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Bangladesh is recognized globally for its remarkable track record of socioeconomic development and potential for becoming an economic powerhouse in the region. The economy has sustained impressive economic growth over the past three decades despite incidences of political conflict, natural calamities, and financial shocks. The country met the Millennium Development Goals ahead of time and reduced the poverty level substantially over the past decades. Progress in human development, education, and health has been equally impressive and produced a healthier and better-educated working population. More women are joining the workforce while gender gaps in pay are gradually narrowing. Moving forward, the country aspires to reach the stage of a developed economy in the next two decades. Bangladesh needs to prepare its workforce for the emerging challenges for a dynamic economy in an increasingly globalized world. The economy is undergoing structural changes on several fronts. First, Bangladesh has transitioned from a largely traditional, agriculture-based economy to an industry and service-driven economy. Industry sector has been the main driving force for economic growth. Second, more recently, technological progress is rapidly changing the production and service modality. Firms need to not only constantly adjust their business and production modality with these technological changes but also have highly skilled manpower who can enable such change processes. Third, a growing and youthful workforce in Bangladesh provides a window of opportunity to improve productivity and accelerate economic growth. Equipping the young generation with the skills needed for jobs remains crucial. On one hand, employers are demanding higher-skilled professionals for technical and managerial positions to support the growing industry and service sectors. On the other hand, tertiary education institutes (TEIs) are struggling to produce employable graduates for the job market. Unemployment rates are consistently high among tertiary graduates, causing prolonged and frustrating joblessness for many. At the same time, the culture and practice of collaborative research to promote industry competitiveness and innovation has been largely missing in the country's tertiary education landscape, undermining Bangladesh's competitiveness ranking in the global knowledge economy. There is urgent need to identify and address the challenges in the sector and orient tertiary education toward the demands of the economy and labor market to help realize Bangladesh's full economic development potential. On one hand, employers are demanding higher-skilled professionals for technical and managerial positions to support the growing industry and service sectors. On the other hand, tertiary education institutes (TEIs) are struggling to produce employable graduates for the job market. Unemployment rates are consistently high among tertiary graduates, causing prolonged and frustrating joblessness for many. At the same time, the culture and practice of collaborative research to promote industry competitiveness and innovation has been largely missing in the country's tertiary education landscape, undermining Bangladesh's competitiveness ranking in the global knowledge economy. There is urgent need to identify and address the challenges in the sector and orient tertiary education toward the demands of the economy and labor market to help realize Bangladesh's full economic development potential.

Education --- Gender --- Labor Market --- Labor Markets --- Skills Development and Labor Force Training --- Social Protections and Labor --- Tertiary Education

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Moldovan employers voice concerns that workers' low levels of socioemotional capabilities, such as poor work ethics, lack of motivation, and limited problem-solving skills, are among the major constraints for business development and productivity. The World Bank's 2013 Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey, the 2016 Labor Market Forecast of Moldova, and a qualitative interview among private sector representatives in 2017 suggest that employers face skills shortages, particularly in areas of work ethics, motivation, and problem solving. The magnitude of skills shortages in Moldova is the highest in the Europe and Central Asia region. The Moldovan labor market will benefit from an increased supply of employees, including new recruits, with a range of relevant socioemotional as well as cognitive capabilities. This report provides a first diagnostic of socioemotional skills in Moldova to profile the skills composition of grade 9 students, identify learning context measures that are strongly associated with socioemotional skills, and clarify options for policy makers and practitioners to foster socioemotional skills. To this end, the Moldovan Socioemotional Skills Assessment was launched in April 2019. This assessment focused on grade 9 students to better understand how much socioemotional skills students exiting the end of the compulsory school cycle self-reported, and how these skills were associated with learning inputs from schools and families. This assessment was the first to evaluate a range of socioemotional skills among school-age children in Moldova, using measures that had been validated internationally. The measures were designed to capture five broad domains of socioemotional skills, including students' self-reported capacity to 'work with others', 'care for others', 'engage with others', 'explore new horizons', and 'manage emotions. The assessment provided not only technical validation of the measurement tools in Moldova but also initial guidance for policies and practices to foster these skills. The results suggest that such measurement tools can be mobilized in Moldova in the future.

Education --- Education For All --- Human Capital --- Psychology --- Skills Development and Labor Force Training --- Social Development --- Social Protections and Labor

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Many emerging economies have skills shortages but fail to effectively deploy students andjob seekers towards filling those shortages. In emerging economies, new technologies,digitization, automation, and other trends like Industry 4.0 result in a constantly changing demandfor sophisticated skills. In this environment, there are often students and job seekers who couldpotentially fill skills gaps but face significant challenges in identifying job opportunities andthe skills needed to obtain them. The schools, training centers, and public service providers thatare responsible for preparing the workforce to fill skills gaps often face similar challenges in terms of deploying attention and resources towards filling those gaps. In Malaysia, the Critical Skills Monitoring Committee (CSC) is charged with producing a Critical Occupations List to serve as a platform for coordinating human capital development policies. The CSC is a specialized interagency body that was established as part of the Eleventh Malaysia Plan to monitor skills imbalances in Malaysia. To do so, the CSC created an annual Critical Occupations List (COL) of occupations that are middle- or highskilled, sought-after, and strategic. The COL has evolved during the last several years to become a best-practice tool for monitoring skills. The COL is updated regularly and improved continually, is based on rigorous evidence, and is widely circulated. The production of the list is undertaken by the CSC and incorporates a wide range of input from both the public and private sector.

Labor Market --- Labor Markets --- Rural Development --- Rural Labor Markets --- Skills Development and Labor Force Training --- Social Protections and Labor

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This policy brief aims to contribute to filling the knowledge gap and presenting a sex-disaggregated snapshot of the distribution of students across energy related higher education educational programs as well as the traditional Science, Technology, Education, and Math (STEM) fields, in tertiary education institutions across Lebanon's different regions. The objective is to better understand the supply side of female talent, starting with high skilled workers, available to enter the energy job market in Lebanon and propose recommendations when talking about opportunities for women to work in the sector. While the focus is on assessing the high skilled workforce, the recommendations point to the need to focus also on supporting a middle-skills talent pool where most of the jobs in the sector are likely to be created.

Energy --- Energy Policies and Economics --- Gender --- Gender and Energy --- Gender and Social Policy --- Labor Markets --- Skills Development and Labor Force Training --- Social Protections and Labor

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This report provides new empirical insights into skill levels in Kosovo, based on two recent surveys. The Skills Towards Employment and Productivity (STEP) initiative of the World Bank has developed household-level and firm-based surveys to provide policy-relevant information on skills from both the supply and demand side. Household-level surveys measure the supply and use of skills in the adult urban population in a comprehensive way, including cognitive and socio-emotional skills that affect work-place readiness and effectiveness. Firm-level (employer) surveys focus on identifying the cognitive and socio-emotional job-related skills that employers seek, skills that are difficult to find, and linkages between firms and education systems.

Education --- Education For All --- Employment --- Gender --- Labor Markets --- Skills Development and Labor Force Training --- Social Protections and Labor --- Vocational and Technical Education