'Failure to achieve gender equality in education is often blamed on 'weak capacity'. This paper illustrates the ways in which individual, organisational, and institutional capacity all play important roles in producing positive results for girls. It is essential to recognise that these different forms of capacity are related, in order to prevent the disappearance of policies and strategies produced with the aim of achieving gender equality in education.'

Source: Oxfam

'The Asian Development Bank will fund a energy-efficiency project in the Philippines that will give away 13 million energy-saving lamps to homeowners and businesses as part of a government push to cut the nation's power bills. It will save the Philippines US$ 100 million a year in fuel costs.'

'How can policies improve the welfare of people in economically lagging regions of countries? Should policies help jobs follow people? Or should they enable people to follow jobs? In most countries, market forces have encouraged the geographic concentration of people and economic activities - policies that try to offset these forces to encourage balanced economic growth have largely been unsuccessful. However, policies that help people get closer to economic density have improved individual welf more...

'A National Qualifications Framework (NQF) has benefits, which can improve technical vocational education and training (TVET) in Pakistan significantly, if certain conditions are met. This paper proposes and analyzes a set of essential aspects of a NQF that could guide Pakistan as it seeks to develop a NQF. The main challenges are to develop a NQF realistic in scope, commit stakeholders and relate the NQF to other education reforms. The policy recommendations in this working paper focus on a NQF more...

'This report highlights the OECD's and its members' contributions to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It highlights the OECD's specific roles in the international effort as an intergovernmental agency and through its collective membership.
The paper outlines how the OECD contributes to the global development partnership. This includes:
• ensuring the fundamental conditions for economic growth - encorporating peace and security, sound insitutions and policies, ensuring a sta more...

'This paper presents the results of IISD's 2008 survey of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) members' training programs for ages 20-35. It serves as the foundation document for a workshop on Supporting the Next Generation of Sustainability Leadership at IUCN Congress 2008 aimed at exploring collaborative possibilities to shape future training programs by reviewing existing programs, highlighting key issues and identifying the possible next steps.'

'This publication identifies priority areas for intensified action on gender-based violence: policy frameworks, data collection and analysis, focus on sexual and reproductive health, humanitarian responses, adolescents and youth, men and boys, faith-based networks, and vulnerable and marginalized populations. It is intended to provide a common platform and technical guidance for UNFPA at country, regional and global levels and effectively guide capacity-development initiatives, resources and par more...

'It has been argued that the adverse impact of skilled versus unskilled labor migration can be mitigated or even offset by the fact that skilled migrants remit more than unskilled ones. This paper contributes to the much debated and so far unresolved related issue of whether remittances actually increase with migrants’ level of education. The determinants of remittances considered include migration levels and rates; migrants’ education level; and source countries’ income, financial sector more...

'Improving governance and reducing vulnerability to corruption are core development challenges. Development is essentially about reducing poverty, and there is clear evidence that the poor are the most vulnerable to corruption and suffer the most from the impacts of poor governance and weakly performing institutions. This paper presents a brief overview of the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) recent experience in supporting the efforts of
countries in the Asia and Pacific region as they work to more...

'Vidya, Hindi for 'knowledge,' is a computer literacy program run by Aptech Ltd., one of the two largest computer education and training companies in India. As a part of its corporate citizenship effort, Aptech launched the Vidya program in 1999 to expand its course catalog beyond the company's core offerings targeted at computer professionals and corporate markets. The pricing of Vidya has provided opportunities to many low-income students that would otherwise not have able to afford computer t more...