01. Annual Reports & Independent Evaluations

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Mongolia Country Program Evaluation FY05-13: An Independent Evaluation
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015) Independent Evaluation Group
From 2005 to 2013, a mining boom quickly promoted Mongolia from a low-income to a middle-income country. Although the World Bank Group strategy initially overlooked the challenge of the mining boom, the new country management team that came on board in 2005 decided to prioritize mining issues in a more selective framework. This involved taking a set of bold steps to support Bank Group engagement in the extractive industry, including basing for the first time a senior mining specialist in the field and conducting an in-depth political economy analysis. Building on this, the country team was able to design a comprehensive program of outreach to the government, parliament, and civil society to build a consensus on the need for efficient and fiscally sustainable management of earnings from the revenues derived from the mineral boom. The Independent Evaluation Group considers the Bank’s performance to be satisfactory; however, its contribution to outcomes remains moderately satisfactory. The Bank revised its strategy to adopt relevant objectives centered on the mining agenda and designed an overall effective program. The Bank displayed flexibility and innovation in implementing the program and built awareness about environmental issues. As to results on the ground, Bank projects have had a highly satisfactory impact in improving rural livelihoods and reducing herders’ vulnerability. Looking ahead, the Bank Group would need to: (i) build demand and capacity for good governance; (ii) pursue efforts to improve public investment; (iii) strengthen domestic capacity for policy simulation; (iv) assist in the strengthening of the banking system; and (v) support fiscal decentralization. In the interests of selectivity, the Bank could scale back its support for the urban sector.
World Bank Group Engagement in Resource-Rich Developing Countries: The Cases of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and Zambia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015) Independent Evaluation Group
This report by the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) summarizes the experiences of and draws lessons from the country program evaluations of four natural resource-rich countries: the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and Zambia. It concludes that although the challenges identified in these countries are not unique, they manifest themselves with particular intensity in three closely interrelated areas that need to be defined and structured as a coherent strategy: (i) management of revenues from an exhaustible resource; (ii) growth and employment in the non-extractive sectors, and (iii) inclusive growth and reduction of poverty. Overall, looking at the four resource-rich countries in this evaluation, one does not see the World Bank Group as having a consistent framework for engagement, driven by the defining characteristics of these countries—their rich endowment with non-renewable natural resources and dependence on revenues from their exploitation. Each of the four stories evolved in a unique way that depended on how the country teams decided to react to differing country circumstances. The main challenge for the Bank Group in these countries today is how to stay relevant and competitive, as its value proposition is no longer its financial resources, but its knowledge and global experience, which may call for a more modest scope of interventions while keeping the focus on key challenges.
The Australian Government's Performance Framework
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-04) Mackay, Keith
There has long been a keen interest from countries around the world in Australia's experience in creating an evaluation system to support evidence-based decision making and performance-based budgeting. Australia's evaluation system lasted from 1987 to 1997, and during that time it was used to systematically evaluate all government programs every three to five years; these evaluation findings were used heavily by officials, ministers and the cabinet in the annual budget process. The uses of these findings included the policy advice prepared by departments including the preparation of ministers' new policy proposals and departments' savings options submitted to the cabinet for its consideration. More importantly, these findings were highly influential on the cabinet's ultimate policy decisions. Finally, evaluation findings were also used widely within line departments in support of their ongoing management. This paper updates two previous World Bank papers that reviewed the Australian experience with monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and other performance-related initiatives. These papers (Mackay 1998, 2004) focused on the first two time periods addressed in this paper.
Poverty Reduction Support Credits: Vietnam Country Study
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2010-09) Grawe, Roger
Vietnam, a one-party socialist state dominated by the Communist Party of Vietnam, has in recent years moved towards a pragmatic growth-oriented approach to economic policy. Early reform measures in 1986 with the doi moi, or new way, introduced a series of market-oriented reforms in industry and trade, as well as agriculture. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 hastened the pace of reform, as the authorities intensified monetary, banking, and structural reforms and set the stage for substantial trade and investment liberalization, and as Vietnam's arrears with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) were settled in 1993. Key lessons that emerge from the Vietnam study include: a) the Poverty Reduction Support Credit (PRSC) process is strengthened through rigorous analytic underpinnings (for example, Vietnam development reports, public expenditure reviews, and other analytical and advisory services) that provide a shared vision of the development agenda and a menu of policy actions linked to the thematic pillars of the poverty reduction strategy; b) even in a context of high government commitment, fostering a connection to an external anchor (such as world trade organization accession) can help maintain momentum in the PRSC process and reform generally; c) PRSCs can function as an effective complement to, and catalyst for, sector operations including the development of sector-wide approaches and sector budget support; and d) with large numbers of international and government participants, it becomes increasingly important for both Government and the Bank that responsibilities for coordinating inputs and consultation and maintaining a policy overview be closely linked, defined, and adequately funded.
OED Review of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Process : Cambodia Case Study
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2004-07-06) Operations Evaluation Department
This report analyzes the experience of Cambodia with the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) process3. The focus of the report is on evaluating the performance of the World Bank in supporting the PRSP initiative, not on appraising the authorities policies. Given the early stage of the PRS Process, with the document only formally launched by government in March 2003, the report focuses on the process of PRSP formulation in Cambodia and the genesis of the implementation phase. The report is structured as follows: the remainder of section one provides brief background information about Cambodia. Section two offers an appraisal of the PRSP formulation process and of the document itself, focusing on aspects relevant to an evaluation of the World Bank s role. Section three assesses the World Bank s support to the process. Section four summarizes the main points of the assessment and attempts to draw lessons of more general applicability.