Latin America and the Caribbean are facing numerous challenges, such as low-quality education, poor well-being, and non-peaceful and exclusive societies. The causes are complex, yet connected to outdated, ineffective, and underfinanced education systems. The emotional strain of the pandemic continues to create new challenges and unearth problems that have long been neglected. There is an urgent need for a disruptive solution that supports educators, parents, and students to overcome existing problems as well as better prepare them for uncertain times that lie ahead.

Understanding the characteristics of Venezuelan refugees and migrants in the Dominican Republic (DR) is key to informing appropriate policy responses, such as the most recent regularization program (Plan de Normalización de Migrantes Venezolanos). This profile aims to fill a fundamental information gap by providing a detailed review of Venezuelans characteristics to inform a larger project that will assess the impact of the normalization program. It is based on a sample, built using the Respondent Driven Sampling Approach, conducted between December 2021 and January 2022.

Understanding the characteristics of Venezuelan refugees and migrants in the Dominican Republic (DR) is key to informing appropriate policy responses, such as the most recent regularization program (Plan de Normalización de Migrantes Venezolanos). This profile aims to fill a fundamental information gap by providing a detailed review of Venezuelans characteristics to inform a larger project that will assess the impact of the normalization program. It is based on a sample, built using the Respondent Driven Sampling Approach, conducted between December 2021 and January 2022.

Play during early childhood is key to stimulating childrens physical, social, emotional and cognitive development; it promotes their imagination and creativity, improves their problem-solving skills and enhances their learning readiness by providing the foundations to build skills later in their lives. Parental engagement in play-based learning at home is one of the behaviors most consistently associated with positive child development. However, it is concerning that levels of parental engagement in play activities have been found to be lower in low-resourced settings.

Play during early childhood is key to stimulating childrens physical, social, emotional and cognitive development; it promotes their imagination and creativity, improves their problem-solving skills and enhances their learning readiness by providing the foundations to build skills later in their lives. Parental engagement in play-based learning at home is one of the behaviors most consistently associated with positive child development. However, it is concerning that levels of parental engagement in play activities have been found to be lower in low-resourced settings.

This study analyzes gender earnings gap in 18 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. It finds a significant difference in hourly earnings between men and women in most of the region. It also finds that while women should be earning more per hour than men based on their level of education, the economic sectors in which they work, their occupations, the setting in which they live (urban/rural), and their personal characteristics, they do not, in reality, earn more.

In this article we experimentally evaluate Colombia’s Think Equal program, which teaches socioemotional skills to children ages 3 to 6. Given the context of COVID-19, the original design was adapted as a hybrid model, alternating in-person and remote instruction and engaging families in the implementation of the curriculum. We found that the program had positive effects on children’s prosocial behavior, self-awareness, and cognitive learning. The intervention also had an impact on education centers personnel (community mothers) and caregivers implementing the activities.