01. Annual Reports & Independent Evaluations
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Publication
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)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. -
Publication
The World Bank Group’s 2018 Capital Increase Package - An Independent Validation of Implementation and Results
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-08-29)This report presents the Independent Evaluation Group’s validation of the World Bank Group’s 2018 capital increase package (CIP). It assesses the World Bank Group’s progress in implementing the CIP’s policy measures and achieving its targets, as well as the quality of management’s CIP reporting. The 2018 CIP boosted the Bank Group’s financial firepower with a $7.5 billion paid-in capital increase for the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), $5.5 billion paid-in capital increase for the International Finance Corporation (IFC), $52.6 billion callable capital increase for IBRD, and internal savings measures. The CIP also included a policy package that committed Bank Group management to policy actions linked to the Bank Group’s 2016 Forward Look strategy. The CIP committed to reporting annually on its implementation and an independent assessment after five years. This report fulfills the commitment to an independent assessment. This validation builds on management’s own reporting and other complementary evidence to assess the World Bank Group’s progress in implementing the CIP’s policy measures and achieving its targets. The report also assesses the quality of management’s CIP reporting. The report points to lessons on developing, implementing, and reporting corporate initiatives and commitments, such as the importance of having clear strategies or action plans, explicit buy-in from senior management, and accurate reporting with meaningful indicators and realistic targets. -
Publication
Financial Inclusion: Lessons from World Bank Group Experience, Fiscal Years 2014–22
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-08-28)This evaluation explores how and with what effect the World Bank Group has supported financial inclusion for the microenterprises, poor households, women, and other excluded groups. Financial inclusion is defined as the use of financial services by individuals and firms. It encompasses financial access—owning an account—and the use of financial services. There has been an impressive growth in account ownership globally, from 55% of adults in 2014 to 71% in 2021, although usage is more limited as some accounts are inactive. Critically, both financial access and the use of financial services remain major challenges for microenterprises, poor households, women, and other excluded groups. The objective of the evaluation is to assess whether the Bank Group has been doing the right things and whether it has been doing things right on financial inclusion. The evaluation captures lessons from the World Bank’s experience supporting financial inclusion for microenterprises, poor households, women, and other excluded groups and updates a 2015 financial inclusion evaluation. The evaluation includes a retrospective look at the drive for universal financial access and examines progress and challenges in women’s access to financial services. The evaluation also assesses the Bank Group’s support for digital financial services as vehicles for financial inclusion. Finally, the report examines the World Bank’s response to COVID-19 as it relates to financial inclusion. The evaluation proposes three recommendations: (i) The World Bank and IFC should further encourage account use by underserved groups, including women and rural poor people, and emphasize this more in their strategies and projects. (ii) The World Bank and IFC should design and implement more comprehensive approaches that address constraints in the enabling environment for DFS to reach underserved and excluded groups. (iii) To enhance learning on what works to increase the beneficial use of financial services at the MPWEG, the World Bank and IFC should collect outcome data across different underserved and excluded groups, initially on a pilot basis. -
Publication
International Finance Corporation Platforms Approach: Addressing Development Challenges at Scale - An Independent Evaluation (Approach Paper)
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-08-03)Recurring development challenges and new compounding crises affecting client countries and firms constrain the ambition of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to contribute to attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. The recurring challenges, including insufficient private sector participation in development financing, continue to affect emerging markets and developing economies and the firms within them. Two related initiatives—the IFC capital increase and the IFC 3.0 strategy—underpin IFC’s goal to contribute to the SDGs by 2030. IFC’s capital increase package was based on the IFC 3.0 strategy, which requires creating new markets through advisory and upstream services and mobilizing private capital from new sources and through new approaches (IFC 2017, 2018, 2020a). IFC has introduced a platforms approach to scale up its interventions in accordance with IFC 3.0 and the capital increase objectives. IFC defines platforms as thematic interventions—at a regional, global, or sectoral level—designed to address a specific development challenge (IFC 2022b). The main purpose of the evaluation is to assess whether the platforms approach offers IFC a means to achieve its capital increase and IFC 3.0 objectives while meeting the Board’s and clients’ expectations. -
Publication
Focused Assessment of the International Development Association’s Private Sector Window: An Update to the 2021 Early-Stage Assessment by the Independent Evaluation Group (Approach Paper)
