Oxford Business Group

In December 2021 the government of Côte d’Ivoire adopted a bill outlining a comprehensive reform package for the technical and vocational education and training (TVET) industry. If approved by the Parliament and implemented, the bill would usher in widespread changes to the country’s existing TVET governance and financing structures, as well as establish new training and evaluation mechanisms to boost the quality of instruction and improve learning outcomes. Importantly, these educational reforms seek to align TVET curricula with the needs of the labour market, which should both help to curb high youth unemployment, and assist employers in recruiting and retaining national talent to fill ICT

With many emerging markets still facing high levels of plastic waste two years into the Covid-19 pandemic, solutions are being developed to address its environmental and health challenges. Plastic – which accounted for 12% of global solid waste pre-pandemic, according to the World Bank – took on a more prominent role as personal protective equipment (PPE) and single-use plastics by delivery food services proliferated. Although the OECD found that overall plastic use fell by 2.2% in 2020 due to lockdowns, the increased use of PPE and single-use plastics exacerbated plastic littering. Pandemic-level production of PPE and single-use plastics has continued in some spheres: China’s recent

Since the implementation of the first five-year National Health Development Plan (Plan National de Dé veloppement Sanitaire, PNDS) in 2011, the government has focused on bringing health care infrastructure up to international standards. During the first two iterations of the PNDS, covering the period 2011-20, the state built 10 general hospitals, and rehabilitated 22 regional hospitals, 78 general hospitals and 233 health clinics. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, the construction of primary and secondary care facilities forged ahead in 2020, with 706 public and private hospitals and clinics built that year. Significant headway has also been made to plug staff shortages. Between 2016 and 2020 the

In a bid to expand access, education is increasingly exploring the possibilities of the metaverse and extended-reality (XR) approaches. The former comprises a range of technologies which immerse users in a virtual environment. It denotes a 3D medium that combines virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) into a new digital realm, sometimes known as XR. These environments are accessed through VR headsets and are typically immersive, interactive and social. Expanding Access The world’s leading tech companies are investing heavily in XR. In 2021 Facebook rebranded as Meta, indicating how important it believes XR will become. Indeed, following the massive shift to online learning during