Shwetlena Sabarwal

Shwetlena Sabarwal serves as a Lead Economist in the World Bank's Education Global Practice, where she has established herself as a prominent voice in education economics and labor market research. After earning her PhD in Applied Economics from the University of Minnesota in 2008, she has built an impressive career combining academic research with practical policy implementation. Her work spans multiple areas, including education economics, labor markets, and climate change, serving as a principal author for both the World Development Report 2019 on the Changing Nature of Work and the World Development Report 2018 on Learning to Realize Education's Promise. She currently leads the World Bank's global solution group on Education and Climate Change and has managed the Bank's education initiatives in several countries including Bangladesh, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, and Uganda. Her research focuses on improving education service delivery, learning outcomes, and teacher-student dynamics, notably introducing concepts like Learning Adjusted Years of Schooling which has become integral to the World Bank's Human Capital Index. Her expertise extends to entrepreneurship studies, particularly examining female entrepreneurship in developing regions, and she has conducted numerous education impact evaluations across African nations including Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Uganda, and Tanzania.