Children and COVID-19 Research Library

The shock of the COVID-19 pandemic affected the human capital formation of children and youths. As a consequence of this disruption, the pandemic is likely to imply permanent lower levels of human capital. This paper provides new evidence on the impact of COVID-19 and school closures on education in Latin America by exploiting harmonized microdata from a large set of national household surveys carried out in 2020, during the pandemic. In addition, the paper uses microsimulations to assess the potential effect of changes in human capital due to the COVID-19 crisis on future income distributions. The findings show that the pandemic is likely to have significant long-run consequences in terms of incomes and poverty if strong compensatory measures are not taken soon.

The countries of the Southern Africa Customs Union (SACU) - Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, and South Africa are exposed to climatic shocks, especially drought, that pose a continual threat to lives and livelihoods across the subregion. The pandemic has compounded these existing vulnerabilities. Climatic shocks such as these tend to affect the poorest most, exacerbating inequalities and increasing poverty. Food insecurity, which is chronic in the subregion and both a root cause of vulnerability to drought and an outcome of it also increased as a result of impacts from the pandemic. Social safety net programs can help poor and vulnerable households manage the risks they face from shocks, helping to mitigate the impacts on poverty and food insecurity, but their effectiveness can be constrained in several ways. The mobilization of social protection in response to COVID-19 and the challenges that have emerged to that mobilization have strengthened the case for investments in preparedness ahead of future shocks. Adaptive social protection refers to an agenda for preparing social protection systems to improve their response to shocks and to build the resilience of poor and vulnerable households. This report takes stock of ASP in four of the five SACU countries and provides targeted recommendations for each country’s development.

This poverty assessment evaluates Cambodia’s poverty reduction progress between 2009 and 2019 and contributing factors. Based on the authors understanding of contributing factors, the assessment asks what the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been, and what will be needed to support inclusive recovery. The Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) recently updated the national poverty lines for Cambodia. Prompted by Cambodia’s transition to lower middle-income status in 2015, the RGC revisited the poverty measurement methodology in 2017; the review confirmed that the way Cambodians live and spend today has changed considerably as the country became richer, and that the national poverty lines needed revising to better reflect economic realities. This assessment uses the new poverty lines to evaluate Cambodia between 2009 and 2019, coupled with other data sources. This poverty assessment covers 5 chapters. Chapter 1 examines the progress Cambodia made in reducing poverty and boosting shared prosperity between 2009 and 2019. Chapter 2 examines the evolution of nonmonetary poverty between 2009 and 2019. Chapter 3 examines the profile of poverty and inequality in 2019/20. Chapter 4 examines the 2019 fiscal system and its effects on poverty and inequality in 2019/20. Chapter 5 examines COVID-19 socio-economic effects on Cambodian Households in 2020.

This report estimates the effects of Coronavirus (COVID-19) on learning and earnings in Cambodia, analyzes the country’s EdTech readiness and the extent to which EdTech access and use are correlated with learning, and discusses the policy implications of the study findings for enhancing learning and for improving system resilience through EdTech based teaching and learning. More specifically, it first analyzes the state of learning outcomes in Cambodia in the immediate post-COVID period (November 2021) using the government’s national learning assessment (NLA) data for grade six students and estimates the declines in learning outcomes experienced by students in this grade between 2016 and 2021 in Khmer and mathematics. Additionally, using a learning loss simulation model developed at the World Bank, it also estimates losses in learning adjusted years of schooling (LAYS) and future earnings of students resulting from pandemic. Second, it analyzes the relationship between the EdTech based distance learning measures implemented at the school level and learning outcomes, as well as the extent to which the country is prepared to systematically integrate and expand the use of EdTech in the education system. And third, it provides recommendations for enhancing learning recovery and learning outcomes, and for addressing gaps in policy provision and implementation to support the scaling up of EdTech for the purpose of improving system resilience.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) partly reversed gains made in three decades of sustained decline in poverty and a decade of accelerated reduction in inequality in Philippines. Although the economy is recovering gradually, there are signs that the recovery may be uneven. Income recovery also seems to be slower for the poor. The COVID-19 pandemic may have long-term negative impacts on development of human capital. To manage the pandemic shock, a considerable number of poor households have relied on such adverse coping mechanisms as reducing food consumption, which may aggravate already prevalent child malnutrition and stunting. Policy needs to be directed to support an inclusive recovery and to address enduring medium to long term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This evaluation assesses the quality of the World Bank’s early response to the COVID-19 crisis and the initial steps toward recovery, focusing on the health and social response. It concentrates on the relief stage and support to restructure systems in the first 15 months of the pandemic (February 1, 2020, to April 30, 2021) in 106 countries. A parallel Independent Evaluation Group evaluation looks at the World Bank Group support to address the economic implications of the pandemic. To assess the quality of the response, the evaluation is guided by a theory of action that synthesizes evidence in three dimensions: relevance of support to the needs of countries; implementation, learning, and adjustment; and operational policy and partnerships to support smooth responses in countries. As the response is ongoing, the evaluation does not assess effectiveness but considers early results and pathways that are expected to lead to outcomes.

