IEG Independent Evaluations & Annual Reviews

493 items available

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/10986/2132

Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) publications assess what works, and what does not; how a client plans to run and maintain a project; and the lasting contribution of the World Bank Group to a country's overall development. The goals of evaluation are to learn from experience, to provide an objective basis for assessing the results of the World Bank Group's work, and to provide accountability in the achievement of its objectives. IEG superseded the former Operations Evaluation Department.

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Early-Stage Evaluation of International Finance Corporation Platforms Approach: Addressing Development Challenges at Scale
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-13) World Bank
In December 2022, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) redefined platforms as a mechanism for scaling new business development. This is an early-stage evaluation assessing IFC’s platforms approach through the lens of all seven platforms introduced between fiscal years 2017 and 2022. As an early-stage evaluation, the report did not examine the profitability or development impact of the platforms currently underway. Rather, it assessed the extent to which IFC platforms achieved their stated objectives, including (1) Responding to crisis at scale, (2) Engaging with small and new clients, and in new sectors (3) Engaging with clients of the International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank’s fund for the poorest countries, and in fragile and conflict situations. The evaluation also assessed the extent to which IFC’s platforms approach meet expectations on oversight, reporting, and efficiency gains while balancing risks and benefits to enhance trust over time. It also provides insights derived from focus group discussions of early experience to assist IFC in shaping the future use of platforms to address crises, global challenges and to reach new and small clients and markets. The evaluation makes two recommendations on the future use of platforms and on platform reporting and monitoring: (1) Extend the platform approach by building on the benefits revealed in the pilot period and generating new learning on platform performance. (2) To facilitate oversight of and learning from platforms, IFC and the Board agree on the level, content, format, and frequency of reporting on platforms and platform projects, rooted in clear results frameworks.
Results and Performance of the World Bank Group 2024: Managing Results in an Uncertain World
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-13) World Bank
The 2024 Results and Performance of the World Bank Group report – also known as the RAP– is the fourteenth annual report in the series. The RAP series aggregates and interprets evidence on World Bank Group performance, mainly using IEG’s validations of World Bank, International Finance Corporation (IFC), and Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) self-evaluations of projects and country programs. The 2024 RAP maintains symmetry across institutions by analyzing common or similar factors linked to performance, while acknowledging their differences. Hence, the RAP includes separate chapters for World Bank, IFC, MIGA, and country programs which allows more in-depth discussion of performance trends and relevant topics for each institution. The 2024 RAP covers projects implemented during the COVID-19 and subsequent food and energy crises, and also projects implemented at a time where the Bank has been prioritizing International Development Association (IDA ) countries and fragility and conflict situations. As a result, the portfolio has been increasingly exposed to risky contexts and periodic shocks, which in turn has impacted project performance and outcome ratings. This RAP identifies four levers that are significantly associated with stronger performance and better development outcomes – particularly in the face of riskier environments: enhancing the design of operations and country programs, adopting effective risk management, addressing client institutional and capacity challenges, and improving results monitoring.
Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) FY26 Work Program and Budget and FY27-28 Indicative Plan
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-02-27) World Bank
Multiple shocks, including the accelerating climate crisis, mounting public debt, increasing food insecurity, an unequal recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic, and the effects of geopolitical conflicts, have affected the global development landscape in recent years and have jeopardized the progress made by the World Bank Group (WBG) on its mission end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity on a livable planet. In response, the WBG is adapting its approaches by seeking out efficiencies, ways to speed up and scale up its engagements, and focusing on priority areas (as laid out in the WBG’s Global Challenge Programs (GCPs). The Independent Evaluation Group (IEG), in its unique role to analyze past experiences to inform future decisions, has also adapted to ensure its work is relevant for Board members as well as WBG Management. In Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24), IEG adjusted its strategic framework in line with the evolving context of the WBG, including a revision of IEG’s work streams into new thematic streams that reflect the WBG’s vertical themes of Planet, People, Prosperity, Infrastructure, and Digital Technology. In addition, IEG continues to conduct cross-cutting evaluations on Fragility, Conflict, Violence (FCV), Gender, and Private Capital, and retains its work on corporate effectiveness issues and country program evaluations. IEG started to develop Theories of Change (ToC), which will be a core component of IEG’s evaluation selection process going forward. ToCs and evidence gap maps for each of the work program’s thematic streams and additional sub-streams guide the identification of overarching evaluation questions and prioritization of evidence gaps that can be addressed through IEG’s work.