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-07-27)Attracting private capital and developing the private sector in low-income countries are challenging. The challenges involved in mobilizing private capital and developing the private sector in many IDA countries, especially those that are fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS), are substantial (World Bank 2016). In many of these countries, the domestic private sector is small, informal, and constrained by a weak macroeconomic and regulatory environment, infrastructure bottlenecks, and a limited skilled labor force. High country risks and capital flight concerns make domestic and international investors reluctant to engage, particularly in FCS, which also experience security risks. As a result, IDA countries’ ability to attract private investment and grow the local private sector remains limited. The assessment will update a previous IEG evaluation of the Private Sector Window (PSW) and complement a concurrent paper by the International Development Association (IDA), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). This focused assessment (the PSW evaluation update) responds to a request by the Committee on Development Effectiveness and World Bank Group management for IEG to prepare an update to The World Bank Group’s Experience with the IDA Private Sector Window: An Early-Stage Assessment (World Bank 2021), which was completed by IEG in July 2021 and covered the PSW implementation experience under the 18th Replenishment of IDA (IDA18) for fiscal years 2018–20. The PSW evaluation update will add IDA19 and early IDA20 PSW projects. Concurrently, IDA, IFC, and MIGA are jointly preparing a paper on the PSW as an input to the IDA20 Mid-Term Review, focused on implementation progress and early results of the PSW (the IDA PSW paper). The IEG and IDA-IFC-MIGA teams working on the two assessments have agreed to conduct complementary analyses to inform the Mid-Term Review. -
Publication
The Rigor of Case-Based Causal Analysis: Busting Myths through a Demonstration
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-05-02)Several myths persist within research and evaluation circles about the power and limitations of evaluation designs that use cases (or case studies) as their primary empirical material (case-based evaluation designs). Using a real-world application, this paper busts two myths regarding the use of case-based designs in evaluations that aim to answer effectiveness questions and unpack the relationships between interventions and observed changes in outcomes (broadly known as causal analysis): that case studies cannot be used for causal analysis and that it is impossible to generalize from case studies. Through a detailed demonstration of how the evaluation of the World Bank’s support to carbon finance has been designed and implemented, the paper undoes these preconceived ideas about the inferential, explanatory, and generalizability power of case-based evaluation designs. -
Publication
The World Bank’s Role in and Use of the Low-Income Country Debt Sustainability Framework: Independent Evaluation Group
(Washington, DC, 2023-05-02)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. -
Publication
World Bank Group Support to Somalia, Fiscal Years 2013–22 - Country Program Evaluation (Approach Paper, March 2, 2023)
(Washington, DC, 2023-03-22)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). -
Publication
The World Bank Group in Mozambique, Fiscal Years 2008-21 - Country Program Evaluation
(Washington, DC, 2023-03-22)Between 1993 and 2013, Mozambique became one of the fastest-growing economies in Sub-Saharan Africa boosting incomes and living standards. Political and macroeconomic stability provided the foundation for robust growth led by a rebounding agricultural sector and significant donor support. Growth, however, decelerated beginning in 2016 in the face of low commodity prices, a hidden debt crisis, and natural disasters. In FY18, Mozambique was formally classified as a fragile country. The Covid-19 pandemic further eroded growth. In light of the country’s evolving context, this Country Program Evaluation (CPE) reviews the World Bank Group’s engagement in Mozambique over the period FY08 into FY21. The CPE assesses the extent to which the Bank Group’s support was relevant to Mozambique’s main development challenges and drivers of fragility as well as how Bank Group support evolved and adapted over time. The evaluation delves into four themes that are relevant to Mozambique’s pursuit of the Bank Group’s Twin Goals of Poverty Reduction and Shared Prosperity: (i) low agricultural productivity; (ii) unequal access to basic services; (iii) weak institutions and governance; and (iv) vulnerability to climate change and natural disasters. The evaluation presents findings from each of the four themes covered and distills lessons from Bank Group experience in Mozambique to inform future strategies and engagements. -
Publication
Evaluation Insight Note: Implementation Lessons from World Bank Operations in Supporting Indigenous Peoples
(Washington, DC, 2023-03-22)This Evaluation Insight Note builds on Independent Evaluation Group evidence to identify lessons for working with Indigenous peoples who live in poverty. Extreme poverty—measured as living on less than US$1.90 a day—is apparent among Indigenous peoples in developing countries. Indigenous peoples have lower levels of employment, living standards, health, and housing. Geographic isolation, linguistic barriers, and lack of political representation affect education and employment opportunities for Indigenous peoples. Yet, Indigenous communities are often highly resilient. A recent study surveying 15 Indigenous communities in six countries in Central America highlights three critical factors—natural capital, cultural capital, and social capital—that account for the resilience shown by these communities in the face of recent extreme climate events and the COVID-19 pandemic. To identify lessons from World Bank operational experience in addressing implementation challenges in reducing poverty among Indigenous peoples, the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) synthesized findings in Project Performance Assessment Reports (PPARs). Additionally, we referenced select academic literature focused on Indigenous peoples and analytical reports by the World Bank and other international organizations. We also drew on Implementation Completion and Results Report Reviews (ICRRs) from Vietnam for an earlier, focused, analysis on Indigenous peoples. This Evaluation Insight Note provides a limited perspective that can be expanded by drawing from other evidence, such as data from community-level civil society organizations engaged with Indigenous peoples. The methodology is summarized at the end of this paper.