Kosovo has fully vaccinated 45.5 percent of the population, below what is needed to slow the spread of COVID-19. The Roma, Ashkali, and Egyptian communities, as marginalized ethnic groups, have been identified as high risk for acquiring COVID-19 and for lower acceptance of vaccines. Factors associated with vaccine acceptance are examined in this qualitative study among Roma, Ashkali, and Egyptian community members and representatives from civil society, community leaders, health care providers, and government working directly within these communities. Using a social-ecological model, intrapersonal, interpersonal, community, and structural factors influencing vaccine acceptance were identified. Intrapersonal-level factors centered on fear of side effects and doubt about vaccine safety and effectiveness, and lack of trust of health care providers; at the interpersonal level, male head of households decided for the entire family whether to receive the vaccine; in the social context at the community level, exposure to prolific misinformation on social media, television news, and paper pamphlets distributed in study communities created fear, doubt, and anxiety about vaccines, and stereotypes about the strong immune systems of ethnic minority groups reinforced beliefs about the communities low susceptibility to COVID-19; and structural-level barriers included the requirement for identification documents, and a buildup of doubt about motivations of the vaccinators created by massive vaccine-promotion efforts and police harassment in implementing curfew, and other protective measures targeting ethnic minority communities. Implications of these findings highlight a need for a segmented approach in designing subgroup-specific and multicomponent interventions to promote vaccine acceptance. Strategies include training local opinion leaders in door-to-door awareness raising, directly addressing misinformation, and distributing vouchers to be exchanged for incentives after vaccination; using social media where respected health care providers and community members post videos promoting vaccination; and removing or providing an alternative to identification requirements.

This paper presents updated simulation results of the potential effects of COVID-19-related school closures on learning outcomes globally. The simulation, which updates and extends prior work by Azevedo, Hasan et al. (2021) and Azevedo (2020), examines potential learning losses as the pandemic moves into the third year. Beyond reflecting the longer duration of the crisis, the paper extends prior work by using country-specific observed school closure information, accounts for the partial reopening of some education systems, updates the baseline Learning Poverty estimates to reflect its best estimate to date just before the pandemic (circa 2019), and uses updated June 2021 macroeconomic projections to reflect the economic magnitude of the crisis. The analysis finds that the overall learning levels are likely to fall substantially around the world. Under an “intermediate” scenario, school closures could potentially increase the share of children in Learning Poverty in low- and middle-income countries by 13 percentage points, to 70 percent. Globally, learning adjusted years of schooling could fall by 1.1 years, and the share of youth below minimum proficiency on the Programme for International Student Assessment could rise by 12.3 percentage points. Furthermore, school shutdowns could generate lifetime earning losses of $21 trillion. These results imply that decisive action is needed to recover and accelerate learning.

African economies are facing a series of challenges to their post-pandemic recovery. Economic activity in the region is slowing to 3.3 percent amid global headwinds, including weak global growth and tightening global financial conditions. Elevated inflation rates and resulting policy tightening, as well as the rising risk of debt distress, are also impacting economic activity. While food insecurity in Sub-Saharan Africa was increasing before the onset of Covid-19, the pandemic and the food and energy crisis have contributed to the recent steep increase in food insecurity and malnutrition. Climate shocks, low productivity in agriculture, lack of infrastructure also contribute to rising food insecurity in the region. The economic fallout from the multiple crises affecting the region has lowered household incomes, increased poverty, widen inequality and heightened food insecurity. This report discusses short-term measures combined with medium- to long-term policy actions that can strengthen African countries' capacity to build resilience and seize opportunities to unlock productivity-enhancing growth while protecting the poor and vulnerable.