An Evaluation of the World Bank Group’s Support to Electricity Access in Sub-Saharan Africa, 2015–24 (Approach Paper)
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-02-24) World Bank
This evaluation assesses the World Bank Group’s contributions to supporting electricity access in Sub-Saharan Africa during 2015–24. Electricity access is an end user’s ability to use an energy supply for the desired energy services. As such, electricity access includes both supply and demand factors. This evaluation follows a 2015 Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) evaluation on the same topic (World Bank 2015) but focuses on Sub-Saharan Africa because the main electricity access gaps remain in that Region, and the Bank Group has renewed efforts to close the gap by 2030. The evaluation’s objective is to assess the Bank Group’s relevance, effectiveness, and coherence in supporting client countries in Sub-Saharan Africa in scaling up electricity access. The evaluation will be conducted in the context of the Bank Group’s goal to provide 300 million people with electricity connections by 2030.
The World Bank Group in Nepal, 2014–23
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-02-18) World Bank
This Country Program Evaluation (CPE) assesses the relevance, effectiveness, and adaptability of the World Bank Group’s support to Nepal from FY 2014 through FY23. The evaluation period spans the FY14–18 Country Partnership Strategy and the FY19–24 Country Partnership Framework (CPF). The CPE’s scope includes the financing, knowledge, and convening support from the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation, and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency to the government of Nepal. The CPE looks closely at three areas of the Bank Group’s support—namely, its support for Nepal’s transition to federalism, private sector development (PSD) and job creation, and climate and disaster resilience. The CPE provides lessons to help the Bank Group rethink its development approach as it designs a new CPF for Nepal. This evaluation finds that the Bank Group was successful in supporting Nepal, including in mounting rapid and large-scale responses to devastating earthquakes and the COVID-19 pandemic, but did not always effectively consider the country’s capacity and political economy challenges. The World Bank’s earthquake and COVID-19 responses showed the World Bank at its best, with the World Bank building on these successes during the evaluation period by further strengthening Nepal’s resilience to major disasters and shocks. However, both country strategies covered by this evaluation acknowledged implementation challenges. At times, the significant financing support of the Bank Group program surpassed the government’s absorptive capacity and did not sufficiently consider lessons from past projects. At other times, program support insufficiently considered political barriers to advancing the program. This reduced the outcomes from the Bank Group’s support, including for more complex policy and institutional support.
Indonesia Country Program Evaluation (Approach Paper)
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-02-10) World Bank
This Country Program Evaluation (CPE) will assess the performance of the World Bank Group’s support to Indonesia between FY 2013 and FY23. The evaluation will focus on the Bank Group’s contribution to help Indonesia tackle key long-term development challenges and position the country toward its goal of reaching high-income status by 2045. The evaluation period spans three country strategies—the FY13–15 Country Partnership Strategy (CPS), the FY16–20 Country Partnership Framework (CPF), and the FY21–25 CPF. The evaluation seeks to identify lessons to inform future Bank Group engagement in support of Indonesia’s development priorities, including the next CPF, which is due to be completed in the fall of 2025. The CPE will assess the relevance and effectiveness of Bank Group support to Indonesia by examining how the Bank Group designed and adjusted its support in four critical development areas: promoting adequacy and efficiency of public spending, ensuring resilient urbanization management, lifting human capital to reduce inequality, and deepening of the financial sector. These themes are particularly important for Indonesia in its efforts to achieve, through sustainable and inclusive growth, its long-term development goal of becoming a high-income country by 2045.
An Evaluation of the World Bank Group Strategy for Fragility, Conflict, and Violence 2020-2025 (Approach Paper)
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-02-10) World Bank
Fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV) have upended development progress. Overlapping and mutually reinforcing crises, including worsening climate challenges, ideological polarization and extremism, growing economic disparities, and weak governance and corruption, have all exacerbated the frequency and severity of conflicts. Civil wars, interstate conflicts, and violence and crime in both low- and middle-income countries have profound welfare impacts inside affected countries and destabilizing effects across borders through irregular migration and forced displacement and the disruption of trade and supply chains. Global poverty reduction and shared prosperity have slowed since 2014 with significant risks of reversing, which the World Bank attributes to lower economic growth, the COVID-19 pandemic, high inflation, and increased conflict and fragility. As a result, global extreme poverty is above the level of 2018, calling into question the achievement of the World Bank Group’s objective of ending extreme poverty by 2030. The Bank Group introduced its Strategy for Fragility, Conflict, and Violence 2020–2025 (FCV strategy) in February 2020 to enhance its effectiveness in supporting countries in addressing the drivers and impacts of FCV The evaluation responds to a request by the Bank Group Boards of Directors to inform the development of a new Bank Group FCV strategy. It seeks to distill findings and lessons from the Bank Group experience with the implementation of the 2020–25 FCV strategy to inform the preparation of a new Bank Group FCV strategy. Given this objective and to optimize IEG’s value add, this evaluation is focused on providing timely findings and lessons for the new strategy.
