This evaluation assesses the development effectiveness of the World Bank Group's country engagement in Albania over the period Fiscal Years 11-19. The Bank Group made a substantial contribution to many reforms relevant to Albania's development priorities, including Albania's EU accession goals. Bank Group support was effective in improving fiscal management and social protection, strengthening the financial sector, and expanding waste management and irrigation. The program was responsive to opportunities, but it could have been more selective in its engagements. Findings suggested that analytical work should be used more extensively to build consensus and capacity for reforms and new lending should be more selective. Albania had transitioned to a market-oriented middle-income economy by year 2008. However, the economic slowdown in the wake of the global crisis led to a reversal in poverty reduction. The crisis led to several key economic reforms, not all of which have been sustained after the recovery.
Disruptive and transformative technologies (DTT) have far-reaching implications for development. Traditional development models are being disrupted by the accelerating pace of technological change and the convergence of multiple technologies, among other things. Recognizing the implications of DTT for development, the World Bank Group adopted a new approach to DTT in 2018, later merging it with its 2019 DTT Mainstreaming approach, and further developing it through the 2020 Mainstreaming Digital and Disruptive Technologies (MDDT) Initiative. The Bank Group's approach encompasses five DTT corporate priorities (country diagnostics, agile regulations, digital connectivity, digital government, and skills and capabilities for the new economy and the role of education), the Bali Fintech Agenda (financial technology and digital entrepreneurship), and sectoral and regional programs (for example, Digital Economy for Africa Moonshot/Accelerate and Middle East and North Africa Tech). The Bank Group aims to help clients harness the opportunities and mitigate the risks of DTT to accelerate progress toward achieving the twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity. This evaluation sought to answer the question, How well prepared is the Bank Group to help clients harness the opportunities and mitigate the risks posed by DTT?
The international development community acknowledges that the SDGs will not be achieved without greater participation from the private sector. Estimates for investment needs in developing countries alone range from $3.3 trillion to $4.5 trillion per year. Up to 70 percent of the investment gap could come from the private sector, according to international estimates. Engaging the private sector as a financier, operator, service provider, or innovator in the pursuit of the SDGs requires efficiently functioning and competitive markets and effective governments. Such markets only emerge when there is a sufficiently conducive enabling environment that not only addresses market failures through policy reform but also improving underperforming markets through demonstration effects, enhancing competition, innovation, integration and enhancing skills through investments and advisory services. This evaluation was designed to shed light on several key aspects of the IFC's creating markets agenda and experience on the ground. Those key aspects include the following: (i) Identification of market creating opportunities; (ii) Channels through which IFC contributes to market creation; (iii) Results from IFC's market creating interventions; and (iv) Success factors driving the Bank Group's market creation results.
The World Bank Group's positioning in relation to Rwanda's Vision 2020 goal of rapidly attaining Middle-Income Country (MIC) status reflected many of the elements that are critical to realizing the country's goal: (i) Under a first pillar of promoting economic transformation for sustained growth, it supported infrastructure (notably energy and transport); the business environment (including skills development); the financial sector (including rural finance); and in the latter years the urban sector. (ii) Under a second pillar of reducing social vulnerability and raising the productivity and incomes of the poor, it supported agriculture; health (initially); and social protection—including demobilization and reintegration of ex-combatants. (iii) A third accountable governance pillar aimed to strengthen central and decentralized public financial management (PFM). This evaluation assesses the development effectiveness of the World Bank Group's country program in Rwanda over the period FY09-17. The report aims to inform future partnership frameworks between the World Bank Group and the Rwandan Government. The report is also of interest to individuals and organizations working with countries striving to consolidate economic progress after a successful transition from conflict, or countries striving to reach middle-income country (MIC) status.
