This report addresses the most important challenges facing the Latin America and Caribbean region as it attempts to replace its traditional economic and social structures, including populist institutions, with a modern, efficient, administrative state. The analysis focuses on the political economy of pending reforms and their ramifications. The report discusses (1) recent economic and political developments; (2) systemic issues such as high real interest and unemployment rates and declining export growth; (3) social policies and the need to consolidate macroeconomic stability; and (4) how to define and build the new Latin American state. An appendix provides detailed information on selected country performance.

This booklet examines the efforts of Bangladesh, Malawi, and Pakistan to increase the number of girls in school. These three countries have severe problems of access to education, ranking in the bottom third of developing countries on UNESCO's Basic Education Index. The document addresses several issues, including how governments grapple with the deep-seated cultural, institutional, and political factors that underlie the gender disparity in access to school, how parents and communities feel about these attempts, and what impact the reform efforts have on the people involved in managing and running the school system. It also follows the lives of some of the girls who have benefited from the reforms.