IEG Fast Track Brief
32 items available
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Fast Track Briefs inform the World Bank Group (WBG) managers and staff about new evaluation findings and recommendations.
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Publication
Water and Development : World Bank Support, 1997-2007
(Washington, DC, 2009-12)Almost a third of all Bank projects approved since 1997 have been water related. Water lending grew 55 percent in commitment terms during the period evaluated, and project performance has improved steadily, led by a significant performance improvement in the Africa region. Water has been integrated into many other sectors. The Bank has contributed to improving access to clean water, especially in urban areas, and has developed a business plan for investments in hydropower and dams, especially for Africa. The Bank is also starting to take the aquatic environment more into account during project design, and it has balanced investments in infrastructure with investments in improving the institutions that manage and allocate water. The Bank's strategy for the water sector has been broadly appropriate, but its application has underemphasized some of the most difficult challenges-such as ground water conservation, environmental restoration, and coastal zone management-in favor of less challenging activities like infrastructure development and equipment purchase. The Bank's approach to water will face heightened challenges in the coming decades due to climate change, the migration to coastal zones, and the declining quality of the water resources available to most major cities and industry. This will require some shifts in emphasis. The Bank and its partners need to put more emphasis on vital and challenging areas such as groundwater conservation, pollution reduction, and effective demand management. New ways need to be found to help the most water-stressed countries make water sustainability a corner-stone of their development. The development community needs to help countries shift more attention to sanitation. More strategic development planning and more effective disaster risk reduction is needed for low-lying coastal areas. Approaches to financing and cost recovery need to be strengthened. Finally, data collection and use need to be enhanced in a number of areas. -
Publication
Poverty Reduction Support Credits : An Evaluation of World Bank Support
(Washington, DC, 2009-11)Poverty Reduction Support Credits (PRSCs) were intended to help countries implement comprehensive, country-owned development strategies to promote growth, improve social conditions, and reduce poverty. PRSCs were intended to ease conditionality, make annual flows to recipient countries predictable and integrated with their budgets, strengthen domestic budget processes, provide a framework for donor harmonization, and focus on achieving results. In terms of process, PRSCs have worked well. Findings show that they incorporated many envisaged changes in design and implementation. These include stronger country ownership, eased conditionality, and a shift of focus towards public sector management and pro-poor service delivery. PRSCs balanced tensions between predictability and program credibility. Although PRSCs differed from preceding adjustment loans, development policy lending today has converged towards a similar design. PRSCs today are subject to the same guidelines as other Development Policy Loans (DPLs). Differences remain in practice in terms of the association with PRSPs, broad scope, programmatic nature, and country performance. The evaluation recommends either that PRSCs be phased out as a separate brand name or that these differences be clearly spelled out. -
Publication
Gender and Development : An Evaluation of World Bank Support, 2002–08
(Washington, DC, 2009-10)The World Bank's current gender policy resulted directly from the 2001 gender strategy endorsed by the board. This evaluation which covers the period fiscal 2002-08, finds that the Bank made progress in gender integration compared with an earlier Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) evaluation on gender covering the period fiscal 1990-99. Gender integration into Bank support increased both in quantity and in scope, and more than half of relevant projects integrated gender concerns. With regard to outcomes, detailed reviews were undertaken in 12 focus countries, and the evaluation finds that Bank support likely contributed to increased gender equality in three domains - investment in human capital, access to economic assets and opportunities, and voice in development - substantially in 4 of the 12 countries, modestly in another 6, and weakly in 2. At the project level, 42 percent of relevant projects in the 12 focus countries generated substantial outcomes that contributed to progress in one or more of these domains. The objectives of the Bank's gender policy are directly relevant to the Bank's mandate of poverty reduction and economic development. The evaluation found another factor that also tended to diminish the relevance of the Bank's gender policy, namely the narrowing of the entry point for gender integration at project appraisal to specific priority sectors. The evaluation recommends several actions to regain and sustain the momentum of gender integration that was evident in the first half of the evaluation period. These include redoubling efforts to institutionalize the accountability framework and develop the monitoring system envisioned in the 2001 gender strategy, establishing a results framework, and restoring a broader requirement for gender integration at the project level. -
Publication
