Forty years ago, Ghana and the Republic of Korea had virtually the same income per capita. By the early 1990s Korea's income per capita was six times higher than Ghana's. Some believe that half of the difference is due to Korea's greater success in acquiring and using knowledge. The World Bank has become a global development partner making it easier for people to find out who knows what and where the best expertise can be drawn upon, wherever it resides. Continuously sharing this global and local know-how with client countries, public and private partners, and civil society will better equip the development community to fight poverty.
Basic education increases people's capacity to learn and to interpret information.
But that is just the start. Higher education and technical training are also needed, to build a labor force that can keep up with a constant stream of technological advances, which compress product cycles and speed the depreciation of human capital. And outside the classroom, people's working and living environments are the setting for still more learning, well beyond the ages associated with formal education. Moreover, the benefits of education can spread well beyond the educated. The education of a mother pays off in better health care and better nutrition for her children.