 2013 was not homogenous in terms of economic Source: Authors, based on World Bank data. conditions in developing countries. The first November 2014 few years witnessed high rates of economic growth in many Project. The portfolio review highlights six lessons from countries, while the period from fiscal 2008 to fiscal 2011 those case studies: was characterized by a severe recession in OECD countries • Designing ECD projects, due to their complexity and the that led to downturns in many developing countries as well. time lag between investments and impacts on children’s During that period, lending related to human development, development, requires careful attention to results and especially to safety nets, increased substantially. This frameworks, M&E, and a clear definition of roles and increase in the overall size of the the three Global Practices responsibilities of all actors within the project. portfolio led to a decline in the share of ECD operations in the human development portfolio. But after the recession, • Commitment from all levels of government as well as local as overall commitments to operations in the three practices communities is crucial. receded from their peak during the crisis, and as the • Parents are key stakeholders who should be included ECD portfolio increased substantially, the share of the in ECD project design and implementation, as they can commitments allocated to ECD grew rapidly. Overall, for maintain and improve upon the gains from traditional ECD the period as a whole, there has been a clear increase over services delivered through a project. time in the share of the portfolio allocated to ECD. • Coordination across sectors and levels is essential. The strategy for inter-sectoral coordination and identification of Lessons from Operations an institutional anchor depends on an individual country context. Existing ministerial and stakeholder relationships specific to the country context play a considerable role in To gain an understanding of which operations worked well, affecting a project’s success. or in some cases required improvements, seven operations were selected for more detailed analysis. The selected • Projects should be designed to ensure that quality operations were mostly funded through IBRD and IDA, but interventions are accessible and culturally relevant to all some also benefited from trust funds. Most of the operations children, particularly those who face the most obstacles. were substantial in size but not necessarily the largest ones. • Knowledge exchange (e.g., South-South activities) of The seven case studies were the Bulgaria Social Inclusion positive project experience can be a valuable strategy to Project, the Eritrea Integrated Early Childhood Development motivate governments to improve ECD systems as well as Project, the Indonesia Early Childhood Education and strengthen existing and future World Bank-supported ECD Development Project, the Jamaica Early Childhood projects. Development Project, the Jordan ECD component of the Education Reform for Knowledge Economy Project, the Mexico ECD component of the Compensatory Education Project, and finally the Senegal Nutrition Enhancement Analytical, Advisory, and Partnership Activities Figure 2:IBRD/IDA ECD Operations, US$ million The budget for analytical, advisory, and partnership (US$ of 2013) activities and the number of such activities also increased over the period under review, especially in the last fiscal year from June 2012 to July 2013 (see Figure 3). Between June 2000 and July 2012, funding for analytical and advisory activities each year averaged $3.3 million with an average of six activities per year. By contrast, in 2013 there were 31 analytical activities, with a total budget of $15 million. As part of analytical, advisory, and partnership activities, a number of recent initiatives have been implemented at the World Bank. The review briefly discusses these initiatives, several of which are Source: Authors, based on World Bank data. also summarized in the Education Notes series. A February 2012 EDUCATION NOTES first initiative is the ECD module of the Systems Approach for in October 2012 to provide targeted technical assistance Better Education Results (SABER) framework that aims to and funding to support ECD and early learning across Sub- provide a holistic multi-sectoral (including education, health, Saharan Africa. These and other initiatives are discussed in nutrition, and social protection) assessment of programs and the review. policies that affect young children’s development. A second initiative is the eLearning ECD module of the World Bank’s Education Staff Development Program (ESDP), which brings together theory, practice, and shared experiences so that Conclusion ECD policymakers and practitioners can engage in informed policy dialogue and decision making; analyze, formulate, The evidence in the literature on the returns to investments critique, and evaluate projects and activities to support ECD; in ECD is clear. Investing in ECD has high potential to become familiar with good practices in ECD; and learn how help achieve the World Bank’s twin goals of eliminating and when to seek technical support and resources. A third poverty and increasing shared prosperity. The demand for initiative is the World Bank’s Investing in Young Children for investments in ECD is rising within client countries and, as High Returns guidance note, which outlines 25 essential ECD a result, within the World Bank’s portfolio. In recent years, interventions as well as principles that countries can adopt for operational as well as analytical commitments to ECD work their ECD strategies. A fourth initiative is the Early Learning have increased dramatically in the World Bank portfolio Partnership (ELP), a regional program in the Africa region to for Education; Health, Nutrition, & Population; and Social promote scalable, sustainable, and impactful approaches to Protection & Labor Global Practices. The Bank has also supporting young children’s development and early learning. developed a series of new tools and initiatives to support The World Bank, with support from partners, including the ECD through analytical work, project preparation, new Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, launched the ELP partnerships, and innovative approaches. Figure 3: Trend in Analytical, Advisory, and Partnership Activities, in 2013 US$, millions Source: Authors, based on World Bank data. Reference Sayre, R. K., Devercelli A. E., Neuman M. J., and Wodon Q. T., 2014, Investing in Early Childhood Development: Review of the World Bank’s Recent Experience in Operations and Analytical and Advisory Activities, Washington, DC: The World Bank. Education Notes is a series produced by the World Bank to share lessons learned from innovative approaches to improving educa- tion practice and policy around the globe. This note was prepared with generous support from the Children Investment Fund Founda- tion. For additional information or hard copies, please go to www.worldbank.org/education or contact the Education Advisory Service: eservice@worldbank.org. Authors: R. Sayre and Q. Wodon. Photo Credit: © Veronica Grigera / World Bank