The Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) assessed the effectiveness of Bank support for decentralization between fiscal 1990 and 2007 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 subnational governments and functionaries to higher levels of government and to citizens to assess the results of Bank support in these 20 countries. 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. Bank support contributed to more effective decentralization substantially in more than one-third of the 20 cases and modestly in the others. The most successful aspects of Bank support pertained to the legal frameworks for intergovernmental relations...

This CE Brief proposes the Public Sector Governance Reform Cycle framework to help Bank staff and clients identify tools and techniques to assess and strengthen capacity in the public sector. A number of lessons and challenges have emerged: Tools relying on large sets of microdata benefit from both quantitative and qualitative data. Highly aggregated data are useful for cross-country comparisons and awareness raising, while design of sector-specific reform programs requires specific and disaggregated data. Employing a wide range of data sources and tools and triangulating results can greatly enhance reform programs, whereas quality control will enhance credibility of results. The degree of impact on policy debate and capacity building depends on client demand, openness, participation, and transparency. It is important to move beyond governance diagnostics to implement reforms and measure progress against poverty reduction targets.

National AIDS strategy frameworks have become a mainstay of AIDS responses in countries affected by the epidemic. Faced with the challenge of responding to the changing epidemic in a context of growing needs and limited resources, governments have turned to evidence informed AIDS strategies as a tool for designing their national responses. National HIV/AIDS strategies must be carefully crafted, not only continuing a general focus on prevention and treatment, but also targeting narrower interventions as the epidemic evolves within regions or smaller at-risk groups in each country.

In order to inform the 2010 Strategy, and suggest what role the World Bank Group (WBG) can realistically play in strengthening environmental institutions and governance, this paper takes stock of WBG operations in this area since the 2001 Strategy. Looking across the spectrum of lending and nonlending operations, the first task is to identify the approaches which have been used to engage with clients. The analysis then evaluates whether these approaches have incorporated lessons from past WBG experience, and reflect current understanding of how best to enable environmental institutions and governance reforms. The analysis indicates that the WBG has undertaken two main types of activities in the area of environmental institutions and governance: assessments (of environmental conditions, and institutional and governance structures) and lending operations geared towards technical capacity development. The chief point of entry for these operations has been government ministries, and secondarily civil society organizations.The analysis also indicated that a new approach would be needed to ensure a long-term commitment on the part of the WBG...

The World Bank had commissioned an independent team to evaluate and assess the future role of PROFISH, the Global Program on Fisheries. The evaluation team found that PROFISH, since its inception in 2005, had made excellent progress in raising World Bank, bilateral donor and client country awareness of fisheries development needs, contributed fisheries and aquaculture content to global development products and assisted World Bank country and regional operations. The evaluation team concluded that fisheries can be reformed to achieve multiple objectives by (1) focusing on governance and institutions, (2) including fisheries in the mainstream development agendas and in global themes such as food security and climate change, and (3) applying the key operational tools of problem diagnosis, sequenced interventions and implementation experience and learning.

This paper reviews the literature on the role of the investment climate reforms in job creation. It finds that the current landscape of employment and private sector activity in developing countries indicates a number of potential channels through which investment climate reforms can positively affect job creation. However, rigorous empirical evidence is scarce and most of the relevant studies focus on business entry reforms with a few focusing on business taxation and investment promotion activities. Overall, there is evidence of job creation through business entry, tax reforms, and investment promotion activity in developing countries. Almost all of these evidences are from quasi-experimental studies that are significant improvements over conventional cross-country or cross-section panel data analysis. Still, various endogeneity concerns in these studies cannot be ruled out completely. In assessing job effects, future research should provide deeper insights on the gross versus net and short-run versus long-run job effects and general equilibrium effects of various investment climate reforms related to jobs...

In Ethiopia, it was shown that funding levels are far from compatible to the needs for care and support services for people living with human immuno-deficiency virus (PLHIV) and orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC). The aim in this study is to map the relationship between client needs, actors, care and support services provided for PLHIV and OVC in Ethiopia. A case study of the Ethiopian community care program was carried out using multiple methods of data collection as part of a multi-country research of four countries. Three program cases providing care and support services throughout the country were studied. A total of 35 in-depth interviews, 9 focus group discussions, 60 guided interviews, and 3 community mapping exercises were carried out. Analysis was conducted using the thematic framework approach with coding and mapping of the transcripts in the ATLAS.ti version 5.0. The expansion of antiretroviral therapy (ART) has reduced the number of bed-ridden PLHIV in need of home based nursing care. Currently, inadequate access to food and lack of income to cover health care and other expenses are the major concerns of PLHIV in Ethiopia. Community Home Based Care (CHBC) in Ethiopia can be categorised into two types; clinical and non-clinical. Non-clinical care (psychosocial...

The 1997 Bank reforms that introduced the matrix management concept aimed to adapt the organization to changing circumstances and address concerns among external stakeholders about the role of aid in development. The reforms were motivated largely by widespread recognition that the Bank's development programs were excessively driven by a culture of lending, with insufficient attention to client needs and the quality of results, which are crucial to development effectiveness. A previous round of reforms in 1987 had strengthened the country focus, but quality remained a concern. Furthermore, access of developing countries to development finance from the private sector had increased significantly, leading to a decreasing share of official development aid, including Bank financing, in total flows to developing countries. This trend has continued after slight interruption by the Asian financial crisis. In 1987, World Bank lending represented 15 percent of all external financing for developing countries. By 2002 Bank lending had declined to 4 percent of external financing (organizational effectiveness task force: final report...

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.

Economic and sector work (ESW) and non-lending technical assistance (TA) are two of the analytical and advisory services (AAA) through which the Bank provides knowledge support to its client countries. The objectives of ESW are to inform lending, inform government policy, build client capacity, stimulate public debate, and influence the development community. The objectives of TA are to assist in policy implementation, strengthen institutions, and facilitate knowledge exchange. ESW and TA are an essential part of the Bank's engagement with its clients it spent $910 million (or 26 percent of its spending on country services) on these products during FY00-06. The majority of ESW and TA met their objectives at least to an average extent during FY00-06, although there were substantial differences across countries and tasks. ESW and TA of higher technical quality were clearly more effective in meeting their objectives. Close collaboration with clients from task initiation through the formulation of recommendations was important for ESW and TA to be effective...

Independent Evaluation Group's (IEG's) Country Impact Review (CIR) evaluates International Finance Corporation's (IFC's) strategies and operations, and their outcome drivers in Indonesia, during fiscal year (FY) 1990-2006. The review covers the period before, during (FY 1998-2000) and after the most recent economic crisis. The CIR was prepared in parallel with the IEG Country Assistance Evaluation (CAE) of the World Bank's operations during FY 1998-2005, both are intended to inform the next World Bank Group Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) for Indonesia. While IFC's strategic priorities in Indonesia have been aligned with the country's private sector development needs, it has made little progress in supporting a larger private sector role in infrastructure and in helping deepen the financial markets. Increased private sector participation and IFC support for infrastructure development and for deepening the financial markets will depend on further government reforms. The CIR calls for a stronger IFC role in infrastructure and capital market development...

In February 2006, the government of Liberia invited the World Bank Group to work with the country to implement a comprehensive multiyear advisory services program. The program is designed to support the growth of a vibrant domestic private sector in Liberia that can create employment, increase opportunities for growth, attract partners, and provide services for quality international investment. The private sector development program in postconflict Liberia is being implemented by the investment climate team for Africa on behalf of the World Bank Group. The team is managed by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and draws staff and resources from across the World Bank Group and development partners to help governments in Africa achieve successful reform. Underpinning the team's approach in Liberia is a deliberate strategy to engage with the government and all other key stakeholders, including civil society, the media, and the private sector. In the case of Liberia, this is all the more important...

The World Bank Group (WBG) commends the independent evaluation group's (IEG) evaluation of the Group's support to public-private partnerships (PPP). Under its new strategy, the WBG intends to work with the public and private sectors to end extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity and seeks to increase synergies across the Bank Group. Client countries are increasingly interested in PPP arrangements to provide badly needed public services, and PPPs are, by their nature, a prime area for close WBG collaboration. Management believes that IEG has presented a balanced account of WBG support to its client countries during the period of FY2002-12. Management is in general agreement with the report's recommendations. The management action record presents management s response to individual recommendations.

World Bank analysis of a country's public financial management system is typically undertaken both to help the client country strengthen its system and to safeguard funds that the Bank provides against misuse, and is an important component of fiduciary diagnostics. The Bank's instruments for such analysis have generally been relevant; the resulting diagnostics have been of satisfactory quality and have fostered reform agendas in client countries. Country Financial Accountability Assessments (CFAAs) have contributed substantially, and Country Procurement Assessments Reports (CPARs) modestly, to development outcomes in a sample of 10 countries examined. Client consultation and donor collaboration in the preparation of CFAAs and CPARs have been increasing, but internal Bank coordination among the three sets of units dealing with public financial management has lagged, resulting in fragmented action plans for clients. Both instruments have had a more limited effect on managing risks to Bank assistance, owing to the lack of a sound analytical framework for assessing fiduciary risks and of associated guidance on how identified risks should be reflected in the design of country assistance strategies. The evaluation recommends: (i) ensuring that fiduciary instruments use an integrated risk analytical framework that includes a common approach to defining fiduciary risk; (ii) issuing revised guidelines along with implementing an integrated training program for relevant staff; and (iii) supporting the client in preparing a single integrated...

Critical appraisals of the current and potential benefits from developing country engagement in the World Trade Organization (WTO) focus mainly on the Doha Round of negotiations. This paper examines developing country participation in the WTO dispute settlement system to enforce foreign market access rights already negotiated in earlier multilateral rounds. The dispute data from 1995 through 2008 reveal three notable trends: developing countries sustained rate of self-enforcement actions despite declining use of the Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) by developed countries, developing countries increased use of the DSU to self-enforce their access to the markets of developing as well as developed country markets, and the prevalence of disputes targeting highly observable causes of lost foreign market access, such as antidumping, countervailing duties, and safeguards. The paper also examines potential impacts of the Advisory Centre on WTO Law (ACWL) into the WTO system in 2001. A close look at the data reveals evidence on at least three channels through which the ACWL may be enhancing developing countries' ability to self-enforce foreign market access: increased initiation of sole-complainant cases...

The World Bank conducted a Client Satisfaction Study (CSS) for Pakistan in 2013 to identify the client's perception of Bank's role and presence in the country. This paper includes the following sections: overall attitude towards World Bank in Pakistan; views on country partnership strategy; views and opinion about services of World Bank; World Bank access and media habits: advisory for a future strategy; and detailed views about World Bank from client side.

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. The CPIA enters the calculation of country performance ratings that, since 1980, have been used to allocate International Development Association (IDA) resources to eligible client countries. This evaluation was undertaken at the request of Board members to assess the appropriateness of the CPIA as a broad indicator of development effectiveness and as a determinant of the allocation of IDA funds. As indicated in the approach paper, this evaluation reviews the effects of the CPIA ratings on IDA allocations but does not review the IDA allocation formula itself. The evaluation finds that the CPIA content broadly reflects the determinants of economic growth and poverty reduction identified in the economics literature, but some criteria need to be revised (such as the trade criterion that places much greater emphasis on imports than exports) and streamlined, and one criterion (assessment of disadvantaged socioeconomic categories other than gender) added. The CPIA ratings also correlate well with ratings of similar indicators...

This Annual Review of Development Effectiveness (ARDE) builds on previous reviews, i.e., the 1998 review, released in a hostile environment of financial crisis, concluded that improvements in project performance cannot be enough, that improvements at a higher plane of program, and country performance should also be present; and, the 1999 review, inscribed within the Comprehensive Development Framework dilemmas, and challenges, identified practices for dealing with those challenges, namely to be based on country commitments to poverty reduction, and sustainable growth. The ARDE 2000 finds that progress was solid on a broad front, but that further progress is likely. Portfolio performance is likely to exceed the Strategic Compact target of seventy five percent satisfactory outcomes; and, sustainability, and institutional development ratings reflect improvements. Though progress is commendable, this review examines four tensions the Bank faces: learning to reconcile client, and corporate priorities; adapting global prescriptions to local conditions; balancing country performance and poverty incidence in allocating its resources; and...

In 1996, the World Bank committed itself to becoming a 'global knowledge bank,' using knowledge to improve the development effectiveness of its work. In fiscal 2008, the Bank reiterated its focus on knowledge and learning, naming it as one of its six strategic directions. This evaluation focuses on two of the analytical and advisory activities through which the Bank provides knowledge to its client countries: economic and sector work (ESW) and nonlending technical assistance (TA). This evaluation found that the majority of ESW and TA met their objectives at least to an average extent during fiscal 2000-06, although there were substantial differences across countries and tasks. ESW and TA of higher technical quality were clearly more effective in meeting their objectives. Close collaboration with clients during the process mattered for effectiveness, whether clients actually produced part of the task or not. Sustained follow-up after the completion of the tasks was important for effectiveness. Whether clients requested the tasks did not matter for effectiveness...

This evaluation assesses knowledge-based activities in nine country programs selected from 48 knowledge-intensive programs supported by the Bank Group. It identifies the factors in the success or failure of those activities as they contribute to policy making or development outcomes. It also identifies areas of strength for the Bank Group as well as areas of weakness or risk. The evaluation findings are therefore relevant to current Bank Group efforts to strengthen the contribution of knowledge to development. In addition, the evaluation assessed International Finance Corporation (IFC) advisory services for their synergy with the Bank's analytical and advisory activities. The main objective of the evaluation is to learn lessons from practices in a focus group of high-income and upper-middle-income countries that have knowledge based programs with the Bank Group. This report is organized in five chapters as follows: chapter one is introduction. Chapter two reviews the relevance and strategic positioning of the World Bank in knowledge-based partnerships. Chapter three reviews the technical quality of the knowledge services delivered. Chapter four evaluates the results of the knowledge activities and their sustainability...