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In the face of the global economic crisis caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the World Bank delivered the largest crisis response in its history. This evaluation assesses the Bank Group’s early response to the economic crises caused by COVID-19, and examines interventions over the 15 months from April 2020 through June 2021. The report considers two evaluation windows: the acute crisis phase (April 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020) and the incipient recovery phase (January 1, 2021 to June 30, 2021). The objective of identifying the two windows was to assess whether the Bank Group internalized learning from the first period of the crisis to address the challenges that were materializing in the (incipient) recovery phase. The evaluation assesses the relevance of the Bank Group’s interventions on three dimensions: the extent to which the Bank Group targeted its early response based on clients’ and sectors’ needs, the extent to which the Bank Group used timely diagnostics and lessons from past crises to inform its early response, and the extent to which the early response leveraged the Bank Group’s comparative advantages. The evaluation studies the quality of the Bank Group response on three dimensions: the extent to which the Bank Group early response influenced client strategies; the extent to which the Bank Group coordinated its early response among its constituent institutions and with development partners; and how well the Bank Group early response handled monitoring, safeguards, and governance. The evaluation offers two near-term recommendations to strengthen the role of the Bank Group as a crisis responder, which is now more critical than ever.

The Country Program Evaluation (CPE) for Tanzania assesses the World Bank Group’s effectiveness and relevance in its work to help Tanzania address its key development challenges. The CPE will encompass two Bank Group strategy periods covering fiscal years (FY)12–16 and FY18–22. The evaluation aims to inform the next Bank Group Country Partnership Framework for Tanzania.

Disasters caused by natural hazards are increasingly threatening the lives and livelihoods of the world’s poor and disaster-vulnerable populations. Climate change is further exacerbating the negative impacts of disasters caused by natural hazards. Investing in disaster risk reduction (DRR) has strong economic and social benefits and is essential for achieving climate change adaptation. IEG's evaluation shows that the World Bank is successfully supporting clients to increasingly take up DRR actions through strategic and comprehensive country engagement. The World Bank has developed an extensive portfolio of DRR activities, tripling its support over FY10-20. It focuses its DRR work on countries with the most serious natural hazards, uses synergistic pillars of DRR engagement, and increasingly mainstreams DRR into sector operations. Support for DRR in IDA, small island developing states, and IDA-FCV countries has been comprehensive. The Bank has also shifted from post-disaster response toward pre-disaster risk reduction. The Bank has shown that it is able to overcome political and financial constraints to DRR client uptake by engaging the right decision makers using rigorous evidence and by building on disaster reconstruction efforts. Analytical work that quantified risks, assessed costs and benefits and communicates impacts has highly influenced DRR uptake. However, there are gaps in coverage for some regions, sectors, and hazards that require attention. There are DRR coverage gaps in Europe and Central Asia and the Middle East and North Africa for all serious hazards. Also, while the World Bank is conducting analytical work on the needs of disaster vulnerable groups, there has been slow progress on incorporating their needs into operations. There are also missed opportunities to use conflict-sensitive approaches to mitigate conflict risks and pursue peace-building. Also, the Bank’s frequent inability to demonstrate the effects of its DRR activities on reduced exposure and vulnerability has consequences on its ability to make a development case for risk reduction. Most DRR operations are not providing sufficient information to establish the level of DRR being achieved, inhibiting an understanding of how DRR contributes to development impacts, such as reduced economic loss and mortality. IEG offers the World Bank four recommendations to improve their performance on disaster risk reduction: (i) Incorporate DRR activities in regions and sectors and for hazards that exhibit significant coverage gaps. (ii) Identify and measure the effects of DRR activities on exposure and vulnerability to strengthen the development case for clients facing serious disaster risks. (iii) Integrate the needs of populations disproportionately vulnerable to disasters caused by natural hazards into DRR project targeting and design, implementation, and results reporting. (iv) In countries affected by serious natural hazards and fragility and conflict risks, identify and assess the ways in which hazards and conflict interrelate and use this to inform country engagement and project design.

This Country Program Evaluation (CPE) assesses the World Bank Group's development effectiveness in Chad over the past decade within a context of high fragility and extreme poverty. The report covers the implementation of the Interim Strategy Note (2010–12) and the Country Partnership Framework (16–20). This CPE draws lessons to inform the design and implementation of the next partnership strategy with Chad. IEG finds that World Bank Group's support to Chad was aligned with government priorities and World Bank diagnostics. Bank Group support helped advance several human development objectives. It especially increased access to health services, primary and secondary education, and social protection in targeted areas as well as gender equality. Notwithstanding the challenges inherent in working in a fragile and conflict-affected situation, the performance of the Bank Group portfolio in Chad was weak. Timely budget support helped stave off an imminent fiscal crisis but did not achieve sustained reform. Few results were achieved in agriculture, infrastructure, and public resource management. Overall, performance was undermined by procurement delays, high turnover of government counterparts, and a lack of continuity in World Bank staff working on Chad. The following three lessons are offered for consideration. First, timely and targeted analytical work is necessary to inform priority setting, policy dialogue, and the design of reforms. Given the prevalence of capacity and absorptive constraints, it is essential to strategically prioritize analytical work to help identify and understand the most binding constraints to development gains and inform efforts to address them. Second, procurement challenges warrant greater attention to address the underlying political and bureaucratic obstacles, which will require a higher-level dialogue with the government. Lastly, although working in Chad is challenging, it is critical to strengthen incentives to attract and retain talent. This is needed to improve continuity of engagement with country authorities and compensate for weak client capacity, including the high turnover of government officials.