South Asia is facing renewed challenges. The impact of the Russia-Ukraine war on food and energy prices on domestic inflation is long-lasting. Externally, countries’ current account balances deteriorate rapidly as imports rise on the back of economic recovery and rising inflation, remittances decline, and foreign capital flows out following monetary tightening in advanced economies. An economic slowdown in advanced economies and trading partners can also be a drag to the exports sector and remittances inflows, which many countries in the region depend on. These immediate challenges can translate to persistent deterrent to long-term growth and development. Higher energy prices already are changing the attitude of many countries outside the region about green transition and carbon reduction. The South Asia region is thus at a critical juncture. The theme chapter provides a deep dive into COVID-19 and migration. Migrant workers and remittances flows are important for South Asia as sources of income and means to smooth local income shocks for households, and as an important source of foreign reserves for the country. The pandemic changed the flows of migration, as some migrants had to return home and some had to stay in foreign countries due to COVID-related restrictions. The chapter studies the long-run trend of migration in the region, how COVID-19 impacted migration and remittance inflows, whether migration has (or has not) recovered, and proposes policies to address underlying problems.

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic quickly turned into a global health crisis that evoked an education emergency of an unprecedented scale. At the peak of the lockdown, the pandemic caused 180 countries to close schools temporarily, forcing 85 percent of the world’s learners out of school. In parallel, the subsequent pandemic-control measures also drove the global economy to a complete halt, precipitating the multi-dimensional inequalities for marginalized populations. The looming global economic recession is causing the re-direction of government financing to meet competing urgent demands in the health and finance sectors. Consequently, this will have short-, medium- , and long-term effects on education,social protection, and nutrition budgets.

Is Coronavirus (Covid-19) a “game changer” for cash transfers? This tantalizing question has animated a large body of recent literature and over 60 virtual panels. This paper offers some clues to address the question by bringing together data, evaluations and practical experiences generated over the course of the pandemic. In particular, the paper flashes out differences between Covid-19 and other crises; it lays out an anatomy of global responses and offers novel data analysis around stylized international trends; synthesizes fresh empirical evidence on response effectiveness based on over 40 evaluations; discusses country-level operational practices as emerging from an array of high and lower-income contexts; and distills key insights with possible future implications.

The education sector in Armenia has challenges with low learning levels and additional pressures imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The World Bank’s human capital index (HCI) shows that a child who starts school at age four in Armenia can expect to complete 11.3 years of schooling by the age of 18. An analysis of learning outcomes factoring in what children actually learn, however, shows that expected years of schooling equate to only eight years. This results in a learning gap of 3.3 years. The COVID-19 pandemic may have exerted additional hurdles to improve learning outcomes. Due to the pandemic, Armenia risks losing 0.3 learning-adjusted year of schooling as calculated by World Bank simulations. This translates to an average annual earning loss of US$6,457 per student. Additionally, around 26 percent of children at late primary-school age in Armenia are not proficient in reading.2 This, also known as learning poverty, means being unable to read and understand a short, age-appropriate text by age 10. Learning poverty in Armenia is 17.2 percentage points worse than the average for the ECA region (8.9 percent on average). The main motivation of the report is to analyze critical human capital dynamics that play into labor productivity, especially that of learning and its determinants. Armenia’s performance in international assessments have been relatively below average but slightly improving over the last decade. This report is also exploring the overall performance of Armenia in terms of learning, where any improvements have occurred and whether they are timely and sufficient in ensuring sustainable growth and productivity. The report will first look at the background of the education system in Armenia including education expenditures and explain the methodology of the study; then analyze the quality of education; focus on differences in student performance across regions followed by factors associated with overall learning outcomes. Finally, it will present recommended ways forward based on the analysis.

In the last two years, the COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc in Latin America and the Caribbean. The region has suffered a triple curse, as it faced the largest combined impact in health, economic and educational terms. The disproportionate impact of the pandemic on people´s lives, livelihoods, and human capital formation represents, without doubt, one of the worst crises in LAC’s history. As we seek to rebuild better and foster more inclusive and sustainable growth, the main concern, nonetheless, is not the heavy toll of the pandemic, but the future of an entire generation of children and young people who have endured this massive shock. This report is the first evidence-based assessment of this educational catastrophe in Latin America and the Caribbean. The report intends to systematically document the impact that COVID-19 has had on the region’s education sector two years after. The 24 months since the outbreak of the pandemic in March 2020 is described sequentially, focusing firstly on the features of the “triple curse”, and then on the direct impact on schooling, learning and skills development. The report also addresses significant cross-sectoral impacts, namely those related to digital and transferable skills.

The world is in the depths of a learning crisis, made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic. This report finds that COVID-19-related school closures and other disruptions have sharply increased learning poverty, a measure of children unable to read and understand a simple text by age 10. The report, The State of Global Learning Poverty: 2022 Update, a joint publication of the World Bank, UNICEF, FCDO, USAID, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and in partnership with UNESCO, stresses that even before the pandemic, there was already a learning crisis. Since then, COVID-19 has sharply increased learning poverty, with COVID-driven school disruptions exacerbating the severe pre-pandemic learning crisis.