World Bank Group Impact Evaluations : Relevance and Effectiveness

Independent Evaluation Group

Washington, DC:World Bank

关键词: ACCESS TO FINANCE;    ACCESS TO INFORMATION;    ACCOUNTABILITY;    ADVISORY SERVICE;    ADVISORY SERVICES;   

DOI  :  10.1596/978-0-8213-9717-6
RP-ID  :  75723

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The use of impact evaluations (IEs) toassess the causal impacts of development projects hasexpanded rapidly. Along with major innovations instatistical methods and econometrics, the recent impetus inIE has its roots in the debate about whether developmentprograms achieve their objectives of reducing poverty andincreasing economic growth. The renewed focus on results andthe increasing calls for sound evidence on effectivenesshave led to expectations that IE may help build theknowledge base of what does and does not work in developmentand where resources may be best allocated. Between 2004 and2008, the number of Bank Group supported evaluationsincreased sevenfold. This increase is partly attributable tomajor IE initiatives at the World Bank, including theDevelopment Impact Evaluation Initiative (DIME), the AfricaImpact Evaluation Initiative, the Spanish Trust Fund forImpact Evaluation (SIEF), and efforts by the InternationalFinance Corporation's (IFC) Advisory Services ResultsMeasurement Unit (RMU).This sizable investment in IEs,together with the high expectations for them, contrasts withhow little is known about whether the evaluations: (i)evaluate the primary objectives of Bank Group supportedprojects and help fill strategic, analytic, and policyknowledge gaps; (ii) are of high quality; and (iii) haveinfluenced operational work (project design, implementation,and assessment), resource allocation, institutionalstrategy, policy making, or evaluation culture and capacity.In this report, the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG)assesses the extent to which experimental andquasi-experimental IEs supported by the World Bank Grouphave contributed to its development practices along severaldimensions. The study aims to evaluate the relevance of bothexperimental and quasi-experimental IEs supported by theBank Group in the past decade; their technical quality;their use and influence on the Bank Group's businesslines and strategies and on client countries policies; andtheir contribution to building evaluation capacity. Theobjectives of the evaluation are similar to those of otherrecent IEG evaluations of analytical and advisory assistance(AAA) at the World Bank: the 2010 poverty and social impactanalysis evaluation, the 2008 evaluation of economic andsector work and non-lending technical assistance, and otherevaluations of particular AAA reports within countryassistance reviews (IEG 2003, 2008, 2010).