This document provides an overview of measures taken by countries in the region regarding continuity of the education service during the closure of schools due to COVID-19. It also offers an analysis of the basic conditions on which those countries build their actions, as well as the capacity of families to access distance education. Lastly, it presents a series of policy options, actions, strategies, and recommendations to answer to the crisis.

Through a survey of 62,837 caregivers of young children in four Latin American countries, households were asked about their experiences with emergency distance education and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings suggest that the crisis will perpetuate and may even worsen existing inequalities in learning. Moreover, caregivers of children newborns to age seven report substantial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on their own mental health.

In the context of the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the loss of work income, this note briefly discusses the international experience with regard to early access to pension funds, analyzing its advantages and disadvantages. Three are the main messages. First, in normal situations, allowing a degree of liquidity for pension funds presents a policy dilemma between building a pension and providing the individual with liquidity in the face of income shocks. It is up to each country to weigh this dilemma.

The lack of motivation and sense of community within schools have proven to be the two most relevant factors behind the decision to drop out. Despite the notable progress made in school access in countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, dropping out of school has still been a problem. This paper explores Scholas Occurrentes pedagogical approach to address these dropouts. Scholas focuses on the voice of students. It seeks to act positively on their motivation by listening to them, creating spaces for discussion, and strengthening soft skills and civic engagement.

This report describes the potential of AI to improve individual and public health by improving access, improving clinical decision-making, and creating new efficiencies in clinical care and research. It then describes the differences between more traditional medical devices and products that use AI, discusses the ways in which countries are considering regulating these products, and examines the specific risks of what are probably the most popular uses of AI in the medical industry.

This note brings together lessons from the IDBs and other institutions efforts to adapt a skills taxonomy for Latin America and the Caribbean countries. These efforts have focused primarily on the ability to gather and make use of labor market information on skills demand from non-traditional data sources like online job vacancies. Most of these efforts have used the European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations (ESCO) taxonomy to underpin the identification and classification of skills.

This note brings together lessons from the IDBs and other institutions efforts to adapt a skills taxonomy for Latin America and the Caribbean countries. These efforts have focused primarily on the ability to gather and make use of labor market information on skills demand from non-traditional data sources like online job vacancies. Most of these efforts have used the European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations (ESCO) taxonomy to underpin the identification and classification of skills.

Amid the economic crisis triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic, there is a risk that the inequality of opportunity in education may increase in Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries unless well designed, properly evaluated, and progressive school finance policies are implemented. Based on comparative analysis of data from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, this report provides some insights on how school funding policies can either mitigate or aggravate such inequalities.

One of the main challenges of employment services -in particular labor intermediation systems- is to facilitate the adequate matching between the required skills in open vacancies and those that job seekers have. This challenge stems in part from the difficulty of matching the skills, competencies, education, and job experience that a candidate reports to have, with the functions the potential employer wants to assign to this prospect employee.