In March 2020, President Malpass announced a freeze on IFC’s direct investments and advisory services support to private for-profit K–12 schools and requested IEG “undertake an evaluation of IFC investments in K–12 private education provision, including impacts on educational outcomes, poverty, and inequality.” This evaluation follows this request and is designed to help the World Bank Group’s Board of Executive Directors and IFC’s management consider the circumstances that favor K–12 private education. The evaluation assesses IFC’s investments in K–12 private or nonstate schools during the fiscal years 2001 to 2020 in terms of access and equity of access, education quality, relevance, and financial sustainability. It focuses on IFC investment instruments and considers IFC advisory services only as part of the Risk Sharing Facility (RSF), which integrates advisory services with an investment component. Evaluation findings support a single conclusion: resumption of IFC investments in K–12 private schools is not advisable without making substantial changes to IFC’s approach. In their response to the evaluation, IFC noted their agreement with IEG’s findings and announced that IFC will not resume investments, which it halted in 2017, in fee-charging K-12 private schools. The evaluation includes lessons stemming from IFC’s 20-year experience that are relevant for future support for private investments in private K–12 education. It analyses the complexities of the financial viability of these investments and constraints on their impact on access to quality education for underserved groups.

The achievement of learning outcomes has been a long-standing challenge for education systems across the developing world and has significant consequences for economic development. To realize the development aims of education investments, students need to learn, but too many have not, especially in low-income countries. The World Bank has sought to address this learning crisis for more than a decade through the pursuit of quality education that enhances learning outcomes. The Independent Evaluation Group’s (IEG) proposed evaluation will assess the extent to which the World Bank’s Education Global Practice (GP) and its predecessor, the Education sector unit, have supported efforts to improve learning outcomes over the past decade (fiscal years [FY]12–22). Based on that experience, the evaluation will assess the effectiveness, relevance, and adequacy of World Bank support to address the learning crisis. It will identify lessons and recommendations to inform the next education sector strategy and further development of the World Bank’s approach to this persistent development challenge and the exacerbation of learning deficits during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) introduced its Non-Honoring (NH) products - the Non-Honoring of Sovereign and Sub-Sovereign Financial Obligations and the Non-Honoring of Financial Obligations by a State-Owned Enterprise - in 2009. The objective of these products was to crowd-in private insurance capacity to support investments in International Development Association and Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situation countries, and to encourage state-owned enterprises to adopt good corporate governance, environmental and social sustainability practices. These products were expected to benefit guaranteed lenders through lower cost of financing and public sector borrowers through increased and more diversified funding sources. Since their introduction, the NH products have gained a substantial share of MIGA’s overall business. This report provides the first independent evaluation of MIGA’s experience with its NH products and aims to offer feedback and lessons to inform future strategies. The report reviewed all 34 NH projects implemented by MIGA between 2009 and 2019 to assess the extent to which they met their objectives and contributed to enhancing MIGA’s development effectiveness and additionality. The report invites MIGA to address questions related to the suitability of these products for IDA and FCS countries and on the methodology for evaluating their development impact.

In December 2016, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) introduced its latest strategy, IFC 3.0, which aimed to enhance IFC’s development impact by creating “new and stronger markets for private sector solutions” (IFC 2019) and “mobilizing private capital at significant scale” (IFC 2021) where it is needed the most. To achieve IFC 3.0’s aims of market creation and private capital mobilization at scale, IFC recognized it would need new tools and analytical capabilities to: (i) Develop a deeper understanding of the constraints limiting private sector solutions and opportunities in each country’s economy, including in key enabling and productive sectors; and (ii) Allow for a more strategic selection, sequencing, and implementation of its activities and stronger coordination across the World Bank Group. At the country level, IFC 3.0’s tools included a new diagnostic instrument, the Country Private Sector Diagnostic (CPSD), and a new strategy instrument, the IFC Country Strategy. The objective of the evaluation is to assess whether IFC Country Strategies and CPSDs have enhanced IFC’s ability to create markets and mobilize capital at scale and have informed Bank Group collaboration on private sector development. The evaluation will focus on IFC Country Strategies and CPSDs completed since their inception in fiscal year (FY)18. The evaluation will cover all 50 IFC Country Strategies and the 31 CPSDs completed between FY18 and December 31, 2021.

