Building Digital Skills-to-Jobs Pathways for Citizens, Teachers, and Students in Europe and Central Asia

Development Challenge

ECA countries face a persistent digital divide shaped by uneven development, with urban areas advancing while rural and remote regions remain isolated and poorer. In Romania, Bulgaria, and the Kyrgyz Republic, high poverty rates, limited connectivity, outdated curricula, and low digital skills among teachers, students, and citizens limit learning and employment opportunities. Beyond regulatory reforms, transformation requires investing in people, starting with education, by equipping learners and educators with the digital and AI skills needed to participate in increasingly digital economies.

World Bank Group's approach

Across the ECA region, the WBG addresses digital and inclusion challenges through a systems-focused approach that strengthens people, institutions, and policies. It combines large-scale capacity building, digital-skills programs, curriculum reforms, and evidence-based policy advice to modernize education systems and expand opportunities in underserved regions. Innovation comes from blending digital platforms, replicating AI-readiness diagnostics across ECA, teacher mentoring models, and scalable training frameworks proven to be particularly effective for women.

The WBG deploys a mix of instruments - investment operations, technical assistance, trust funds, and analytics - to reinforce reforms and create long-term impact. In Bulgaria, the World Bank and IFC to explore private-sector education technology solutions, helping identify scalable AI tools for more effective digital learning ecosystems. Through the Korea-World Bank Group Partnership Facility, the World Bank drew on Korea's expertise to develop Kyrgyzstan's first digital-skills assessment framework and design the first training course for informatics teachers to strengthen their pedagogical and digital skills.

Results

Kyrgyz Republic

• 36,000 teachers (80 percent women) trained, and 1,200 schools equipped with IT platforms (2020-2025), strengthening teaching quality and digital learning.
• 32-week mentoring program (2023-2025), enhancing pedagogical practice and digital integration in classrooms, with system-level improvements expected by Sep 2025.
• Leadership training underway for 900 deputy principals (2021-2025), strengthening school-level capacity for digital transformation.
• Digital skills assessment frameworks applied in 141 pilot schools (2023-2025), improving data-driven learning reforms.
• Digital Library platform with STEM teaching-learning materials designed and made available to all schools, expanding access to quality digital resources.

Romania

• 32,000 citizens and 1,000 librarians trained on basic digital skills (2023-2026), delivering 60,000 training hours across 560 libraries in 23 counties; full completion expected by Aug 2026.
• 65 percent of citizens and 80 percent of librarians trained are women (2023-2024), demonstrating strong women's engagement in digital inclusion.

Bulgaria

• More than 20 AI tools mapped, and recommendations produced using a 4-stage readiness framework (2025), guiding long-term AI adoption in education.

Photo - Digital STARs training underway at Biblioteca Județeană 'Gheorghe Șincai' Bihor, where librarians prepare to teach digital skills to local communities - © Biblioteca Județeană "Gheorghe Șincai" Bihor

Contribution to WBG Targets and Jobs

The initiative directly advances WBG priorities on digital inclusion, jobs, gender, and human capital - anchored in Pillars 1 and 2 of the WBG Jobs Strategy. By upskilling teachers, citizens, and public institutions across ECA through national library systems, training networks, and AI-enabled diagnostics, it offers a practical, replicable model for equitable reach at scale. With 65-80 percent of trainees being women across program components, it advances gender-inclusive access consistent with the WBG Gender Strategy.

The project contributes to the WBG Scorecard indicator on "More and Better Jobs" by equipping over 68,000 beneficiaries across three countries with digital and AI-ready competencies that modern labor markets increasingly demand. Going beyond access, it builds skills aligned with emerging digital occupations - supporting not just employment, but higher-quality, better-paid jobs. Connecting this newly skilled workforce to employer demand through private sector partnerships and industry-aligned pathways to formal employment remains a priority for future phases.

"I wanted to learn more about how to use a computer. At this age I find it difficult to learn, but our librarian has been extremely supportive. What I found particularly fascinating was learning about how to protect my privacy in the online environment, for example the importance of using personal mobile data instead of public Wi-Fi when connecting to internet abroad. This is highly relevant for the world we live in today." Maria, project beneficiary, Ialomita county, Romania.

Lessons Learned

1. Use existing country systems to achieve scale. Working through countrywide infrastructures - library networks, teacher training institutes, and employment services - enabled rapid, low-cost reach to large populations, without building parallel structures. This provides a replicable pathway for teams seeking scalable digital inclusion or employability interventions.
2. Build cross-sector partnerships to strengthen buy-in and replicability. Effective initiatives require coordinated planning across governance, infrastructure, and capacity-building actors, with each partner contributing toward a shared goal. This model improves national uptake and makes the approach easier to replicate across regions with similar institutional structures.

Next Steps

Building on countrywide implementation through national library networks, teacher training systems, and AI-enabled diagnostics, the next phase will focus on scaling this model across the ECA region. The approach is directly replicable in countries with similar institutional architectures (e.g. Türkiye, Georgia, Uzbekistan) where interest is emerging. The strong participation of women in the project shows the model's potential to close gender digital gaps at national scale. The growing regional pipeline - most recently in Türkiye and Uzbekistan - confirms this as a scalable public good, not a one-off intervention. It is helping more countries expand access to job-relevant digital skills and connect people to emerging labor market opportunities.