RESULTS-BASED FINANCING RBF EDUCATION PRACTICE BOOK CHAIN Incentivizing Actors in the Book Chain to Increase Availability of Quality Books for Children The Results in Education for All Children (REACH) Trust Fund builds evidence on results-based financing in education, including by capturing operational lessons around its use. In the PRACTICE series, experts share their experience from working in the field to provide practical advice on how to apply results- based approaches to boost education outcomes. Reports in this series highlight key discussion points from REACH roundtables, backed by direct though anonymous quotes from participating experts to allow for frank discussion. One of the most impactful and cost-effective ways to contribute to inadequacies in the availability and quality boost literacy is to ensure that children have adequate of books. Results-based financing can help address access to textbooks and other reading materials. Yet bottlenecks in the book delivery chain by strengthening many education systems in developing countries fail incentives for stakeholders so they focus on results to provide the textbooks and supplementary reading and ensuring that a country’s book chain works materials children need to learn to read. This has effectively to improve children’s reading skills. contributed to a learning crisis, with 53 percent of 10-year-olds in low- and midle-income countries unable The Results in Education for All Children (REACH) to read or understand a simple story, according to the Trust Fund brought together REACH grantees to World Bank, which is seeking to cut the global rate of share their experiences working in different countries learning poverty by at least half by 2030. Challenges to improve the book supply chain. While some at various stages along the book delivery chain, such grantees focus on helping countries increase book as a lack of books in local languages, inadequate supply, others seek to strengthen distribution or train mechanisms to forecast schools’ book requirements, teachers on how to use books in the classroom. In and challenges in procurement and distribution, all cases, it was imperative to first identify the main bottlenecks in the book supply chain and to secure buy-in from government and other key players on the Results-based financing can solutions that the grantees were proposing to address help address bottlenecks in the those bottlenecks. Grantees introduced creative, book supply chain by strengthening sustainable initiatives to boost book production, distribution, and access, using results-based financing incentives for stakeholders so they to incentivize desired behavior. This note summarizes focus on results.” the main takeaways from the discussion. DECEMBER 2019 KEY POINTS Incentivizing and building capacity of small publishers can be an effective way to increase the availability of books. Many publishers in developing countries tend to be small with limited capital. These publishers may benefit from activities aimed at strengthening their It is important to engage the government and other capacity or introducing them to new business models, stakeholders early and secure trust and buy-in. such as pooled procurement, where orders are This will help with mapping key players in the book bundled to reduce the cost of printing, that can help chain, their roles, and the constraints they face. boost profits. Smaller publishers may need flexibility in Early dialogue with stakeholders will help increase terms of getting paid under a results-based approach. understanding of what incentives might work with Partnering with small publishers, Room to Read paid them, which will help with designing better results- them a share of their payment up front instead of post- based financing mechanisms. Another important completion, because some lacked capital to print books way to secure official support is to align initiatives in advance. “We recommend building into a project more with national priorities and to understand the role of comprehensive business development for publishers different government agencies. [so] they know how to sustain their business, grow, and World Education helped to design and pilot a tracking successfully provide books to the market for children.” system in Cambodia to increase efficiency of the school textbook supply process. A key component involved Open licensing offers an effective way to improve setting up a national consultative group including senior access to books. In this type of licensing, copyright education ministry officials. “They were involved in helping holders make content available for sharing, remixing, us map out the supply chain and the actual truth of what’s or commercialization, which allows anyone to freely happening. They trusted us and they opened up.” use the material. It may be necessary to educate publishers, distributors, and authors–who traditionally Collaboration and competition can facilitate book have made their profits from licensed books–on how development, especially in countries that are seeking open licensing can benefit them. Workshops can to expand local language content but don’t have a introduce publishers and writers to the advantages of sufficient pool of professionals for the task. Bringing this approach: It can help them expand their customer together writers, illustrators, publishers, and educators base and foster a love of reading among consumers– can generate synergies and foster longer-term working potentially resulting in more book purchases. relationships. Awarding monetary or nonfinancial In South Africa, Room to Read put 120 books online as rewards such as recognition can provide additional open source material. “We presented it as an experiment incentive. It may be helpful to define content standards. that [publishers] could try. Small publishers can get data IREX helped to organize competitive book-creation camps on what titles are most popular, who are the readers. Open to develop mother-tongue supplemental reading materials licensing can also serve as a marketing tool.” in Bangladesh. “When we worked with local actors to generate content, we were dealing with people at various Technology can provide cost-effective ways to capacity, creativity, skills levels. We found natural strengthen the book chain but additional support mentorships formed during the competition.” may be required for successful adoption. Digital solutions such as online book portals offer ease of Room to Read cohosted a workshop in South Africa access to book catalogs for teachers and students. Use that brought publishers, writers, illustrators, designers, of cellphone-based applications to verify classroom and editors together to create 20 original storybooks in book use can help provide reliable monitoring data 12 hours. “We were surprised…how much great learning quickly. Training and awareness-building are important resulted from everyone working together.” 