World Bank Engagement at the State Level : The Cases of Brazil, India, Nigeria and Russia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-09)Beginning in the late 1990s, the World Bank significantly expanded its engagement at the state level in Brazil, India, Nigeria, and Russia. This pilot cross-country study reviews the selected cases of World Bank's lending and analytic work at the state level in those four large federated countries. In each case, state governments were the Bank's principal development partners. The study looks at the evolution of the four country strategies and the Bank's mode of engagement at the state level, in order to draw lessons from that experience both for the Bank and for its federal and state partners. State-level engagement posed several strategic and operational questions, among them which states to engage, the scope of engagement, and the modalities of engagement. The Bank set out its approach to selecting states in country strategy documents. The findings are worth highlighting. First, the study confirms the desirability of continued selective Bank lending in a few states. However, the poverty impact of those interventions could be enhanced by balancing states' propensity to reform and the concentration of poverty within them, giving greater weight to the needs of poorest states. Second, continued focus on public finance management as the core area appears sound, irrespective of whether engagement is confined to this area or serves as an entry point for broader engagement. And third, there is considerable scope for greater impact from analytic work, knowledge transfer, and expanded knowledge sharing not so much concepts and theories as practical experience of what works and what does not. -
Publication
Annual Review of Development Effectiveness 2009 : Achieving Sustainable Development
(Washington, DC, 2009-07)The 2008 World Bank project performance data shows improvement in achieving development outcomes, allaying concerns that the weakened 2007 performance could signal a new downward trend. The decline in performance in 2007 was modest, and it has rebounded in 2008. Bank performance is rated on a six-point scale, from highly satisfactory to highly unsatisfactory. The percentage of satisfactory projects increased in 2008, continuing a steady upward trend over the past 15 years. Analysis of the dates of the major turnarounds in project performance suggests that a combination of better Bank sector policies and improved country circumstances outside of Bank control may explain much of the turnaround, rather than internal administrative reforms at the Bank, although the latter may have facilitated improvement already underway. The 2009 Management Action Record (MAR) tracks Bank adoption of recent Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) recommendations and shows that adoption levels are declining. IEG is currently examining ways to improve the MAR to create a more effective product for tracking implementation of recommendations and identify reasons for the trend decline. Although part of this may be attributed to the shifting nature of development assistance, not all of it is. An assessment of the use of cost-benefit tools in environmental projects largely confirms this conclusion. This issue will be taken up in greater detail in an IEG special report in FY2010. -
Publication
Bangladesh Country Assistance Evaluation, 2001-08
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-07)Bangladesh is among the World Bank's largest International Development Association (IDA) eligible borrowers, with a country portfolio of 21 active projects and net commitment of $1.9 billion as of FY08. The Bank's strategy has been to support government efforts to improve governance as a cross-cutting goal, while also improving the investment climate and empowering the poor. IDA's strategy for Bangladesh and its program during the period 2001-08 were relevant to the country's development needs, including improving governance and promoting structural reforms in order to consolidate gains in macroeconomic performance, exports, education, and health, and improve the prospects for successful future development. Bank assistance during the FY01-08 period was delivered under the FY01 and FY06 Country Assistance Strategies (CASs) and the FY03 CAS progress report. These largely reflected the Bank's search for more effective support for Bangladesh's efforts to sustain and enhance development, even as success in increasing exports and workers' remittances reduced the country's dependence on foreign assistance, and as awareness increased that governance issues needed to be addressed more broadly. -
Publication
Earnings Growth and Employment Creation : An Assessment of World Bank Support in Three Middle-Income Countries
(Washington, DC, 2009-06)This assessment reviews earnings and employment outcomes in Colombia, Tunisia, and Turkey during 1998-2007, as well as five policy areas (the MILES framework) likely to affect those outcomes: macroeconomic conditions, investment climate, labor regulations, education, and social protection. Employment-related outcomes in the three countries were mixed, with notable progress in economic growth, earnings and poverty reduction, but not in the employment to- population ratio or unemployment rate. This underscores the desirability of focusing on the full set of employment-related variables Gross Domestic Product (GDP), poverty, employment, unemployment, and earnings - in an integrative fashion rather than just on employment when setting the objectives of Bank support. This focus will need better employment-related statistics, an area where the Bank can help further. Bank objectives in the three countries focused more on MILES components than on employment itself. Bank support in the three countries achieved differential progress in the individual MILES components, with the most progress on macro stabilization, followed in approximate order by progress on the investment climate, education, social protection, and labor taxation and regulations. The experience of the three countries illustrates how analytic and advisory activities can be the main instrument of support in those areas where progress in reform is difficult and the need for building engagement and consensus is critical. -
Publication
How Effective Have Poverty and Social Impact Analyses Been?
