01. Annual Reports & Independent Evaluations

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Biodiversity for a Livable Planet: An Evaluation of World Bank Group Support for Biodiversity (FY15-24), Approach Paper
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-28) World Bank
Biodiversity underpins the provision of critical ecosystem services, but it is being lost at an unprecedented rate and scale. The biodiversity crisis is a threat to development with far-reaching implications for economies, food security, and human welfare. Biodiversity and climate change are inextricably linked. Global efforts to address the biodiversity crisis have been insufficient. Global efforts to address the biodiversity crisis have been insufficient. Embedding biodiversity considerations in the management of productive practices is critical for maintaining global biodiversity and enhancing sustainable production. risk management is critical for avoiding and minimizing adverse impacts on biodiversity loss. The World Bank Group plays an important role in addressing biodiversity loss. The World Bank Group is placing a renewed emphasis on biodiversity and nature, including the need to take a whole of economy approach. The purpose of this evaluation is to assess the performance of the World Bank Group (WBG) in its efforts to address biodiversity challenges, with a focus on the country level. The evaluation will do this by assessing the relevance and effectiveness of WBG’s support for biodiversity conservation activities and the integration of biodiversity considerations in key production sectors. It will also do this by assessing the effectiveness of the Bank’s support for risk management in projects that trigger relevant biodiversity related standards.
Making Waves – World Bank Group Support for the Blue Economy, 2012-2023 – An Independent Evaluation
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-08-23) World Bank
This evaluation assesses how well the World Bank is supporting a blue economy approach to achieve sustainable and inclusive development of ocean and coastal states. A livable planet requires well-managed coastal and ocean resources, which are vital for inclusive growth, jobs, food and nutrition security, and climate resilience. However, these resources are in a state of emergency due to fragmented policies, regulatory gaps, and policy inaction. International actors have coalesced around a blue economy approach to address ocean and coastal governance failures. At the core of this approach is the need to achieve healthy ocean and coastal resources to ensure ecosystem services that support inclusive and equitable economic growth. This evaluation assesses how well the World Bank is supporting a blue economy approach to achieve sustainable and inclusive development of ocean and coastal states. The evaluation examines the World Bank’s articulation of the blue economy and its operationalization and offers lessons to inform the future of the World Bank’s blue economy approach.
Sustainability Review 2023
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-04-30) World Bank
The 2023 Sustainability Review is a reflection of how the World Bank embodies its core values of impact, integrity, respect, teamwork, and innovation. The Review highlights World Bank activities undertaken in fiscal 2022 and 2023 to manage the environmental, social, and economic impacts of internal business operations. The review complements the World Bank Annual Report 2023 and the World Bank Global Reporting Index (GRI) 2023.
The World Bank Group in Papua New Guinea: Country Program Evaluation, Fiscal Years 2008–23
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-25) World Bank
Papua New Guinea has abundant resources in the form of oil and mineral wealth. But a complex set of factors, including systemic gender inequality, underinvestment in non-extractive sectors, and fragility compounded by vulnerability to disasters caused by natural hazards act as barriers to sustainable and inclusive growth of the country. This Country Program Evaluation (CPE) report assesses the relevance and effectiveness of World Bank Group support to Papua New Guinea between fiscal year FY08 and FY23. It assesses the Bank Group’s development effectiveness in addressing the above three core themes, namely: (i) lack of investment in Papua New Guinea’s non-extractive sectors and their poor performance, (ii) the economic exclusion of women and gender-based violence (GBV) issues associated with it, and (iii) unmitigated risks of disaster from natural hazards, and violence, and conflict. The report answers three specific questions. The first explores the extent to which the Bank Group adapted its engagement in line with key constraints, including in relation to development partners, changes in country context, and lessons from experience. The second focuses on the results of Bank Group support and explanatory factors for results under each them, answered by applying a gender lens where relevant. The third question explores the extent to which the Bank Group successfully identified and addressed conflict, violence, and disaster from natural hazards risks. The report offers key lessons to inform the World Bank Group’s future engagement with the country: (i) Data gaps need to be addressed to inform sound policy making and effective programming in Papua New Guinea. (ii) Declining governance quality and increasing bilateral aid will require the World Bank to reassess how it supports key policy reforms to achieve development impact, including through using DPOs. (iii) The Bank Group could elevate its impact on gender equality and GBV by shifting from a project-centric approach to a strategic country engagement approach. (iv) The negative effects that compound and interrelated risks pose to achieving development aims need to be addressed more comprehensively.
World Bank Annual Report 2023: A New Era in Development
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-09-28) World Bank
This annual report, which covers the period from July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023, has been prepared by the Executive Directors of both the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA)—collectively known as the World Bank—in accordance with the respective bylaws of the two institutions. Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank Group and Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors, has submitted this report, together with the accompanying administrative budgets and audited financial statements, to the Board of Governors.
Creating an Enabling Environment for Private Sector Climate Action: An Evaluation of World Bank Group Support, Fiscal Years 2013–22
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-09-26) World Bank
The private sector has a critical role to play in addressing climate change by investing in low-carbon technologies, developing new technologies, and building climate resilience into its investments and operations. Private sector financing will also be critical for meeting the needs for global finance flows, but climate finance from the private sector has been very low. One reason for this is that most countries lack a conducive enabling environment for the private sector to engage in climate action. This evaluation assesses the World Bank Group’s efforts to improve the enabling environment for private sector climate action (EEPSCA). The evaluation defines the private sector enabling environment for climate action as the set of policies (laws and regulations), incentives, standards, information, and institutions that encourage or facilitate the private sector to invest or behave in ways that reduce greenhouse gas emissions or adapt to the current or anticipated impacts of climate change. The private sector includes large, medium, and small firms; domestic and international financiers; and smallholder farmers or other producers. The evaluation assesses the relevance and effectiveness of Bank Group support to EEPSCA and aims to identify lessons applicable to the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation to inform implementation of the Bank Group Climate Change Action Plan 2021 and subsequent Bank Group climate activities. The evaluation also aims to inform discussions on the evolution road map, which considers further increasing the prominence of the role the Bank Group plays on global public goods, such as climate change.