Interest is high on the World Bank’s role in and use of the Low-Income Country Debt Sustainability Framework (LIC-DSF) in light of the sharp rise in debt stress among low-income countries and a changing global risk landscape in the years leading up to and resulting from the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). Since 2015, the number of IDA-eligible countries at high risk of or in debt distress has more than doubled. As the key instrument to assess the debt sustainability of IDA eligible countries, the LIC-DSF is intended to guide the World Bank’s advice and support to these countries. This evaluation seeks to assess how the World Bank contributes to the LIC-DSF, how it uses LIC-DSF output in various corporate and country-level decisions, and how it can better leverage the LIC-DSF to address debt vulnerabilities in LICs. In doing so, it will seek to identify opportunities for the World Bank to strengthen its role in the preparation and use of the LIC-DSF in a changing global context and to highlight potentially important questions that may need to be addressed in the upcoming joint review, including the extent to which the LIC-DSF meets IDA’s needs in serving its clients. Recommendations from this evaluation will focus on aspects of the LIC-DSF that are within the World Bank’s ability to change or influence.

IEG began preparing the evaluation in June 2020, in response to a request from the World Bank Group Board’s Committee on Development Effectiveness. In March 2021, IEG produced an Issues Paper identifying lines of inquiry for the main evaluation, distributed it for internal and management reviews, and submitted it to CODE in June 2021. In September 2021, as the evaluation was undergoing final revisions, World Bank Group management decided to discontinue the Doing Business report. In announcing its decision, the Bank Group stated that it intended to work on a new approach to assess business and investment climates. In February 2022, the Bank published a pre-concept note introducing the Business Enabling Environment project (BEE), a new benchmarking exercise to “measure the business enabling environment in economies worldwide.” In this context and given the use of multiple other global indicators in reforms, the learning from this evaluation report is highly relevant. A cover note extends its findings to the use of other global indicators, including the successor Business Enabling Environment Project. The evaluation seeks to guide any new approach using evidence-based indicators so that it builds on the many good practices observed in Doing Business and considers the substantial power that these indicators have to motivate and engage client countries in business environment reform. It calls for indicators to be used in a balanced and accurate manner guiding the choice of reform priorities in client countries with the greatest development benefits for their socio-economic situation. The following generalized lessons can be drawn from the report: (i) Recognizing the powerful motivational effect of reform indicators, this evaluation notes the limitations in the coverage and guidance offered by any single indicator set on its own and advocates integrating them with complementary analytic tools and indicators. (ii) Recognizing the granularity and specificity of individual reforms in any given country context, the findings suggest that it is better to avoid using business regulatory or similar global indicators as explicit reform objectives or monitoring indicators in Bank Group projects and country strategies focused on improving the business environment. This does not preclude the use of primary data to track and measure agreed targets critical to Bank Group institutional commitments. (iii) Global indicators coverage and specifications are improved if, at regular and predictable intervals, they are updated to reflect learning from research and field experience to (i) improve links to important development outcomes; (ii) strengthen relevance to the experience of the subject of coverage; and (iii) adapt to technological changes in the areas covered by the indicators. (iv) The DB experience indicates the need for mechanisms and safeguards to assure the accuracy and validity of World Bank Group global indicator-based reports and related communications, using robust and transparent standards of evidence.

Accounting for almost half of global gross domestic product and 70 percent of the world’s population, middle-income countries (MICs) face multiple development challenges limiting achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including poverty and inclusion, climate change, financial access, and economic diversification and market development. The International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) portfolio is focused heavily on MICs. Additionality is the unique support that IFC brings to a private client or client country that is not typically offered by commercial sources of finance (IFC 2019). This evaluation assesses the unique support and value addition (additionality) that the International Finance Corporation (IFC) provides to middle-income countries (MICs). It will cover IFC’s support of MICs through investment and advisory projects, and through its platforms and partnerships. The primary audience is the World Bank Group Board and IFC management and staff, however some findings of the evaluation will be relevant to a broader audience including multilateral and bilateral financing private sector activities, investors, and government officials and practitioners in client countries.

IEG’s Results and Performance of the World Bank Group 2022 report, also known as RAP 2022, assesses the World Bank Group’s performance by analyzing the achievement of project and program objectives through validated ratings. The country is the primary unit of engagement of the World Bank Group and this RAP presents the effectiveness of the Bank Group’s support at the country program level. It covers lending, advisory services and analytics, and International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) operations over the 10-year period FY13–22. The Bank Group revised its country engagement guidance in July 2021 to address weaknesses in its approach to country programs, including in the results frameworks of its Country Partnership Frameworks (CPFs). This revised guidance did not yet apply to the country programs analyzed in this RAP. Instead, this RAP establishes a baseline against which the country program performance resulting from the new guidance can be assessed in the future. Building on the RAP 2020 and RAP 2021, this RAP updates the project rating trends since then and carries forward the analysis of outcome orientation at the country level and of the line of sight from Bank Group support to High-Level Outcomes. These outcomes are defined by the Bank Group as a sustained improvement in the well-being of the poorest and most vulnerable people.

