The report examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on learning and skills development, focusing primarily at the informal sector in low-income and middle-income economies. It reviews the available evidence beginning mid-2022 with a focus on informal households. Not only has there been a decline in learning outcomes in schools since 2019 and an increase in student dropout rates, but there has been a disproportionate impact on students from disadvantaged households and schools – and this is true even in high-income countries. The effects of the pandemic call for urgent measures to recover the loss in school-based learning for would-be workers and the decrease in skills development among workers which followed the decline in economic activity and a reduction in post-employment training. The policy question is not whether to spend more on education but what the losses from not doing so will be on current and future generations.