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This Guidance Note is designed to support government and World Bank teams in preparing accurate and complete bidding documents for books, evaluating proposals, and awarding contracts.

Access to books (textbooks, teacher’s guides, and materials for reading practice) is key to addressing learning poverty. Children need to be exposed to sufficient and appropriate text, and they need to be afforded the time and opportunity to practice reading in school and at home. Appropriate design of reading books will facilitate learning, support instruction, and promote independent learning.

Education projects funded by The World Bank procure textbooks and other teaching and learning materials through national and international tenders (bids). Documents for the tenders describe the purposes of the procurement, the qualification requirements for potential bidders, and the technical specifications of the education materials to be procured.

The World Bank’s Read@Home initiative is an unprecedented effort to get reading, learning, and play materials into homes to address the learning loss caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and widespread, pre-existing "learning poverty". Connected to the distribution and use of these materials is the question of copyright.

This Guidance Note was created for the Read@Home project to help writers, illustrators, and designers create books for young children to share with their families at home. Of course, such books may be used in schools as well. In either case, these will be enjoyable books that children will want to read, so they will learn to love reading and develop the life-long habit of reading.  

The Incoterms rules have become an essential part of the daily language of trade.

This Guide to Open Licensing in World Bank Projects provides an explanation of open licensing and how to use it in World Bank and other development projects to increase access to high-quality teaching and learning materials, including textbooks and storybooks.

La plupart des salles de classe des pays à faible revenu manquent de ressources pédagogiques, malgré les investissements substantiels dans les manuels scolaires et autres matériels d'enseignement et d'apprentissage sur plusieurs décennies.

This note outlines the World Bank’s Read@Home initiative’s recommendations for a “first collection” of children’s
literature. It is intended for Read@Home and other early reading programs involved in the development and/or
selection of books to support children’s pre-reading and early reading skills.

The Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA), through its Working Group on Books and Learning Materials (WGBLM), teamed up with the Global Book Alliance (GBA) to dialogue with African book industry stakeholders about publishing and use of materials in mother-tongue languages, and to come up with a way forward.

With funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and as part of its work on the early literacy ecosystem and open licensing, Neil Butcher & Associates (NBA) convened a small workshop, which brought together key players in early literacy in Africa.

In 2015, NBA received a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to explore the potential for open licensing in enhancing the availability of mother-tongue early-literacy reading resources in the developing world.

The African Library and Information Associations and Institutions (AfLIA) and NBA developed a short online course for African librarians and library staff, based on the findings of a survey conducted in 2021. The main course objectives were to: