India : The Challenges of Development, A Country Assistance Evaluation

Zanini, Gianni

Washington, DC:World Bank

关键词: ACCOUNTABILITY;    ANALYTICAL WORK;    CAS;    CENTRAL GOVERNMENT;    CIVIL SOCIETY;   

DOI  :  10.1596/0-8213-4968-6
RP-ID  :  22552

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This country assitance evaluationassesses the development effectiveness of World Bankassistance to India during the 1990s. The Bank has beenIndia's largest source of external long-term capitaland has financed a sizable share of its public investment.Its lending and nonlending services have been thinly spreadover many central and state agencies and have addressed manydifferent objectives. Overall the strategic goals of theBank during the decade were relevant and the design of theassitance strategy improved. Efficacy is rated as modest,mainly because of the Bank's limited impact on fiscaland other structural reforms, the failure to develop aneffective assistance strategy for rural poverty reduction,and the mediocre quality of projects at exit. Institutionaldevelopment impact has also been modest and sustainabilityincertain, given the serious remaining fiscal imbalances,high environmental costs, and governance weaknesses. Takentogether, these ratings gauge the overall outcome ofassistance for the decade as moderately satisfactory. Butthese ratings must be viewed in light of the recent,subtantial improvement in the relevance of the assistancestrategy, largely prompted by the innovations embodied inthe 1997 Country Assistance Strategy (CAS). The focus onpoverty reduction has been sharpened, a more selectiveapproach to state assistance put in place, and greaterattention given to governance and institutions, although itis still too early to judge efficacy.