2 RFB EDUCATION | PRACTICE for developing trust in digital systems and ensuring correct use. It can be helpful to blend in traditional strategies (such as providing printed books) to ? forecasting increase awareness and bolster the uptake of innovative approaches (such as online book portals). Book IREX worked on developing new local-language titles and Supply uploading them on the Bangladesh government’s Teacher use development Portal. “Without doing face-to-face outreach and providing Chain and production print material to communities and schools, we found very little awareness or interest in the teacher’s portal. Digital supply chain procurement management and alone didn’t get people to use the books.” distribution World Vision International, Nepal, built an online platform to make reading materials available for school book Community or other outside organizations can corners. KITAB Bazar allows publishers to upload books, support monitoring by ensuring books reach schools schools to order them, and local education officials and get into the hands of children. After identifying such organizations, focus groups can help flush out to approve them. “Initially head teachers feared that what motivates them to be part of the monitoring mistakes in technology could affect the book-ordering process. The use of nonmonetary rewards, such as process. However, training was an empowering process: recognition, can help ensure sustainability. Head teachers indicated they could confidently use smart phones for book ordering” As part of Cambodia’s tracking system, a chatbot notified school support committees when books arrived. Tracking systems can help collect and analyze The committees used the system to record when books data on books at various stages of the book chain, were unpacked and used in the classroom. “We did focus and can assist in verifying results–a necessary groups to ask what motivated [members] to be on the prerequisite for using performance-based financing. committee, and it came out they wanted to be involved. One system, Track and Trace, can strengthen the book Instead of paying them, we gave out plaques.” chain at the forecasting stage by reducing the time required for orders to reach district or central levels, Once books reach schools, they need to be used as well as at the delivery stage by using real-time effectively. Foremost, this requires that the right books inventory and delivery data to ensure books reach reach the right destination at the right time, and that schools on time. Technology solutions supporting the books are distributed to children rather than stored. Track and Trace, such as cellphone chatbots or Teachers should know how to use the books and voice messages, should be customized to reflect incorporate them into teaching, while students should be stakeholders’ familiarity with the technology. given opportunities to read them. Under World Education’s track and trace system in A REACH-funded project in Sierra Leone linked financial Cambodia, schools used a chatbot function to complete awards to teacher and head teacher attendance of book orders by cellphone in two weeks, down from training meetings and to the introduction of books into six months. Government officials tracked delivery to the classroom. After training and incentivizing teachers, district offices, which recorded books received using the World Bank needed a way to measure and validate the chatbot. As a sign of the project’s success, the results. “We used photos of classrooms and…counted Education Ministry said it will take over the system, with the number of books in the class and the number of the state-owned distributor covering operational costs. children. We used photos to check randomly if books “The ministry says they can’t go back.” were being used.” BOOK CHAIN 3 REACH RESOURCES EXPERTS WORKING ON THE BOOK CHAIN ON THE BOOK CHAIN Sarah Andersson Marcela Gutierrez World Education Inc. World Bank REACH-FUNDED GRANTS ON THE BOOK CHAIN Himdat Iqbal Bayusuf Lauren Hadi World Bank Room to Read BANGLADESH: Incentivizing Local Authors to Create Diverse Books Alisha Berger Ari Katz Room to Read IREX CAMBODIA: Enhancing Book Distribution Using Track and Trace Xiaonan Cao Ayan Kishore CAMBODIA: Promoting Development and World Bank Creative Associates Home Reading of Supplementary Texts MOZAMBIQUE: Delivering the Right Books Estelle Day Florence Middleton on Time to Hard-to-Reach Districts World Education Inc. Room to Read NEPAL: Uniting Schools and Publishers Rajkumar Dulal Deepak Raj Subedi to Bring Books into the Classroom World Vision International World Vision International NIGER: Supporting Book Development, Production, and Distribution Aradhana Gurung Joel Turner for Early Grade Reading World Vision International IREX RWANDA: Developing Local Language Books for School Readiness SIERRA LEONE: Putting Books (and Teachers) to Work for Better Reading SOUTH AFRICA: National Public-Private PHOTO CREDIT: Storybook Development Initiative Cover: “Books” by elisavhout, license: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 ZAMBIA: Evaluating Results-Based Textbook Delivery Systems EVIDENCE NOTES ON THE BOOK CHAIN SOUTH AFRICA: Results-Based Financing and the Book Supply Chain: Motivating Writers and Publishers to Create Quality Storybooks RESULTS IN EDUCATION FOR ALL CHILDREN (REACH) worldbank.org/reach REACH is funded by the Government of Norway through NORAD, the Government of the United States of America through USAID, and the Government of Germany reach@worldbank.org through the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.