Fragility, conflict and violence (FCV) pose a major challenge for development and for reaching the Bank Group's twin goals. Enabling appropriate private sector activities can be a means to break free of the fragility trap by supporting economic growth, promoting local employment and income earning opportunities, generating government revenues, and delivering goods and services. However, the private sector faces substantial constraints in fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS). This report takes stock of available evidence regarding the effectiveness of IFC's support in FCS. It aims to inform IFC's strategy in FCS as IFC seeks to scale up its activities in FCS as part of its commitments under the Capital Increase Package, and to provide inputs for the Bank Group's Fragility, Conflict and Violence (FCV) strategy currently being developed.
In recent years, the world has seen formidable manifestations of citizens' engagement. By taking to the streets to condemn corruption scandals, by rallying on social media to address growing inequalities, or by participating in global consultations to develop the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), ordinary citizens are increasingly eager and able to make their voices heard. At the same time, after several decades of progress, the space for citizens' voices is shrinking globally as several governments raise legal barriers to constrain actions by civil society organizations (CSOs) and to muzzle the media. In this context, the World Bank Group's commitment to citizen engagement can catalyze change. This is even more important because achieving the SDGs and the twin goals rests on the active involvement of citizens and local governments.
This evaluation assesses the development effectiveness of the Bank Group's country program in Mexico between 2008 and 2017 to inform the next CPF (FY19). The country program evaluation (CPE) will deepen knowledge on what has and has not worked and provide timely feedback on upcoming operational choices. The report will inform not only the Bank Group's Mexico Country Management Unit and Mexican government but also a wider Bank Group audience, focused on middle-income countries (MICs) and other development practitioners. The evaluation examines the relevance and effectiveness of the Bank Group program in Mexico in its core areas, and also, as a methodological innovation, examines four overarching areas: (i) the extent to which the Bank Group contributed to identifying Mexico's binding development constraints and to promoting sound policy choices; (ii) Bank Group contributions to Mexico's results in reducing poverty and promoting shared prosperity; (iii) the effectiveness of Bank Group use of lending, knowledge, and convening power services in shaping its role; and (iv) the extent to which Bank Group support to Mexico's development innovations was beneficial to the Bank Group's knowledge base and to other Bank Group member countries. Overall results reflect both program results in core areas and the answers to the overarching questions. The overview of this report is also available in Spanish.
This evaluation's objective was to assess how effectively the World Bank has supported development data production, sharing, and use, and to suggest ways to improve its approach. This evaluation defines development data as data produced by country systems, the World Bank, or third parties on countries' social, economic, and environmental issues. At the global level, the World Bank has a strong reputation in development data and has been highly effective in data production. It produces influential, widely used data and cross-country indicators that fill important niches, benchmark countries, and stimulate research and policy action. The World Bank has also taken a prominent leadership role in global data partnerships so far. However, the World Bank needs to determine its future role carefully because the global partnership landscape is becoming more uncertain—as old partnerships phase out, the complementarity of new partnerships is unclear. This makes the World Bank's future role especially pivotal because the sustainability of funding from global data partnerships at both the national level and for some global data efforts is at risk. Without sustained funding, past progress will be in jeopardy, as observed in some countries where data quality worsened when trust fund support ended. At the national level, the World Bank has been mostly effective at fostering its client countries' data production through its own financing and through financing from small trust fund grants. It has been less effective in promoting data sharing; while the World Bank has used its leverage in some of its client countries, it needs to do a better job at encouraging other countries to share data. The World Bank has been even less effective in promoting data use by governments and citizens. The World Bank's systemwide approach to building the capacity of national statistical organizations yielded significant successes in countries where it was deployed, and it should now add a focus on building subnational capacity and strengthening client countries' administrative data systems. The World Bank needs to make sure it clearly understands when and how big data can complement traditional data in answering key development questions related to its mission, and use big data analytics appropriately to underpin its own decisions and to ensure that it supports its country clients effectively in big data use. The World Bank still needs to address the implications for organizing big data work internally, entering into corporate agreements with private providers (typically the producers of big data), and seriously considering and addressing privacy and ethical concerns related to big data use.