This Country Program Evaluation assesses the development effectiveness of the Bank Group’s engagement in Madagascar between fiscal years 2007 and 2021 and surfaces lessons to inform the design and implementation of the next Bank Group–supported partnership strategy with Madagascar. The evaluation reviews the evolution of the Bank Group’s engagement strategy and its implementation over and lessons from experience. It contains a more in depth assessment of Bank Group support in two areas that represent core development challenges: (i) elite capture and (ii) development of rural areas. Bank Group support was increasingly relevant to Madagascar’s core development constraints and contributed to significant progress in several areas. World Bank support contributed to modernizing the country’s tax and customs revenue administrations, improving revenue collection, and generating local revenues, as well as to improved subnational public financial management and decentralized management of natural resources and land certificates. In terms of rural development, Bank Group support contributed to short-term increases in agricultural production and greater food security, the development of value chains, and the government’s increased ability to mitigate the impacts of shocks on Madagascar’s most vulnerable populations to preserve critical human capital. Overall progress was hampered by limited success in designing interventions to avoid misuse by a few high-status individuals. In rural areas, overall progress in increasing small farmers productivity fell short because the adoption of technology to increase agricultural productivity did not adequately target smallholder production systems and did not provide sufficient incentives for farmers in the forest frontier to change their land use practices.

This Country Program Evaluation (CPE) assesses the development effectiveness of the World Bank Group’s engagement with Bangladesh during the past decade (fiscal year [FY]11–20) and provides lessons to inform the next Bank Group supported strategy with Bangladesh and to countries facing similar challenges. The Bank Group made important contributions over the past decade to help Bangladesh address several of its development challenges. Most notable include increasing power generation capacity, improving access to clean energy, all season roads, primary and secondary education, reducing child and maternal mortality and improving financial inclusion. However, achievements fell short in several areas, including insufficient investment in data and measurement particularly on learning outcomes and limited progress on regional connectivity. In other areas, domestic vested interests prevailed resulting in little progress in improving the business environment, natural resource management, banking reform and tariff reform. Bank Group support adapted in response to changing circumstances following the Padma Bridge cancellation by reallocating resources to sectors in which the Bank Group had more traction and a long-standing history of effective engagement. However, rising fiscal vulnerabilities received insufficient attention. Despite a deteriorating trend in institutional quality and economic management and declining core IDA allocation, the Bank Group significantly increased financing to Bangladesh, including through IDA’s Scale Up Facility. Key lessons include: (i) Rebalancing the portfolio in the face of a difficult political economy helped the Bank Group remain relevant in Bangladesh; (ii) Where reform is deemed critical to sustain development progress but government commitment is weak or absent, continued targeted analysis of key development constraints can help prepare the ground for future action when a window of opportunity presents itself; (iii) Measuring improvements in the quality of education requires deliberate and ongoing investment in data collection; (iv) Increasing overall IDA financing in the context of deteriorating CPIA rating raises a question about the significance that IDA assigns to measures of institutional quality and governance; (v) Given underlying concerns with data quality and coverage, the World Bank might have been more qualified in its public statements about the quality of the macroeconomic framework; and (vi) Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) arrangements between the World Bank and the IMF constrain the ability of the World Bank to provide comprehensive and timely assessments of financial sector vulnerabilities in nonsystematically important economies.

This Country Program Evaluation aims to assess the World Bank Group’s contribution to Morocco’s development trajectory over the past decade (fiscal years 2011–21) and is timed to inform the next Country Partnership Framework and future Bank Group engagements in the country. The Country Program Evaluation will use a range of methods to assess how the Bank Group has supported Morocco’s efforts to tackle major constraints to achieving its objective of reaching upper-middle-income-country status. The evaluation will focus on three outcome areas: (i) fostering private sector–led growth that absorbs a growing labor force; (ii) strengthening inclusive human capital formation and addressing the obstacles to women and youth labor force participation; and (iii) reducing climate risks and natural resource depletion and addressing their combined effects on the most vulnerable people, especially in rural areas.

The Country Program Evaluation (CPE) for the Kyrgyz Republic seeks to assess the World Bank Group’s efforts to help the Kyrgyz Republic address its main development challenges. The evaluation will cover fiscal years (FY)14–21 and is timed to inform the next Country Partnership Framework (CPF) between the Kyrgyz Republic and the Bank Group. The evaluation will assess (i) how relevant was the Bank Group’s strategy and how it evolved over time, given changes in the country context and lessons from experience; (ii) the extent to which Bank Group support helped the Kyrgyz Republic foster increased private sector–led growth to reduce economic vulnerability; (iii) the extent to which Bank Group support helped improve central government governance and institutional capacity; and (vi) the extent to which Bank Group support improved local governance and the quality of, and access to, local public services.

