From transport to health, food to construction and textiles, plastics are among the most abundant materials in our economy. Globally, the plastic industry is valued at USD 600 billion and provides employment to millions of people worldwide. But plastic pollution has become a crisis of monumental proportions, with 8 million tons ending up in oceans annually. Around the world, different regions face unique challenges ranging from community awareness to waste and recycling capacity, to weak stakeholder engagement.

The objective of this programmatic South-South knowledge exchange, “Skilled Teachers, Skilled Nation”, was to support governments in Central Asia (CA) in improving the effectiveness of their investments in teachers. The program organized five knowledge exchange (KE) events from October 2021 to September 2023, where national researchers from the four CA countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) presented the current landscape of teacher policies and practices across the full career lifecycle – selection into initial teacher educatio

Over 80% of worldwide new coal-fired power plants due to begin operating between now and 2020 will be in middle-income countries in Asia: China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines and Pakistan. Together with the existing plants in operation in these countries, this will lock-in 260 gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions over their remaining lifetimes, which would exceed the carbon budget available to the power sector to be consistent with limiting global warming within 2 degrees.

Countries must license medical professionals to ensure health safety and service quality. Vietnam’s Ministry of Health (MOH) was tasked with developing a medical registration and licensing system for Vietnam that would meet Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) standards. Faced with a legally mandated deadline, the ministry asked the World Bank for assistance. The World Bank’s South-South Facility funded a knowledge exchange to help the Vietnamese officials learn to design, implement, and manage a medical registration and licensing system that would meet ASEAN standards.

After learning about the success of East Asian countries in developing their economies and attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) through Special Economic Zones (SEZ), many African governments wanted to use the same strategy to improve their economic performance. However, most African countries lack the capacity to design and implement SEZs, including lack of policy framework clarity, difficulties in physical planning and land administration, and insufficient regulatory and administrative knowledge. They have also not being very successful in involving the private sector in SEZs.