World Bank

About: World Bank is a other organization based out in Washington D.C., District of Columbia, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poverty. The organization has 7813 authors who have published 21594 publications receiving 1198361 citations. The organization is also known as: World Bank, WB & The World Bank.

Rethinking School Feeding Social Safety Nets, Child Development, and the Education Sector

Abstract: This review highlights three main findings. First, school feeding programs in low-income countries exhibit large variation in cost, with concomitant opportunities for cost containment. Second, as countries get richer, school feeding costs become a much smaller proportion of the investment in education. For example, in Zambia the cost of school feeding is about 50 percent of annual per capita costs for primary education; in Ireland it is only 10 percent. Further analysis is required to define these relationships, but supporting countries to maintain an investment in school feeding through this transition may emerge as a key role for development partners. Third, the main preconditions for the transition to sustainable national programs are mainstreaming school feeding in national policies and plans, especially education sector plans; identifying national sources of financing; and expanding national implementation capacity. Mainstreaming a development policy for school feeding into national education sector plans offers the added advantage of aligning support for school feeding with the processes already established to harmonize development partner support for the education for all-fast track initiative.

Racing to the Bottom? Foreign Investment and Air Pollution in Developing Countries

Abstract: Critics of free trade have raised the specter of a race to the bottom, in which environmental standards collapse because polluters threaten to relocate to pollution havens in the developing world. The flaw in the race-to-the-bottom model is that its basic assumptions misrepresent the political economy of pollution control in developing countries. Critics of free trade have raised the specter of a race to the bottom, in which environmental standards collapse because polluters threaten to relocate to pollution havens in the developing world. Proponents of this view advocate high, globally uniform standards enforced by punitive trade measures that neutralize the cost advantage of would-be pollution havens. To test the race-to-the-bottom model, Wheeler analyzes recent air quality trends in the United States and in Brazil, China, and Mexico, the three largest recipients of foreign investment in the developing world. The evidence clearly contradicts the model's central prediction. The most dangerous form of air pollution - suspended particulate matter - has actually declined in major cities in all four countries during the era of globalization. Citing recent research, Wheeler argues that the race-to-the-bottom model is flawed because its basic assumptions misrepresent the political economy of pollution control in developing countries. He proposes a more realistic model, in which low-income societies serve their own long-run interests by reducing pollution. He concludes with recommendations for international assistance measures that can improve environmental quality without counterproductive enforcement of uniform standards and trade sanctions. This paper - a product of Infrastructure and Environment, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to study the economics of pollution control in developing countries. Please contact David Wheeler, room MC2-529, telephone 202-473-3401, fax 202-522-3230, email address dwheeler1@worldbank.org.