The Committee on Development Effectiveness met to consider the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) report Confronting the Learning Crisis: Lessons from World Bank Support for Basic Education, 2012–22, and the World Bank draft management response.

The committee welcomed the evaluation and commended IEG for a comprehensive and timely assessment. They expressed support for the report’s findings and IEG recommendations. These call for the World Bank to (i) develop country-specific education engagement plans that promote continuity in World Bank support, (ii) include systems-based improvements in the teaching framework to improve learning outcomes, (iii) collaborate with global and country partners to close the data gaps on learning outcomes, and (iv) track progress toward ending learning poverty. While Executive Directors recognized the World Bank’s efforts in the education sector, they noted the increasing learning poverty rate in low- and middle-income countries and reiterated that the institution is well placed to lead delivery of a more strategic and accelerated response to the learning crisis.

Members urged management to take a more holistic systems-based approach to address the issue of basic education, including focusing on resilient infrastructure and the digital access divide. Members encouraged management to support the development of digital literacy as part of its human capital programs in Africa. They also underscored the importance of focusing on the nexus between education and jobs and economic transformation and on strengthening capacity building, including at the provincial or district levels for successful implementation of education reforms. In line with IEG’s findings, members urged management to move beyond delivering and monitoring of outputs to tracking and measuring outcomes, such as improvements in learning poverty, and asked about management’s plans to incentivize staff to promote the measurement and targeting of outcomes versus outputs in World Bank engagements.