IEG Fast Track Brief

32 items available

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/10986/9411

Fast Track Briefs inform the World Bank Group (WBG) managers and staff about new evaluation findings and recommendations.

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Now showing 1 - 8 of 8

Poverty Reduction Support Credits : An Evaluation of World Bank Support
(Washington, DC, 2009-11) World Bank
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.
Annual Review of Development Effectiveness 2009 : Achieving Sustainable Development
(Washington, DC, 2009-07) World Bank
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.
The World Bank’s Country Policy and Institutional Assessment — An Evaluation
(Washington, DC, 2009-06) World Bank
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.
Earnings Growth and Employment Creation : An Assessment of World Bank Support in Three Middle-Income Countries
(Washington, DC, 2009-06) World Bank
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.
Independent Evaluation of IFC’s Development Results 2009 : Knowledge for Private Sector Development
(Washington, DC, 2009-05) World Bank
The independent evaluation of International Finance Corporation's (IFC's) development results 2009 assesses the development outcomes and additionality (unique role and contribution) of IFC interventions. It analyzes factors driving results, and reviews performance patterns on a thematic topic. This year's thematic is IFC's Advisory Services (AS), knowledge services that IFC provides to either private companies or governments in support of private sector development. To enhance development impact, the report recommends that IFC: i) effectively manage the tension between protecting the portfolio and responding to opportunities during crisis; ii) set out an overall strategy for IFC advisory services, addressing the need for a clear vision and business framework and more closely linked with IFC's global corporate strategy; iii) pursue more programmatic AS interventions; iv) improve execution of the AS pricing policy; and v) strengthen AS performance measurement and internal knowledge management.
IFC in Nigeria : An Independent Country Impact Review
(Washington, DC, 2008-10) World Bank
Independent Evaluation Group's (IEG's) country impact review (the report) examines if, from July 1998 through December 2007, International Finance Corporation (IFC): (i) successfully defined a relevant and appropriate strategy for helping Nigeria tackle its most pressing needs; (ii) provided investment and advisory services that were reflective of IFC's strategy; and (iii) achieved positive development results. IFC's strategies in Nigeria reflected the characteristics of IFC's process for development of country strategies jointly with the World Bank. These characteristics include: (i) poor integration with IFC's main strategy and budget process; (ii) loosely formulated country objectives and priorities in terms of sectors and products; and (iii) little or no resource allocation. As a result, IFC's strategies for Nigeria have not fulfilled their purpose of setting priorities, defining targets, and securing the human, organizational, and other resources required.
An Evaluation of Bank Support for Decentralization in Client Countries
(Washington, DC, 2008-08) World Bank
Developing countries have decentralized functions and responsibilities for service delivery to lower levels of government at an increasing pace in recent years. The main reasons for such reforms are often political, but governments adopt them also as a way to improve service delivery and local governance. Typically, after the political decision is made, a country will turn to its development partners including the World Bank for support in implementing the new policies and achieving their development objectives. Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) assessed the effectiveness of Bank support for decentralization between FY90 and FY07 in 20 countries, seeking to inform the design and implementation of future support. Given the difficulties of measuring the results of decentralization, the evaluation used intermediate outcome indicators such as strengthened legal and regulatory frameworks for intergovernmental relations, improved administrative capacity, and increased accountability of sub-national governments and functionaries to higher levels of government and to local citizens to assess the results of Bank support in these 20 cases. To examine potential lessons at a sectoral level, the evaluation also assessed whether Bank support for decentralization improved intermediate outcomes for service delivery in the education sector in 6 of the 20 countries.
Georgia Country Assistance Evaluation, 1993-2007
(Washington, DC, 2008-06) World Bank
Georgia's development path was highly uneven after the country gained independence in 1991. Civil war, secessionist movements, and economic crises resulted in a sharp and protracted fall in output and hyperinflation in the immediate post-independence years. In 1994-96 the country implemented a successful stabilization program, reining in hyperinflation and restoring growth. But in subsequent years the government failed to overcome problems arising notably from economic mismanagement and widespread corruption, leading to poor public services, a deepening energy crisis, and political and economic uncertainty. After the November 2003 raised revolution, the new government executed an ambitious reform program that quickly produced results: rapid economic growth, improved governance, and better living conditions. The World Bank's experience in Georgia closely followed the successes and failures of the country's development. Three distinct sub-periods can be identified, based on the timing of the Bank's country strategies, changes in government policy course, and exogenous factors: 1994-97, 1998-2003, and 2004-07. With Georgia now on the path to international Development Association (IDA) graduation and becoming eligible for International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) borrowing, the challenge for the Bank is to sustain a strong partnership with an emerging middle-income country.