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Everybody is eager to return to normal ... but normal is not enough. —Thomas Kane, Center for Education Policy Research, Harvard University "All Things Considered," National Public Radio, June 22, 2022 COVID-19 (coronavirus), first detected in Wuhan, China, in late December 2019, spread around the world, culminating in a global health emergency. It was quickly followed by a deep economic contraction in virtually every country. The world tumbled into recession, and the overall global gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by 4.3 percent in 2020. These figures hide immense human suffering. By December 2021, there were 14.9 million excess deaths globally—deaths aributable to the pandemic. 1 Poverty increased dramatically. There were 70 million more people living in extreme poverty in 2020 than in 2019—an 11 percent increase. To put things in context, this increase in extreme poverty is roughly four times larger than the spike in poverty during the Asian financial crisis of 1997–98. 2 The consequences of the pandemic, however, were not limited to its effects on mortality, economic growth, or poverty. Households were ridden with stress. Mental illness, domestic violence, teen pregnancy, and early marriage spiked in some seings. Millions of children lost a caregiver or were orphaned. Many more missed out on vital nutrition and health care and suffered declines in early childhood development. Nearly 1 billion children missed a year or more of schooling and learned lile, if anything, while schools were closed. Tens of millions of young people were shut out of the job market or entered it with fewer skills and diminished prospects. Taken together, these effects represent a profound loss of human capital. Unless they are reversed, these losses will lead to declines in productivity and earnings as the children and youth of today become the labor force of tomorrow. The erosion of human capital from the pandemic—and what to do about it—are the subjects of this report. Although many of the consequences of the pandemic may not fully emerge for years (or even decades), EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1

• Front Cover
• Contents
• Main Messages
• Executive Summary
• The pandemic destroyed human capital at critical moments in the life cycle
• Policies to reverse human capital losses
• Building agile, resilient, and adaptive human development systems for future shocks
• A human capital recovery: What will it take?
• Notes
• References
• Figures
• Figure ES.1 The pandemic led to steep losses in early childhood development and early learning in very young children in Bangladesh and Brazil
• Figure ES.2 During the pandemic, each month of school closures led to one month of learning losses, and more so in countries with lower GDP per capita
• Figure ES.3 Youth employment fell in most countries during the pandemic
• Figure ES.4 Declines in employment of young people during the pandemic were not offset by increases inschooling or training
• Figure ES.5 What are the paths to recovery?
• Table
• Table ES.1 There are evidence-proven policies that can reverse human capital losses