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For the past two centuries, western modern education has informed education policies and practices in Egypt. However, few researchers have analyzed the historical or current politics of educational transfer in this country. This article investigates the ways in which foreign transfer has influenced Egyptian education, both historically and currently. It concludes that current Egyptian education is a product of inappropriately adapted foreign transfers coupled with domestic interest in spreading education with little attention to its quality. Egypt has recently received considerable support from the international community and has been influenced by global educational discourses. Yet, its educational reforms have met little, if any, success as they have been introduced into a system with characteristics that are historically ingrained and resistant to change, and into a contested context of competing interest groups and a climate of mistrust. The result is a disoriented education system full of problems.

The Annual World Bank Conference on Development Economics (ABCDE) brings together the world's finest development thinkers to present their perspectives and ideas. In recent years, a parallel, second conference has been held in Europe with the same goal of expanding the flow of ideas between thinkers, practitioners, and policymakers in the field of international development. ABCDE—Europe 2003 presents selected papers from the fourth annual ABCDE—Europe meetings, held June 24-26, 2002, in Oslo, Norway. Hosted by the World Bank and the Chr. Michelsen Institute, more than 350 eminent scholars and practitioners from 50 countries met to deliberate on the theme 'Towards Pro-Poor Policies'. The papers from sessions on aid, institutions, and globalization provide both a general overview of links between poverty, inequality, and growth, and address specific topics such as the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative for debt reduction. All consider the role of policies and institutions in development and poverty reduction. IN THIS VOLUME: An overview by Bertil Tungodden, Ivar Kolstad, and Nicholas Stern; papers on aid by Nicholas Stern, David Roland-Holst and Finn Tarp, Stephan Klasen, Lisa Chauvet and Patrick Guillaumont, and Jean-Pierre Cling, Mireille Razafindrakoto, and François Roubaud; papers on institutions by Mariano Tommasi, Mushtaq Khan, David Dunham, Stanley Engerman and Kenneth Sokoloff, Karla Hoff and Joseph Stiglitz; and papers on globalization by Jomo Sundaram, John Dunning, Antonio Spilimbergo, Juan Luis Londoño, and Miguel Székely, Andrés Solimano, and Oded Stark.

An effective state is essential to achieving socio-economic and sustainable development. With the advent of globalization, there are growing pressures on governments and organizations around the world to be more responsive to the demands of internal and external stakeholders for good governance, accountability and transparency, greater development effectiveness, and delivery of tangible results. Governments, parliaments, citizens, the private sector, NGOs, civil society, international organizations and donors are among the stakeholders interested in better performance. As demands for greater accountability and real results have increased, there is an attendant need for enhanced results-based monitoring and evaluation of policies, programs, and projects. This Handbook provides a comprehensive ten-step model that will help guide development practitioners through the process of designing and building a results-based monitoring and evaluation system. These steps begin with a “Readiness Assessment” and take the practitioner through the design, management, and importantly, the sustainability of such systems. The Handbook describes each step in detail, the tasks needed to complete each one, and the tools available to help along the way.

The report estimated that in the East Asia and Pacific (EAP) region alone about US$80 billion a year of additional investments would be required in low-emission projects (green investments), resulting in a significant financing challenge. The report argues that the solution lies in understanding the causes of the financial viability gap, and then investigating how specific actions, including strategic subsidies, concessional financing, and public policy interventions and reforms, can bridge this gap to make green investment transactions viable. The green infrastructure finance framework also underscores the benefits of valuing and monetizing carbon externalities. Moreover, it recognizes the effects of policy distortions and other negative factors that impinge on financial viability, emphasizing the need for an approach to analyze and explain the gap and to attribute its components to different stakeholders. This report shows that it is essential to measure global and local externality benefits against the causes of the viability gap such as perceptions of added risks, cost differentials, policy distortions, and other factors. Once these elements are fully considered, policy makers can identify practical ways to better structure the financing of green investment projects that can be supported by the market. Three key principals have guided the development of the framework: (i) targeting green finance resources on sectors that have large numbers of projects with low abatement costs; (ii) setting ceilings on the value of support that will be provided for a tone of greenhouse gas (GHG) abatement in any sector or project; and (iii) using competitive mechanisms to ensure that projects do not receive more support than needed to make them financially attractive. This report is the second of a continuing series of green infrastructure finance publications. The first part undertook a stocktaking of leading initiatives and literature related to the green infrastructure finance theme. This second part is a conceptual piece that bridges ideas and concepts between environmental economics and project finance practices. Work will continue over the next months by operationalizing this framework (analytical methodology and assessment of green infrastructure investment climate) through a pilot in a selected EAP developing country. Given a better understanding of the financing challenges of different green projects, work will also continue in developing more customized and innovative financing instruments that can be specifically tailored to address the requirements of these projects.

This chapter contains sections titled: Who are the key stakeholders? How can the donor community help? Give the poor a chance Conclusion

A number of countries committed themselves to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), aimed at eradicating extreme poverty, and improving the welfare of people by the year 2015. The book assesses whether universal primary education can be achieved by 2015. The study focuses on the largest low-income countries that are furthest from the goal, home to about seventy five percent of the children out of school globally. By analyzing education policies, and financing patterns in relatively high-performing countries, the study identifies a new policy, and financing framework for faster global progress in primary education. The authors use a simulation model to show how adoption of this framework, could accelerate progress in low-income countries, currently at risk of not reaching the education MDG. The study however, makes it clear that worldwide attainment of universal primary education by 2015, will necessitate an even stronger combination of political will, deep and sustained reform, faster dissemination of best practices, and intensified financial effort than has been marshaled to date.

The Comprehensive Development Framework (CDF)–launched by World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn in early 1999–has become an important influence on the global development agenda. The CDF consists of four principles – a Long-Term, Holistic Development Framework; Results Orientation; Country Ownership; and Country Led-Partnership. These core principles are not new individually, but bringing them together as a unified concept and championing the package within the global development community has been an important innovation. This evaluation, conducted by multi-disciplinary teams with members from developed and developing countries, shows that both donors and recipients have made progress in implementing the CDF principles, particularly in countries where one or more of the principles have been applied over a number of years. However, these positive changes are fragile and could be stalled or reversed. Implementing the principles requires changes in entrenched behaviors and institutional practices. Thus, dedicated and consistent attention is needed by top donor leadership and recipient countries to ensure that momentum is sustained. The in-depth case studies focus on Bolivia, Ghana, Romania, Uganda and Vietnam–all CDF pilot countries at the time – and Burkina Faso (a non-CDF pilot).

“For 60 years the World Bank and the development community have been searching for the secret of prosperity. For both thinkers and doers, this has been an emotional rollercoaster of hope and disappointment, certainty and doubt. In the front seat of this drama were the World Bank’s country directors who were responsible for bridging the world of ideas with that of action, the technical with the political. In this book they tell this story from a deeply personal, humble, and engaged perspective. This book is fundamental reading for the next generation of those who take on the quest for development.”Ricardo Hausmann, Professor of the Practice of Economic DevelopmentJohn F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University In At the Frontlines of Development former World Bank country directors recount their experiences, both as managers of the World Bank's programs in global economic hotspots of the 1990s as well as throughout their careers in development economics. These essays detail, among many stories of development in the 1990s, how China and India lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, while Russia collapsed; how Bosnia and Herzegovina and Mozambique remade their war-ravaged economies; and how Thailand, Turkey, and Argentina fell into financial crisis. These remarkable stories, told in first-person by the country directors who were there to witness them, provide candid assessments of development in the 1990s—what succeeded, what failed, and what lessons emerged. This book is part of a larger effort undertaken by the World Bank to understand the development experience of the 1990s, an extraordinary eventful decade. Each of the project‘s three volumes serves a different purpose. Economic Growth in the 1990s provides comprehensive analysis of the decade's development experience, while Development Challenges in the 1990s offers insights on the practical concerns faced by policymakers.

Around the world, it is increasingly being recognized that for sustainability goals to be reached, efforts need to go beyond complying with standards and mitigating adverse impacts, to identifying environmental sustainability as an objective of the development process. This approach requires the integration of environmental, sustainability, and climate change considerations into policy and sector reform. Because sector reform brings about significant policy change involving adjustments in laws, policies, regulations, and institutions, it is a sensitive political process often driven by strong economic interests. Policy makers are subject to a number of political pressures that originate in vested interests. The recommendations of environmental assessment are often of little relevance unless there are constituencies that support them and have sufficient political power to make their voices heard in the policy process. While strong constituencies are important during the design of sector reform, they are even more important during implementation. It follows that effective environmental assessment in policy and sector reform requires strong constituencies backing up recommendations, a system to hold policy makers accountable for their decisions, and institutions that can balance competing and, sometimes, conflicting interests.

Broad-based growth is one of the four pillars of the Nicaraguan Government’s Poverty Reduction Strategy. Living standards of the rural poor will continue to depend largely upon agriculture. This study takes stock of major developments in Nicaragua’s agricultural sector and argues that broad-based growth can be promoted by strengthening agricultural competitiveness. Export growth is the key, requiring immediate action within a coherent strategy. The case of coffee illustrates the proposed strategy. This report also identifies productivity constraints in rural factor markets, suggesting medium-and-long-term solutions. It concludes with a review of the issue of risk management and with descriptions of some promising pilot projects.