Adaptive Social Protection for Effective Crisis Response: Independent Evaluation Group Evaluation of the World Bank’s Contribution (Approach Paper)
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-08-24) World Bank
Interconnected and often devastating covariate shocks are a threat to human development. Covariate shocks are shocks that affect large numbers of people or communities at once and can be natural, economic, or political. Occurrence and the human devastation from natural disasters has increased over the last 50 years, and the negative impacts of climate change are expected to exacerbate this trend. Poor households are particularly vulnerable to covariate shocks because they lack adequate capacity to prepare for, cope with, and adapt to shocks. Covariate shocks can also impoverish vulnerable households when their capacity to prepare, cope, and adapt is overwhelmed. Covariate shocks vary in magnitude, speed of onset, predictability, and duration, and thus these aspects should be considered when designing the most appropriate social protection response. Moreover, the needs and challenges that vulnerable and directly affected populations face will have implications for social protection systems. Adaptive social protection (ASP) builds resilience by helping poor and vulnerable households prepare for, cope with, and adapt to covariate shocks. The purpose of this evaluation is twofold: (i) assess whether the World Bank support for social protection has incorporated adaptive elements over time, and (ii) assess how effective the World Bank has been at helping client countries make their social protection systems more adaptive.
The World Bank’s Role in and Use of the Low-Income Country Debt Sustainability Framework: Independent Evaluation Group
(Washington, DC, 2023-05-02) World Bank
This evaluation, requested by the Committee on Development Effectiveness of the Executive Board of the International Development Association (IDA), is intended to provide input and insight into the upcoming World Bank–International Monetary Fund (IMF) review of the Low-Income Country Debt Sustainability Framework (LICDSF) currently planned for fiscal year 2023. The sharp rise in debt stress among low-income countries and a changing global risk landscape leading up to and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic have pushed concerns with debt sustainability to the top of the global policy agenda. This evaluation assesses the World Bank’s inputs into the LIC-DSF and how it uses LIC-DSF outputs to inform various corporate and country-level decisions. Main findings and recommendations include: (i) Expectations of the World Bank in taking the lead on long-term growth prospects should be clarified. (ii) Recently increased attention to debt data coverage should be sustained and extended; greater attention is needed to assess data quality. (iii) The DSA should be more directly and consistently used to inform priorities for the identification of fiscally oriented prior actions in development policy operations and SDFP performance and policy actions. (iv) The World Bank should continue to give increasing attention in the LIC-DSF to the long-term implications of climate change, in terms of both growth and fiscal requirements of adaptation and mitigation.
Next Generation Africa Climate Business Plan. First Progress Report: Forging Ahead on Development-Centered Climate Action
(World Bank, Washington DC, 2023-05-02) World Bank
The Next Generation Africa Climate Business Plan (NGACBP), launched in 2020, provides a platform to further galvanize climate action by prioritizing its focus on Sub Saharan Africa’s development challenges and priorities. The plan focuses on food security, energy, and environmental and water security while also proactively supporting countries to manage climate shocks and harness the urban transition through climate smart pathways as core strategic directions. Strategic areas of emphasis include the cross-cutting issues of climate-informed macroeconomic policies and green and resilient infrastructure. Two years after the plan’s release, this progress report aims to provide an update on the status of the NG-ACBP, highlighting key accomplishments and success stories, defining emerging areas of engagement, and setting out a roadmap for the next four years of the plan’s delivery. The latter is especially important as we ensure full alignment with the International Development Association (IDA) 20 policy commitments, the World Bank’s Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP), and regional priorities for Eastern and Southern Africa (AFE) and Western and Central Africa (AFW).
World Bank Group Support to Somalia, Fiscal Years 2013–22 - Country Program Evaluation (Approach Paper, March 2, 2023)
(Washington, DC, 2023-03-22) World Bank; Independent Evaluation Group
Somalia is today among the poorest and most fragile countries in the world, facing myriad development challenges related to ongoing conflict, climate change, food insecurity, natural disasters, and displacement. Overlapping crises related to the COVID-19 pandemic, a prolonged drought, and macroeconomic shocks from rising food and fuel costs have worsened socioeconomic conditions (World Bank 2022). Seventy-one percent of Somalis lived in extreme poverty in 2021, compared with 28 percent for Sub-Saharan Africa (World Bank 2021). Average life expectancy was 57.4 years, and maternal mortality stood at 734 for every 100,000 births (World Bank 2018d). The country’s Sustainable Development Goal ranking was 160th out of 163. The Somalia Country Program Evaluation (CPE) will assess the evolution of the World Bank Group’s support over fiscal years (FY)13–22 and the extent to which the Bank Group adequately prepared for an eventual normalization of relations with Somalia, tailored its support to the conflict and fragility situation in Somalia and evolving circumstances and country priorities, and learned from experience. It will seek to inform the preparation of the next Somalia Country Partnership Framework (CPF) and may be relevant to broader Bank Group engagement in countries affected by fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV).