Publication: The Effectiveness of Private Sector Development Interventions in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations: Evidence from Evaluations
Date
2016-11
ISSN
Published
2016-11
Author(s)
Liu, Chaoying
Harwit, Emily
Abstract
This systematic review is an effort to
fill the knowledge gap about the effectiveness of
PrivateSector Development (PSD) interventions in Fragile and
Conflict-Affected Situations (FCS). Theobjective of the
review is to identify and extract evidence from published
evaluations of PSDinterventions in FCS on what has or has
not worked in terms of achieving development
results,including contributions to peace and stability. The
review identified 312 published evaluations of PSD
interventions carried out between 2005 and 2014, of which 56
constituted the final data set for the review analysis. The
review covered evaluations in 23 countries classified as FCS
by the World Bank from 2005-14 and three other countries
that experienced conflict. Annex 1 shows how each of the 23
countries were categorized according to the country’s
conflict status from the FCS list. In summarizing the
evidence, we defined ‘effectiveness’ as how external
evaluators measuredthe degree of success in attaining the
planned results and objectives of PSD projects in
FCS.Project effectiveness was measured within four business
lines: SME support, infrastructure,access to finance and
investment climate reform. The evaluability, or the ability
of evaluators to determine how well projects were
implemented, was weak in some projects under review. For
example, in 25 percent of the evaluated projects, outcomes
were either poorly defined or not appropriate. In addition,
the basis for determining success across individual projects
was not always clear because projects sometimes defined
outputs and outcomes differently, even when long and
short-term results were achieved. This limited our ability
to appropriately catalog the projects’ evidence in a
consistent and clear manner.
Citation
“Liu, Chaoying; Harwit, Emily. 2016. The Effectiveness of Private Sector Development Interventions in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations: Evidence from Evaluations. © International Finance Corporation, Washington, D.C.. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/28497 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”