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The IS fighters were able to lodge so easily in the Sunni Arab heartlands because the people there had been largely alienated by the sectarian policies and practices of the Shia Arab-dominated Baghdad government under Nouri al-Maliki, who was finally prised out of the prime minister's office in August 2014.

gislation to empower the Sunnis by devolving security and financial responsibilities to the provinces has not happened.

Nor have measures to reverse the persecution of former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, or the random arrests, detentions, and to assuage other Sunni grievances.

he US, who have about 3,500 military personnel training and advising Iraqi government forces on the ground, also seems to be aware that military muscle is not enough.

If that process continues and the militants are defeated, the way Iraq fits together - if it does - will be decided by who pushes them out, and how the resulting vacuum is filled.

osul is an almost wholly Sunni city with a population of about two million.

Some residents may still see IS - about 85% of whose fighters in Iraq are believed to be Iraqi - as their protectors against an Iranian-backed, Shia-dominated Baghdad government.

When the Iraqi army collapsed like a house of cards in the face of the IS eruption in June 2014, it was a motley array of hastily-assembled Shia irregulars, loosely banded into the Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) that prevented the militants reaching Baghda

Ramadi gave a boost to the embattled Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi.He has scant support even from his own Shia Daawa party, and is seen across the board by Sunni, Shia and Kurdish politicians as weak, hesitant, lacking in leadership and unable to stand up to the militias.But there was a down-side to the Ramadi victory too: heavy destruction, and the displacement of the entire population.

Nor can the formula that finally and slowly worked in Ramadi simply be applied at Mosul. It took government forces with coalition backing seven months to regain Ramadi. Mosul is 10 times bigger.

He omitted to mention coalition air support, which would also clearly be crucial to the campaign.Some Iraqi analysts believe outside ground forces would also be needed. US military leaders, while reticent, clearly want to up the pace and have not ruled out more boots on the ground. In the absence of serious moves towards national reconciliation, one senior government figure also saw a campaign to retake Mosul as a vital way of forging national unity.

The Taliban has already been successful with this approach on other fronts. Their attacks on polio aid workers have proven effective in disrupting the country’s entire public health system

Together with Jishnu Das of the World Bank, we have been researching Pakistan’s education sector for nearly 20 years.

Girls in particular have benefited from this school boom: more are in school than ever.

Research shows that the education debate in Pakistan is similar to the education debate in any other country: parents grapple with a choice of schools based on the usual set of considerations: Which of the schools nearby is best? How much should we pay? Is our child getting the best quality education?

But education is a unique service – not only because it involves a country’s most precious resource, its children – but also because, by increasing human capital, it strengthens the state not only in the present, but in the future.

As we speak, many schools are announcing temporary closure of facilities in the aftermath of the latest attack

lack of female teachers is one of the factors resulting in low enrolment and retention of girls in schools, particularly in higher grades when parents tend to object to male teachers

The sector also suffers from a lack of efficiency and effectiveness in using limited financial resources and weak management capacity.

DA has provided assistance for development of all education system sub-sector

both building on the success of the Basic Education Expansion Project of 2001-2007

The Secondary Education Development and Girls Access Project provides a platform to address broader sector governance and management issues by bringing together the Ministries of Planning, Finance, Civil Service and Insurance and Local Officials to jointly sign a Protocol of Participation in this Project.

men is also part of the Education For All Fast Track Initiative (EFA-FTI). FTI focuses on increasing access of children to primary education in line with the MDG target of achieving universal primary education, and its interventions target the most remote areas in the country where no other IDA project, government intervention or donor project has gone before

Increase in enrolment in primary education to 87 percent in 2008-09 from 68 percent in 1998-99.Gains in girls’ enrolment were even higher with an increase to 78% in 2008-09 from 49% in 1998-99, reducing by half the gap with male enrolment

The Education sector in Yemen is one of oldest and largest sectors of IDA investment in Yemen.

otal Bank financing for the five projects amounts to US$133 million, comprising Basic Education Development Project (US$68.66 million), Secondary Education Development and Girls Access project (US$20 million), Fast Track Initiative – Phase III (US$20 million), Second Vocational Training Project (US$ 15 million), and Second Higher Education Project (US$13 million).

he basic education sector in Yemen is characterized by a high degree of donor harmonization. Education receives a large share of the comparatively small amount of Official Development Assistance per capita recipient (just US$13 in 2006).

The Yemen Country Status Report set the stage for the development of a national vision for education. The national vision is to be developed in coordination with line ministries and aims to develop the foundations for a national education system that is linked to the labor market