This Issues Paper draws together evidence and initial analysis to propose a foundation and testable lines of inquiry for the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) evaluation of the relevance and effectiveness of Doing Business (DB) for country reforms. The paper reviews six major sources of evidence on the use and influence of the World Bank Group’s DB indicators and reports and their relevance for client country policy reforms. It then marshals the evidence to formulate six lines of inquiry that will augment evaluation questions laid out in the Approach Paper to guide the evaluation.

Many of the world’s poor people depend on natural resources for their well-being. Four-fifths of the world’s poor people live in rural areas, and most rural poor people depend on natural resources for their livelihoods. The renewable natural resources on which poor people depend are increasingly being degraded, posing significant risks to resource-dependent communities. The World Bank has committed to reducing the vulnerability of resource-dependent people. This evaluation assesses how well the World Bank has addressed natural resource degradation to reduce the vulnerabilities of resource-dependent people.

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 World Bank Group’s Gender Strategy (fiscal year [2016–23) presents gender equality as integral to smart development policy and posits that successful implementation of the strategy will help achieve the Bank Group’s twin goals and the Sustainable Development Goals. The strategy focuses on four objectives: human endowments, jobs, asset control and ownership, and voice and agency. To implement the strategy, the World Bank and International Finance Corporation (IFC) established a new methodology and targets for measuring progress via gender tags for World Bank operations and gender flags for IFC advisory and investment services. At the midpoint in the eight-year strategic cycle, this review provides a rapid assessment of the implementation of the strategy in the World Bank and IFC. The purpose of the review is to provide evidence and reveal opportunities to maximize organizational efforts over the final four years of implementation. It reflects on what is working well and less well to support continuous monitoring and learning in the World Bank and IFC in terms of strategy implementation. The review identified the connections and coordination among four essential institutional elements for an enhanced country-driven approach—knowledge management, staff designated to support work on gender, the IFC Gender Business Group and World Bank Gender Group, and monitoring and evaluation—and identifies four opportunities to enhance implementation.

The Management Action Record (MAR) is a key element of the World Bank Group’s accountability framework. The MAR supports accountability in the follow-up of Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) evaluation recommendations by enabling meaningful tracking, dialogue, and self-assessment of World Bank Group management’s implementation of IEG recommendations. There are 15 evaluations in this year’s MAR. The document covers IEG’s synthesis of progress toward achieving IEG evaluations’ intended outcomes and its assessment of the approach and evidence in management’s MAR report entitled Using Evaluative Evidence to Deliver Development Outcomes: A World Bank Group Management Report on Implementation of IEG Recommendations FY17-21.

The World Bank Group’s success rests on its ability to help its client countries achieve the development outcomes they desire. This demands a strong outcome orientation at the country-level, defined as the Bank Group’s ability to generate feedback on what works, what does not, and why, use this feedback to adapt country programs, and boost contribution to development outcomes. This learning-focused evaluation provides a new vision of how to strengthen the Bank Group's outcome orientation in countries. IEG finds that the model of how the Bank Group aims for outcomes in its client countries is sound. However, the results system does not capture the Bank Group’s contribution to country outcomes well, as its reliance on metrics, attribution, and short time-boundedness does not suit the nature of country programs. While country teams practice adaptive management, the country-level results system does not effectively support them in doing so. The report makes concrete proposals on how to rethink the country-level results systems, its tool kit; the accountability principles that underlies the system; and the incentives for staff to learn from experience and prioritize development results.

This report is an annual review of the development effectiveness of the World Bank Group. The report assesses the World Bank Group’s performance by analyzing the achievement of project and program objectives through validated ratings and by classifying these objectives according to their outcome levels. To provide new perspectives on performance, RAP 2020 also analyzes outcomes and discusses ways in which the Bank Group can continue to enhance its outcome orientation. The report highlights that the Bank Group’s results measurement systems collect evidence needed for ratings and for process and compliance monitoring with limited evidence on the Bank Group’s contributions to higher-level outcomes. Performance trends are positive for almost all Regions and Global Practices in the World Bank. Project ratings in countries affected by fragility, conflict and violence show improvement but continue to lag those in other countries. Positive ratings trends can be linked to continued improvements in quality at entry, strong implementation support and M&E, and broadly conducive economic and institutional conditions in many larger countries before the pandemic. Ratings for MIGA projects continued to increase. IFC project ratings remain depressed overall, but with signs of a modest uptick in the most recent data. Less successful results are often linked to large shocks, internal work quality and issues with preparing for risks and their response when shocks occurred.

