Emiliana Vegas

A how-to and inspirational guide for everyone, no matter their age, who wants to make a difference in the world through their professional life – from ensuring access to quality schools and clean water to healthcare and safer communities. So many talented young people receive a great education and set out to make a difference in the world. Yet, they often find the global institutions on that path difficult to understand, hard to get into, and even harder to navigate. Emiliana Vegas provides a deeply personal and informative guide to building a career in international development for current and aspiring changemakers. This book dives into the key lessons and specific takeaways the author has learned throughout her twenty years working in international development organizations. Vegas's passion for the power of education comes through on every page of this book and now she is sharing what she has learned to help others achieve the same success. Through insider tips, best practices, and targeted advice, readers will come away with a clear picture of how these organizations really work, how you can get in and thrive, and how to make a real difference from the inside out.

Early childhood development (ECD) outcomes affect one's income-earning capacity and productivity, longevity, health, and cognitive ability. The deleterious effects of poor ECD outcomes can be long-lasting, affecting school attainment, employment, wages, criminality, and social integration of adults. The authors first take stock of ECD indicators in the region and explore access to ECD services for children of different backgrounds. They review recent evidence on the impact of ECD interventions in the region and investigate more deeply a selection of ECD programs in Latin America and the Caribbean to distill lessons related to their design, implementation and institutionalization processes. The book concludes with a discussion of the challenges of scaling up and presents policy options to develop national ECD policies and programs that may be effective and sustained over time.

The effort to meet enrollment targets for compulsory education in Latin America seems to have left educational quality behind. In the face of meager student performance, understanding what and how students are learning have emerged as salient issues facing policy makers in a region that has already achieved considerable success in access to basic education. This book sheds valuable light on recent advances in our understanding of the policies and programs that affect student learning in order to provide policy makers in Latin America and other developing regions with tools for effective education policy making.