World's Largest Education Program example essay topic

The World Bank is one of the world's largest sources of development assistance. Its primary focus is on helping the poorest people and the poorest countries. This site provides an overview of how the Bank uses its financial resources, its staff, and its extensive knowledge to help developing countries onto paths of stable, sustainable, and equitable growth Brazilian Slums For the residents of Rocinha, one of Latin America's largest and oldest slums, the struggle to find work and have access to basic social services is exacerbated by the threat of fire, electrocution and power outages. These additional risks stem from the often desperate steps residents take to bring electricity to their meager homes, which are often connected illegally and with extreme risk to the power network. Part of the solution is to find ways to deal with infrastructural inadequacies, to provide essential services at a low cost, and to educate residents about proper power usage, in Rocinha and in other slums in Rio de Janeiro. Such an effort is being undertaken by Light Services de Electric idade SA, Rio's main power provider, as part of an ongoing program to upgrade the city's electricity transmission and distribution systems.

The latest initiative is made possible by a $200 million loan, a portion which is insured against noncommercial risks by a guarantee from the World Bank's Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). Under the Program for Normalization of Informal Areas, Light is working in the city's low-income communities to establish and upgrade power networks, install transformers and meters, and educate local residents about safe, cost-effective power usage. The company is working hand-in-hand with local NGOs to make sure residents understand the program and to address their concerns. For fave la residents, the program does not just provide a steady, safe source of power; it also documents proof of residence, necessary for getting a phone and establishing credit, in addition to other benefits. Brazil's recent power crunch has added a new urgency to the program, which in 2000 reached out to about 150,000 new low-income clients.

By 2005, Light expects to be present in 728 slums and 594 low-income communities and and "irregular" areas-those with unregistered connections or "doctored" meters-adding some 176,000 new clients. HIV / AIDS in Chad As in other parts of Africa, the AIDS epidemic has led the government in Chad to reassess its national health priorities, and in particular focus on the difficulties facing Chadian women who have long suffered from a lack of access to education and proper health care. Roughly three quarters of women in Chad aged 15 to 49 have no schooling, 80 percent marry while in their teens, and more than half have had their first child before turning 18. The use of modern contraception is virtually non existent. Only one in four Chadian women have access to trained assistance while giving birth, so that maternal mortality in Chad, estimated at 827 per 100,000 live births, ranks among the highest in the world.

In response to these challenges, the Chadian government with outside donors developed a National Health Strategy, and a National AIDS Control Strategic Plan. To support these plans, the World Bank is providing the government $41.5 under a Health Sector Support Project and a $24.6 million for a population and AIDS control project. An initial population and AIDS project, which became effective in 1995, helped the government to put in place a multi-sector AIDS prevention plan and trained more than 40 local non-governmental organizations in project development and management. The second project, building on the results of the first, is currently carrying out population control and HIV / AIDS prevention initiatives at the community level.

Knowledge about modern contraception methods, the existence of AIDS, and how the HIV virus spreads, is steadily growing. More than 300,000 condoms are now sold every month, about 15 percent more than expected at the start of the project. Education in India In a nation as sprawling and diverse as India, offering even a few years of education to all boys and girls is a daunting prospect, but one that the government is confronting with the aid of the international community. Initiated in the early 1990's, the District Primary Education Program (DPEP) was designed to facilitate India's efforts to achieve universal primary education and it has since become the world's largest education program, reaching 60 million children.

While the World Bank is the single largest contributor to this initiative, having provided $1.2 billion, the program is also supported by many other donors, including the European Commission, UNICEF and the governments of the Netherlands and Sweden. Spread over 271 districts in 18 states in India, the program operates where female literacy levels are below the national average. The focus of DPEP is children between the ages of six and 14, and its target is to provide at least four or five years of quality primary education. The project also aims to reduce the number of school dropouts and improve the overall quality of primary education. In addition to girls who were formerly prevented from attending school, the beneficiaries include children with mild to moderate disabilities, and working children.

Enrollment in general has increased, and in a three-year period enrollment of girls increased to 43 percent from 38 percent. The recently instituted national education program is using DPEP as a blueprint for its overarching aim of delivering universal primary education across India.