The World Bank Group (WBG) has adopted anew strategy which sets two ambitious goals of endingextreme poverty and promoting shared prosperity. Tooperationalize the twin goals, the WBG is developing a moreevidence-based and selective country engagement model, theCountry Partnership Framework (CPF). The Bank Group sactivities in any country will be at the intersection ofwhat the Systematic Country Diagnostic reveals, thegovernment s own development priorities and the WBG scomparative advantage (OPCS). While the CPF is sharpeningthe WBG s focus on strategic selectivity in its countryprograms, the issue is longstanding. This paper is a firstattempt at piecing together the various strands of evidencein order to understand the role and the practice ofselectivity in the WBG s country strategies, and exploresthe link between selectivity and country program outcomes.It reviews selectivity in 105 CASs, including CountryPartnership Strategies, during FY09-13. It also provides asynthesis analysis on selectivity issues of 22 CAEs,including Country Partnership Evaluations (CPEs), conductedby IEG during FY05-14. The findings demonstrate thatselectivity matters for the overall development outcome ofCASs while controlling for other variables such as countryownership, results framework, and GDP per capita. Moreover,the estimations indicate that selectivity is more importantin countries with high levels of extreme poverty. Finally,the paper concludes with the key lessons and issues forfurther research.
PDF
download
878987797
028-85220240