The Management Action Record (MAR) is a key element of the World Bank Group’s accountability framework. The MAR supports accountability in the follow-up of Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) evaluation recommendations by enabling meaningful tracking, dialogue, and self-assessment of World Bank Group management’s implementation of IEG recommendations. This document: (i) describes a reform of the MAR which aims to address shortcomings in the previous MAR system through more focus on the outcomes sought by IEG recommendations. (ii) validates a self-evaluation done by Bank Group management of their implementation of past IEG recommendations, and (iii) served as IEG’s input to a discussion by the World Bank Group Boards' Committee on Development Effectiveness. The Committee on Development Effectiveness endorsed the MAR reform at its meeting on September 25, 2020. Following the meeting’s decisions, two evaluations for which IEG and management had not reached agreement will continue to be tracked under the MAR.

This evaluation provides lessons that could inform IFC’s approach to the deployment of the blended finance instrument. Blended finance is a risk mitigation tool for investments that find it difficult to attract commercial funding. Blended finance refers to the combination of concessional and commercial funding in private sector-led projects. Its rationale is to support projects with potentially high social benefits, but that would not attract funding on strictly commercial terms due to their high risks. This note synthesizes evaluation findings from two sources: (i) IFC’s early experience with blended finance as reflected in 14 project evaluations of projects approved over 2010-2014; and (ii) a cluster of five Project Performance Assessment Reports (PPARs) of recent projects, approved over 2012-2016. The emphasis is on findings from the more recent projects.

This Country Program Evaluation (CPE) assesses the development effectiveness of the World Bank Group program in the Philippines between 2009 and 2018. The report provides input to the next Country Partnership Framework for the Philippines and may offer lessons for Bank Group country programs in other lower-middle-income countries facing similar development challenges.

This evaluation examines how the World Bank has supported two types of professional development to improve teacher capacity—preservice and in-service training—and identifies how these drivers of education quality can be better designed, implemented, and scaled up.

World Bank emphasizes the importance of social contracts to eliminate poverty and boost shared prosperity. In the 2014 World Bank Group Goals, the World Bank calls for social contracts that prioritize the poor while creating the conditions for equitable growth. This learning-oriented evaluation generates lessons from the World Bank’s experience using social contract diagnostics to help countries reshape their social contracts. It does this by:(i) evaluating the quality and value added of social contract diagnostics; (ii) assessing how social contract diagnostics are translated into operations; (iii) identifying the risks and challenges of integrating social contract diagnostics into operations; and (iv) drawing lessons on how to overcome these challenges. At the country level, this evaluation identified 21 Systematic Country Diagnostics (SCDs) that use a social contract framing to diagnose and explain complex development challenges such as entrenched inequalities, poor service delivery, weak institutions, and why decades of policy and institutional reforms promoted by external development actors could not fundamentally alter countries’ development paths.

This evaluation examines the World Bank Group’s evolving experience in building resilience in urban areas during the period 2007–17. The focus of this evaluation is the World Bank Group’s support to clients in building urban resilience—to cope, recover, adapt and transform—in the face of shocks and chronic stresses.

This evaluation seeks to inform the World Bank’s efforts to support client countries to deliver sustainable irrigation and drainage services and achieve development impacts. The results of this evaluation can help the World Bank improve strategic approaches in an evolving context. Irrigation service delivery is increasingly challenged by multiple factors that are driving demand for agricultural production, water scarcity, and variability in water precipitation. These factors include population growth and urbanization leading to increasing demand for agricultural products, and greater competition for water resources from domestic and industrial users. Untreated urban wastewater released into water bodies affects irrigation water quality. Water availability is increasingly variable because of the effects of climate change.

World Bank Group strategy continues to position SMEs as key vehicles to promote employment, value chain development, economic and social inclusion, and resilience in the face of fragility and conflict. This note synthesizes findings regarding SMEs and SME support from recent IEG evaluations, independent evaluations by other MDBs, and relevant World Bank Group research.

This report provides a retrospective assessment of the Bank Group’s results and performance acrossits project and program portfolio. This is relevant for understanding the stock of achievements to date and the foundations on which the Bank Group is delivering on the Forward Look and its ambitious capital package. The report synthesizes trends in Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) ratings and identifies explanatory factors behind portfolio performance. Each of the three Bank Group institutions assesses results differently because of their differing reporting periods, operating models, and clients. The supplementary file contains four appendixes and the remaining, more specialized topic appendixes of the Results and Performance of the World Bank Group (RAP) report. This report is IEG's annual review of the development effectiveness of the World Bank Group (WBG). The report synthesizes trends in ratings, and identifies explanatory factors behind portfolio performance. This report provides a retrospective assessment of the World Bank Group’s results and performance across its project and program portfolio. This is relevant for understanding the stock of achievements to date and the foundations on which the Bank Group is delivering on the Forward Look and its ambitious capital package. The four key appendixes for Results and Performance of the World Bank Group 2018 are included with the main file.

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 2016, the World Bank Group stepped up its engagement in situations of conflict-induced forced displacement at the global and country levels and adopted a new approach to its engagement that recognizes displacement as a development challenge that must be addressed to attain the World Bank Group’s twin goals. Since fiscal year 2016, the Bank Group’s analytical, financial, and operational support has become more aligned with its stated development approach building on lessons from past engagements. This is an important shift.

