Human Capital Project: Investing in People Today, for a Better Recovery & Future

Change often comes on the heels of adversity. It is safe to say that 2021 delivered plenty of both.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought most of the world to a stop in early 2020 and went on to cause alarming reversals in human capital accumulation—painstakingly achieved over many decades. Jobs losses, school closures and setbacks in learning, lack of access to health services and vaccines and the increased incidence of orphanhood remain major obstacles for people to build and use their human capital productively.

Against this grim picture, the Human Capital Project (HCP), launched in 2018, continues to provide a global platform for mobilizing action around the importance of protecting and investing in people. Through the HCP lens, we’ve noted the innovative ways that governments are stepping up to protect their population and get services back on track.

• Many countries have embraced online learning and multimedia solutions to reach the 1.6 billion students who were out of school due to lockdowns.

• They reinforced health systems to save lives and detect, prevent and respond to the pandemic, driving a massive expansion in telemedicine.

• And, they transformed safety net programs to digital delivery, rapidly scaling up reach and directing cash transfers to digital accounts via mobile phones.

These efforts offer a roadmap to addressing some of the unprecedented challenges posed by COVID-19. More needs to be done, however. A durable recovery hinges on how fast countries can restore human capital and plan for an escalation of efforts in the coming years.

Our Third Annual Report about the Human Capital Project documents both the major challenges and these shifting development horizons. The collection of country stories and HCP-led engagements clearly show the need to redouble our sense of urgency, the importance of testing innovations to accommodate the new ground realities brought about by the pandemic, and the ever-present need for investments in people across the life cycle to arrest further erosion of human capital.

Going forward, global cooperation is needed to ensure that countries have the fiscal space and ability to protect their human capital from being eroded. People with access to quality education, health services, and safety nets are better able to escape poverty, be more productive, and are more resilient to shocks caused by climate change, health emergencies, or economic crises.

Along these lines, the role of disruptive and transformative technology to reimagine service delivery has become critical. President David Malpass noted in a recent keynote speech that “[t]he digital revolution can transform the public sector,” and in forthcoming work, the HCP will be promoting three categories of technology investments: “foundational”, “functional” and “frontier”. Together, these investments can lead countries towards integrated, efficient, and novel ways to reach people and improve their lives.

In the face of today’s massive challenges, the World Bank Group is more committed than ever to helping countries invest optimally in their people and build back better to ensure green, resilient and inclusive development. Since the start of the pandemic, the Bank has provided over $157 billion—its largest funding surge ever—in assistance to countries to fight the health, economic, and social impacts of the pandemic. It is extremely timely that human capital has been incorporated as a special theme for the 20th replenishment of the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA)—its fund for the poorest countries.

Looking ahead, there is much to do for the HCP.  The HCP network has grown to 82 countries and, even in this unique year of travel and distancing restrictions, the network maintained a high level of engagement through online ministerial conclaves and global forums, multilingual knowledge exchange webinars including on COVID-19 strategies, knowledge products, and country-specific case studies of successful human capital interventions. We are encouraged by our client countries’ commitment to build, protect, and utilize human capital and we look forward to redoubling our collective global efforts to invest in people. If Sri Lankan children can climb trees to get better internet connection to learn, surely, we can climb needed heights to pave an easier path for human capital accumulation.