(Washington, DC, 2009-06)The Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA) approach, introduced by the World Bank in FY02, aimed to help the Bank and its client countries anticipate and address the possible consequences of proposed policy reforms, especially on the poor and vulnerable, and to contribute to country capacity for policy analysis. According to the Bank, by FY07 it had undertaken 156 PSIAs in 75 countries and 14 sectors. Total Bank and other donor support to PSIAs over FY04-06 was $15 million. Development literature has emphasized the importance of understanding the institutional and political constraints to development, building domestic ownership of policy reforms, and assessing the distributional impacts of policy actions. The PSIA approach has correctly emphasized these aspects. The Bank has produced a substantial body of guidance on how to address these aspects, and that guidance has been refined over time to incorporate lessons learned. Development literature has emphasized the importance of understanding the institutional and political constraints to development, building domestic ownership of policy reforms, and assessing the distributional impacts of policy actions. The PSIA approach has correctly emphasized these aspects. The Bank has produced a substantial body of guidance on how to address these aspects, and that guidance has been refined over time to incorporate lessons learned. -
Publication
The World Bank’s Country Policy and Institutional Assessment — An Evaluation
(Washington, DC, 2009-06)The World Bank's Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) assess the conduciveness of a country's policy and institutional framework to poverty reduction, sustainable growth, and the effective use of development assistance. It plays an important role in the country performance ratings that have been used for allocating resources from the International Development Association (IDA) to eligible countries since 1980. This evaluation takes the premise that beyond informing IDA allocation, the CPIA is useful as a broad indicator of development effectiveness. It assesses the relevance of the content of the CPIA through a review of the economics literature. It also assesses the reliability of CPIA ratings in two ways-through comparing CPIA ratings with similar indicators, and through reviewing the CPIA ratings generation process. Based on these assessments, the evaluation derives recommendations for enhancing the CPIA. -
Publication
Nepal Country Assistance Evaluation, 2003–08
(Washington, DC, 2009-05)The FY03-08 evaluation period was one of tumultuous political turmoil, conflict, and dramatic change in Nepal; today, prospects for sustainable peace are brighter, though still fragile. In such difficult and unpredictable conditions, formulating and implementing an effective development assistance strategy and programs were great challenges for development partners, including the Bank. To its credit, the Bank managed to remain constructively engaged in Nepal despite a challenging political and security context and has achieved some significant results on the ground. Nevertheless, the Bank's strategy was poorly adapted to the country's conflict situation and political instability, and until recently (FY08) underwent little adjustment in response to the rapidly-evolving conditions on the ground. Looking forward, Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) recommends that International Development Association (IDA) introduce greater realism into its strategy and program design and keep these flexible against a backdrop of a clear long-term vision, applying frequent course corrections in response to changing circumstances and consulting widely with national stakeholders and development partners. Other than through its existing portfolio of two hydropower projects, International Finance Corporation (IFC) did not make a significant contribution to Nepal's development over most of the review period. IFC's gradual re-engagement beginning in 2006 was successful, resulting in two Global Trade Finance Program (GTFP) investments, an investment in a domestic airline in 2008, a pipeline of investment projects in the financial sector, and a constructive dialogue with the government on the business climate.