Implementing the World Bank’s Environmental and Social Framework: A Developmental Evaluation (Approach Paper)
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-03) Independent Evaluation Group
The World Bank adopted a new Environmental and Social Framework (ESF) in 2016 that aims to protect people and the environment from potential adverse project impacts while promoting sustainable development. The Board of Executive Directors approved the ESF on August 4, 2016. It consists of a Vision for Sustainable Development; 10 Environmental and Social Standards (ESSs), which set out the requirements that apply to borrowers; an Environmental and Social Policy for Investment Project Financing (IPF), which sets out the requirements that apply to the World Bank; an Environmental and Social Directive/Procedure for IPF; and a Directive on Addressing Risks and Impacts on Disadvantaged or Vulnerable Individuals or Groups (World Bank 2017, 2021, 2023). At the time of ESF adoption, the Board and management explicitly recognized that the ESF has the potential to create better long-term development outcomes in IPF and that evidence of improved development outcomes will be collected over time by the World Bank (World Bank 2016). The purpose of this evaluation is to assess how relevantly and effectively the World Bank is using the ESF to protect people and the environment from potential adverse project impacts while promoting sustainable development. The evaluation will do this by assessing progress against the ESF objectives laid out in its 2016 policy paper—that is, adaptive management, client capacity building, results, and donor harmonization. This evaluation is being undertaken at the Board’s request.
Making Procurement Work Better – An Evaluation of the World Bank’s Procurement System
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-06) World Bank
This evaluation assesses the results, successes, and challenges of the World Bank 2016 procurement reform. Procurements acquire the works, goods, and services necessary to achieve the World Bank’s project development outcomes. The World Bank’s procurement processes must ensure that clients get the best value for every development dollar. In 2016, the World Bank reformed its procurement system for Investment Project Financing and launched a new procurement framework aimed at enhancing the Bank’s development effectiveness through better procurement. The reform sought to reduce procurement bottlenecks impeding project performance and modernize procurement systems. It emphasized cutting edge international good practice principles and was intended to be accompanied by procurement capacity strengthening to help client countries. This evaluation offers three recommendations to scale up reform implementation and enhance portfolio and project performance: (i) Improve change management support for the reform’s implementation. (ii) Strategically strengthen country-level procurement capacity. (iii) Consistently manage the full spectrum of procurement risks to maximize project success.
Early-Stage Evaluation of the Multiphase Programmatic Approach
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-03) World Bank
The World Bank introduced the multiphase programmatic approach (MPA) in 2017 as a means of structuring a long, large, or complex engagement as a set of shorter linked projects or phases. This engagement was intended to take either a vertical form within a single country, typically over 8–10 years, or a horizontal form across several countries at the same time (or several states within a country). The motivation behind the MPA was to provide continuity of engagement, allow more flexibility in responses to changed circumstances, encourage adaptive learning, and support stepwise progress toward a long-term development objective. This evaluation assesses the performance of the approach against these expectations. Specifically, the evaluation examines whether the design and early implementation of the MPA has supported the objectives on which the approach’s effectiveness depends: (i) Coherence. A coherent program fits within the broader program at the level of the country, sector, and institution. The MPA is expected to be more coherent than its alternatives because it was intended to leverage external partnerships and internal collaboration more effectively. (ii) Continuity. This refers to the MPA’s ability to provide stable, long-term support. The vertical MPA supports continuity better than its alternatives because of its programmatic structure and the provision for overlapping phases. (iii0 Learning. Although all operations should embed knowledge, the MPA requires an explicit learning plan, with specificity on implementation arrangements and how the knowledge is to be used. (iv) Adaptation. This refers to the ability of the MPA to adjust the content and timing of its phases in response to new information, evolving priorities, and changing context due to its larger number of preset points for stocktaking than would be present in a single operation. (v) The evaluation highlights [areas in which MPA’s effectiveness might be strengthened, while noting that the portfolio is for the most part at an early stage of implementation, and all programs are still active.