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 evaluation examines the development effectiveness of the World Bank Group’s support for trade facilitation and identifies lessons for future engagement. The World Bank Group has played a leading role in trade facilitation reform over the past 12 years, having identified lowering trade costs as a crucial means to promote its development agenda. Among its contributions, the Bank Group has been a leading technical partner to the WTO during the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) process throughout the evaluation period. Main findings of the report include: (i) Over the evaluation period, the World Bank Group has demonstrated leadership in facilitating trade through its broad scope of work: (893 interventions of all types) in addition to Advisory and Analytic work, generally targeting countries with the greatest bottlenecks, results, in its contribution to a substantial reduction of international trade costs, and its creation of global public goods through thought leadership, convening power, and its trade facilitation indicators - which contributed to a positive dynamic in reforms. (ii) Most World Bank Group projects supporting trade facilitation reforms achieved their development objective, and all three institutions exceeded their corporate scorecard targets. The World Bank’s investment lending appears to be substantially more effective than its policy operations. At the trade facilitation intervention level, the overall success rate averaged 79 percent.

From the 15th replenishment of the International Development Association (IDA15)through IDA18, the Crisis Response Window (CRW) evolved from a focus on economicshocks to include two other types of crises—natural disasters and public healthemergencies. The CRW was set up as a pilot under IDA15 to address repercussionsrelated to the global financial crisis on IDA countries. When established as a permanent part of IDA, it was amended to address the impact of natural disasters in addition to economic shocks. CRW coverage was expanded to include public health emergencies when the Ebola crisis erupted in 2014. This IEG synthesis paper takes stock of experience with IDA’s CRW, making use of IEG evaluative evidence. The paper synthesizes findings from existing evaluations and information on CRW performance during its pilot stage under IDA15 and subsequent IDA cycles, to inform stakeholders and promote learning. The audience for this paper is primarily internal, including management, Executive Directors (including the Committee on Development Effectiveness), and IDA deputies.

The 18th replenishment of the International Development Association (IDA18), one of the world’s major providers of financial resources to the poorest countries, was the largest in the institution’s 56‐year history. Together with significant changes in its policy and financing framework, IDA’s enhanced commitment authority was expected to enable faster progress toward the international community’s far‐reaching and ambitious 2030 agenda,1 which aligns closely with the World Bank Group’s twin goals of eradicating extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity in a sustainable manner. The objective of this synthesis report is to draw on findings and lessons from recent IEG evaluations (that is, those completed since FY16) and databases that are pertinent to IDA18 special themes and IDA support more generally to inform forthcoming IDA19 discussions. The synthesis report focuses on learning from IDA experience over the last 10 years in relation to areas covered by the IDA18 special themes, drawing on relevant IEG evaluations completed since FY16.

The International Development Association (IDA) Regional Window Program was developed as a funding mechanism to provide additional financing resources to co‐finance projects that help low‐income countries achieve their regional integration objectives. The main objective of this synthesis report is to inform policy decisions on the International Development Association (IDA) Regional Window Program in the context of the IDA18 mid‐term review and the IDA19 replenishment. The report contains information on (a) the achievements of the program, and (b) key findings and conclusions for the consideration of IDA Deputies. This synthesis is derived primarily from IEG’s thematic evaluation, Two to Tango: An IEG Independent Evaluation of World Bank Group Support to Fostering Regional Integration and is complemented by findings from other existing thematic evaluations such as Grow with the flow: World Bank Group support to Trade Facilitation, project‐level evaluations and validations, and project performance assessment reports.

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.

The World Bank Group began evaluating projects in 1970 when President Robert McNamara created an Operations Evaluation Unit in the World Bank’s Programming and Budgeting Department. In 1973, the unit became the Operations Evaluation Department, which reported to the Board of Executive Directors and became the first independent evaluation function in an international financial institution. After evaluation offices were established in the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in 1984 and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) in 2002, the three evaluation functions were merged into the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) in July 2006. As the scope of World Bank Group operations and its portfolio of products grows, IEG continues to develop and adapt its approaches to evaluating development effectiveness. These approaches include assessing outcomes against stated objectives, benchmarks, standards, and expectations, or assessing what might have happened in the absence of the project, program, or policy. Across projects, IEG looks at the patterns of what works under what circumstances. IEG’s evaluation approach reflects and is harmonized with internationally accepted evaluation norms and principles, such as the quality standards for development evaluation of the OECD Development Assistance Committee, the good practice standards of the Evaluation Cooperation Group, and the norms and standards of the United Nations Evaluation Group.IEG adheres to a multilayered quality assurance model, which includes in-depth review of intermediate and final evaluation products by internal (IEG) and external peers. A Methods Advisory Function was established in fiscal year (FY)16 to promote internal knowledge sharing on evaluation design issues and methodological innovation. This fiscal year, the Bank Group introduced a Bank Group–wide evaluation framework, which reiterated the independence of IEG and made explicit our dual mandate of promoting accountability and fostering learning. IEG’s new Results Framework aligns with the World Bank Group’s evaluation framework and the revised IEG mandate.