Community-driven development (CDD) interventions rest on the principle of empowering communities. Yet, the gender-specific impacts of CDD, especially on empowerment, have not received due attention in evaluation and, more generally, in the theoretical and empirical literature. This report explores evidence of how the CDD approach can create and enhance participation and decision making when women, as well as men, are to be included in the "community" voice and choice. It reviews the theoretical and empirical literature and analyzes World Bank–supported CDD projects. Its intent is to help practitioners who implement CDD interventions more explicitly define, discuss, and integrate gender-relevant elements in the design of CDD projects; be more effective in implementing and monitoring features that may affect men and women differently; and identify meaningful indicators and information to assess gender impacts. Findings of this report include: i) it is important to bring it out empowerment explicitly in the results chain of the project; ii) the design of CDD projects could benefit from being informed by gender-specific needs assessments to identify the constraints that women face in the rural space; iii) It is useful to think of empowerment along the three categories of economic, political, and social empowerment to identify the mechanisms CDD interventions can leverage, and to identify direct and indirect effects; iv) the importance of defining in CDD projects which dimensions can be affected, through which channels, and how these effects can be measured; v) participation needs to be measured in a comprehensive way by the use of multiple indicators; vi) CDD interventions should better frame what they can impact both in the short and the long term, and vii) the learning potential of what works to increase women's empowerment can be improved through more systematic assessment, reporting and evaluation.
Transformational engagements are a critical pillar of the World Bank Group's strategy for achieving its twin goals of extreme poverty elimination and shared prosperity. This learning product uses evaluative evidence from the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) to understand the mechanisms and conditions for transformational engagements and the implications for the World Bank Group if it seeks to rely on such engagements to more effectively pursue its goals.
The report discusses how challenging it is for the World Bank Group to provide assistance when middle-income countries experience situations of fragility, conflict, and violence. The government may have its own views on how and when to tackle the underlying issues, or may be reluctant to increase its borrowing to correct what may be seen as a localized or temporary problem. Through examining such cases, IEG concluded that the Bank Group's comparative advantage is supporting countries in tackling long-term development challenges, including early engagement and a sustained presence in conflict-affected areas, as well as continuous dialogue with the parties to violent conflicts, where possible.
This learning product reviews the extent to which political economy analysis (PEA) is used to improve the design of development policy operations (DPOs) and how effective it has been. Although the World Bank's mandate explicitly precludes it from engaging in politics, an understanding of the political economy is critical for the organization's effectiveness. A political economy perspective broadens the World Bank's operational considerations beyond technical analysis to the significance of power relations and the national political processes. This study mostly builds on evaluative findings from previous IEG work, including ICRRs, PPARs of long-term programmatic series (Tanzania, Vietnam, Uganda, and Ghana PRSCs). Supplementary evaluative evidence was gathered through a portfolio review of randomly selected DPOs, internal PEA reports, and Systematic Country Diagnostic reports (SCDs) relevant for DPOs. The study found that PEA can improve the design of DPOs by identifying implementation risks and mitigating action; there are different ways to make use of PEA; PEA can inform specific design elements, and that PEA can be used in self-evaluations to better analyze factors affecting program effectiveness and contribute to knowledge and improved design.
