Skills for Life: Tackling the Ultimate Educational Challenge of the 21st Century 

Submitted by SPH DIGITAL on

How many women would Amelia Earhart have inspired without her incredible determination? Would Gandhi have changed the course of social movements without empathy? Or would Albert Einstein have revolutionized our understanding of the universe without his ability to handle frustration or think creatively? The history of humanity and its progress has been built on the shoulders of those who persevered, were passionate, creative, resilient, and demonstrated empathy towards the needs of others.

Behind the Camera: Creativity and Investment for Latin America and the Caribbean: Learnings from Conversations with Key Players in the Audiovisual Sector

Submitted by SPH DIGITAL on

This study assesses the present state of the audiovisual sector in Latin America and the Caribbean in the context of increased demand resulting from the growth of streaming and national industries in the region. The document includes an assessment of audiovisual milestones while centering on current public policy debates and 21st-Century skills.

Cost-Effective Public Daycare in a Low-Income Economy Benefits Children and Mothers

Submitted by SPH DIGITAL on

This paper evaluates the impacts of a public program that introduced access to part-time childcare centers for children younger than four years of age in poor urban areas in Nicaragua. We explore the effects of this program on several measures of children's and parental outcomes. Our identification strategy exploits the original randomization and the distance to the centers, using Instrumental Variables (IV) and Marginal Treatment Effects (MTE) methods to tackle imperfect compliance with the original treatment assignments. We present a theoretical model to rationalize our IV assumptions.

Balancing Scale and Quality: Insights from a Meta-Analysis on Early Childhood Development Programs

Submitted by SPH DIGITAL on

Early childhood development (ECD) programs play a crucial role in promoting children’s cognition and language. Many programs include home visitors or groups who work with parents and young children through play activities that not only build children’s language and cognitive skills, but also engage children and parents together to experience the joy of playing and learning together. As efforts to scale up these programs continue, it is essential to understand the implications of the size of the program on its effectiveness and implementation strategies.

Who Benefits from Tuition-Free, Top-Quality Universities?: Evidence from Brazil

Submitted by SPH DIGITAL on

This paper investigates the long-term impact on earnings of attending a tuition-free, top-quality university in Brazil. We identify the causal effect through a sharp discontinuity in an admission process based on test scores. If admitted, low-income students are found to increase their earnings by 26% ten years later. However, admission has a small and insignificant effect on high-income students. The difference between income groups is not explained by educational attainment, program choice, or selection into better-paying jobs.

Skills for Life: Stress and Brain Development in Early Childhood

Submitted by SPH DIGITAL on

Learning to cope with disappointments and overcoming obstacles is part of growing up. By conquering some challenges, children develop resilience. Such normal stressors may include initiating a new activity or separation from parents during preschool hours. However, when the challenges in early childhood are intensified by important stressors happening outside their own lives, they may start to worry about the safety of themselves and their families. This may cause chronic stress, which interferes with their emotional, cognitive, and social development.

Celebrating LGBTQ+ Pride Month: What did we discuss at our event?

Submitted by SPH DIGITAL on

The IDB’s LGBTQ+ Pride Month event, “Proud in Being Who We Are: More Inclusive Societies for LGBTQ+ People,” was an opportunity to open valuable and necessary conversations about LGBTQ+ inclusion. In the first panel, “Identifying and Removing Barriers,” public sector authorities from Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador joined two specialists from the IDB group to address the challenges and barriers to accessing services and exercising full citizen rights for LGBTQ+ people.