Climate change is a threat to global development and to the core Mission of the World Bank Group. With the recognition that human activity drives global warming, the World Bank Group has pursued a long-term commitment to curb global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for more than 20 years. The purposes of this evaluation are to assess the role and contributions of the Bank Group in CF in relation to the needs and priorities of its client countries and its potential comparative advantages, and to draw lessons to inform the World Bank Group’s future strategic direction in CF. The evaluation aims to answer thefollowing overarching question: What has been the strategic objective, nature of engagement, and contribution of the Bank Group in supporting CF? What lessons can be drawn from this to inform the Bank Group’s strategic direction in supporting the next generation of marketbased carbon mitigation activities, given its potential comparative advantages?

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.

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 is a corporate-level assessment of the role and effectiveness of IFC in its support to its clients’ inclusive business models. It also identifies implications and options for IFC’s future support to inclusive business. The evaluation uses a two-pronged approach based on: (i) a review of IFC’s entire portfolio (comparing inclusive business projects with the rest of IFC’s portfolio), integrating IEG’s relevant evaluative evidence across different sectors and themes; and (ii) a focus on the agribusiness sector. Based on the findings of this evaluation, the report concludes with three options for IFC to consider: (i) Option 1: Keep the current approach, (ii) Option 2: Upgrade IFC’s current approach to an “operational framework”, and (iii) Option 3: Design a corporate strategy toward inclusive business.

The Results and Performance of the World Bank Group (RAP) report is an annual review by the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) of the development effectiveness of the World Bank Group. The RAP covers the World Bank (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and International Development Association), the International Finance Corporation, and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (four of the five institutions of the World Bank Group). The report synthesizes existing evidence from IEG evaluations, validations, and engagements, complemented by analysis of relevant information from other sources (for example, World Bank Group documents). Results and performance are assessed separately for each of the institutions because of their differing time frames, operating models, and clients. The theme this year is environmental sustainability, focusing on selected questions related to the contribution of the World Bank Group to environmental sustainability (chapter 1). This RAP (i) assesses the extent to which the World Bank Group portfolio includes activities that support environmental sustainability (and changes over a 10-year period), (ii) takes stock of how the World Bank Group is measuring its contribution to environmental sustainability, and (iii) presents analysis on the World Bank Group’s systems for managing environmental and social risks. The RAP does not seek to provide an overall assessment of the environmental effects of the World Bank Group’s projects because data are available only for the subset of projects where environmental goals were the primary objective.

A large share of the world’s population today has access to health services, but the health needs of a great segment of the global population remain unmet. In 2013, more than 400 million people worldwide were not receiving at least one of the seven essential health services identified as priority areas in the Millennium Development Goals. Demographic and epidemiological changes, the increasing importance of noncommunicable diseases, the effects of climate change and natural disasters, and the surge of pandemic threats compound an already challenging situation in many countries. Challenges to health services are exacerbated further in countries facing fragile and conflict-affected situations. This evaluation aims to assess the roles and contributions of the World Bank Group in supporting health services in client countries. It also seeks to provide lessons and recommendations for achieving greater development effectiveness in future support to health services. This evaluation aims to fill an evaluative evidence gap in the health sector. It is the first comprehensive health sector evaluation carried out by the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) since 2009. This evaluation also complements the 2014 IEG health financing evaluation, which examined how World Bank Group support to revenue collection for health, pooling of health funds and risks, and health financing reforms have improved equity in health financing and service use, financial protection, and efficiency.

Client engagement is essential for the IFC to support the private sector, maximize finance for development, and contribute to achieving the World Bank Group's twin goals. This IEG evaluation assesses how the IFC has implemented its strategic approach to client engagement since the early 2000s, and its effects on IFC's clients and the development impact of its operations.

In line with IEG’s long-term agenda, we have delivered timely, highly relevant evaluations that speak to the current issues. Likewise, we have influenced debates in our three strategic engagement areas: inclusive and sustainable economic growth, investing in people, and fostering resilience to global shocks and threats. We completed an important assessment of how wellthe World Bank Group is positioned to attain its goal of boosting shared prosperity. The results should help the World Bank Group institutions—the International Bank for Reconstruction andDevelopment (IBRD), the International Development Association (IDA), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA)—adjust their programsto ensure ultimate success. We also completed two evaluations on delivering services to the poor and simultaneously stimulated discussions about the assessment of service delivery and behaviorchange. For our strategic engagement area on environmental sustainability, we put together a synthesis paper of all our findings on resilience to systemic shocks. During the year, we enhanced our investments in methodology. With the systematic involvement of our new methods advisor, we have seen a greater range of evaluation methods used in our major reports. These investments will further mature in the coming years and be the platform on which IEG can start testing new methods in the future.