Most of the world's poor live in rural areas and rural non-farm activities are an important part of their livelihoods strategies. However, for the poor to benefit from the rural non-farm economy (RNFE), they need to overcome a host of human, physical, financial, institutional and social capital constraints. The World Bank Group has highlighted the RNFE in its strategies. From 2004 to 2014, the BankGroup implemented 1,141 projects, valued at $46.5 billion that included support for RNFE activities. However, the Bank Group currently lacks an articulated approach to developing the RNFE to alleviate poverty. Many units have products in this space, but there is no coordinating mechanism. There is a gap between poverty and growth-oriented approaches in the RNFE. Those designed toreach the rural poor have reduced vulnerability and increased access to services but have notgenerated sufficient, sustained income to lift the rural poor out of poverty. Those RNFE projects with a growth aim—mainly value chain approaches—achieved increased revenues but mostly withoutevidence of benefits for the poor. Spillover effects are not measured. Efforts to bridge this gap asked approaches adept at service delivery to achieve earned income goals beyond their original design. Where IFC's investments in food processing have had strong links to rural areas, they have generally generated positive rural employment outcomes and demonstrated links to the RNFE. However in its agribusiness portfolio, there was little in project design that targeted or tracked benefits for the poor.IFC's retail investments linked to rural areas seek to increase the availability of goods and drive down costs for rural consumers. However, none of the investments tracked consumer benefits (costs) and only a few included local sourcing. In spite of examples of where market power has adversely affected poor value chain participants, the risks imposed by market structure, its impact on the poor, and related mitigants are rarely treated explicitly in project documentation. The Bank has been a leader in researching the RNFE, including its link to poverty. But there is a gapon the diagnostic and analytics side that has been addressed occasionally but not systematically. Addressing binding constraints is key to linking the rural poor to productive activities in the RNFE. Bank–financed rural transport projects have not measured their contribution to local economic gains,in spite of intentions to achieve this. Rural connectivity is being achieved through synergies between transport and agriculture lending but mainly in transitioning economies. Basic literacy and skills are critical enablers in the RNFE, but dialogue is lacking between the Agriculture and Education GPs. Although many value chain projects include a skills component, impact is not assessed. The delivery of sustainable, low-cost rural financial services requires research, piloting, and scaling up of innovative business models to reach the underserved. World Bank support has extended some financial services to the poorest rural segments, but subsidization raises questions about sustainability, crowding out, and potential for politicization. IFC investments reach countries with high exclusion rates, but only a fraction caters to the lower end of the retail segment.
The World Bank Group's new country engagement model consists of two separate but connected instruments: the Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) and the Country Partnership Framework (CPF). The SCD assesses the constraints and the steps a country needs to take to achieve the twin goals of poverty reduction and shared prosperity, and the CPF is the Bank Group's program of support to the borrowing country, typically over a five-year period. This evaluation found that the new SCD instrument has been well received, including by governments and development partners. The SCDs were strong in identification of opportunities for economic growth, but there were weaknesses in the dissemination of the reports, and a clear approach to governance was missing in some SCDs. The CPFs build on the country analysis in the SCDs, but aligning new program priorities has proven challenging, and there have also been weaknesses in how identified data gaps will be addressed. The identification of indicators for the results frameworks has been a strong point. The integration of IFC and MIGA into the CPF process has improved significantly, although some budget transparency issues remain. The expected areas of concentration for IFC and MIGA could be highlighted better in the results frameworks.
Access to adequate housing is critically important to the health and wellbeing of the world's population. Yet, despite the fact that this statement is part of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and has been on the global policy agenda for many years, hundreds of millions of people continue to live in inadequate conditions with little or no access to decent housing. The demand for housing solutions will increase as urbanization and population growth persists. The United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-Habitat) has estimated that the number of people living in slums around the world will rise to 900 million by 2020 if nothing is done. Asia and Africa will face special challenges, because urbanization in those regions is proceeding rapidly. Housing is frequently unaffordable to all but the top earners. A recent report estimates a housing affordability gap affecting 330 million households, with 200 million households in the developing world living in slums (McKinsey Global Institute 2014). Research has shown that more and better housing increases the welfare of occupants. Homeownership may increase stability and civic engagement, and provide financial security in old age. Improvements in housing also have important benefits to the economy. Housing construction and home improvement generate demand for professional, skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled labor; and allow many micro and small businesses to flourish. The housing market is an important component of national economies and housing booms and busts can have significant effects on the macro economy and financial sector. The core purpose of this learning product is to generate knowledge and provide lessons learned from World Bank Group support to housing finance. Lessons were derived primarily from evaluated interventions in the form of World Bank loans or International Finance Corporation (IFC) investments and advisory services. World Bank technical assistance and knowledge products and interventions on housing finance matters were considered when provided in the context of lending operations. One limitation faced in preparation of this learning product was the lack of coverage of stand-alone World Bank advisory services.
