Results And Performance Of The World Bank Group

The Independent Evaluation Group’s (IEG) Results and Performance of the World Bank Group (RAP) is a comprehensive assessment of World Bank Group performance, drawing on recent IEG evaluations. The report also examines how effectively the World Bank Group addressed current and emerging development challenges. This year’s RAP focuses on gender integration in World Bank Group operations, building on previous examinations of World Bank Group approaches to risk management (RAP 2013) and the Millennium Development Goals (RAP 2014). 'No country, community, or economy can achieve its potential or meet the challenges of the 21st century without the full and equal participation of women and men, girls and boys.' This statement from the World Bank Group website’s topic page on gender states the essential importance of gender for development. In line with that view, the World Bank Group made considerable progress in addressing gender issues during the past 15 years. Gender has been a prominent corporate objective since the first World Bank Group strategy, introduced in 2001. This year, a new World Bank Group gender strategy has been launched—the first joint World Bank†“International Finance Corporation (IFC) strategy to focus on gender. It is an important step toward sharpening the corporate focus on gender and improving the approach to gender mainstreaming. This report describes how mechanisms for integrating gender in projects and country strategies are working, and to what extent they provide meaningful information about progress and results on gender. The analysis aims to inform World Bank Group efforts to strengthen the approach to documenting, assessing, and evaluating results as part of the new strategy rollout. The report also reviews how effectively the World Bank Group’s portfolio and country programs deliver results, and its system for monitoring the implementation of IEG’s recommendations.

In 2011 the World Bank—with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—launched the Global Findex database, the world's most comprehensive data set on how adults save, borrow, make payments, and manage risk. Drawing on survey data collected in collaboration with Gallup, Inc., the Global Findex database covers more than 140 economies around the world. The initial survey round was followed by a second one in 2014 and by a third in 2017. Compiled using nationally representative surveys of more than 150,000 adults age 15 and above in over 140 economies, The Global Findex Database 2017: Measuring Financial Inclusion and the Fintech Revolution includes updated indicators on access to and use of formal and informal financial services. It has additional data on the use of financial technology (or fintech), including the use of mobile phones and the Internet to conduct financial transactions. The data reveal opportunities to expand access to financial services among people who do not have an account—the unbanked—as well as to promote greater use of digital financial services among those who do have an account. The Global Findex database has become a mainstay of global efforts to promote financial inclusion. In addition to being widely cited by scholars and development practitioners, Global Findex data are used to track progress toward the World Bank goal of Universal Financial Access by 2020 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The database, the full text of the report, and the underlying country-level data for all figures—along with the questionnaire, the survey methodology, and other relevant materials—are available at www.worldbank.org/globalfindex.

This first report deals with some of the major development issues confronting the developing countries and explores the relationship of the major trends in the international economy to them. It is designed to help clarify some of the linkages between the international economy and domestic strategies in the developing countries against the background of growing interdependence and increasing complexity in the world economy. It assesses the prospects for progress in accelerating growth and alleviating poverty, and identifies some of the major policy issues which will affect these prospects.

This review provides an independent assessment of the World Bank Group's performance in achieving key development objectives, with a special focus on support for environmentally sustainable development consistent with economic growth and poverty reduction.

This report addresses IEG's work over the last year, summarizing findings from its evaluations and discussing the trends that are revealed as they relate to the World Bank Group's work. IEG sees that a sharper focus on results and learning from experience are essential.

'The Road to Results: Designing and Conducting Effective Development Evaluations' presents concepts and procedures for evaluation in a development context. It provides procedures and examples on how to set up a monitoring and evaluation system, how to conduct participatory evaluations and do social mapping, and how to construct a "rigorous" quasi-experimental design to answer an impact question. The text begins with the context of development evaluation and how it arrived where it is today. It then discusses current issues driving development evaluation, such as the Millennium Development Goals and the move from simple project evaluations to the broader understandings of complex evaluations. The topics of implementing 'Results-based Measurement and Evaluation' and constructing a 'Theory of Change' are emphasized throughout the text. Next, the authors take the reader down 'the road to results, ' presenting procedures for evaluating projects, programs, and policies by using a 'Design Matrix' to help map the process. This road includes: determining the overall approach, formulating questions, selecting designs, developing data collection instruments, choosing a sampling strategy, and planning data analysis for qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method evaluations. The book also includes discussions on conducting complex evaluations, how to manage evaluations, how to present results, and ethical behavior--including principles, standards, and guidelines. The final chapter discusses the future of development evaluation. This comprehensive text is an essential tool for those involved in development evaluation.

This Handbook provides a comprehensive ten-step model that will help guide development practitioners through the process of designing and building a results-based monitoring and evaluation system.

The World Bank Group A to Z provides the most concise and essential information about the mission, policies, procedures, products, and services of the new World Bank Group. This second edition is a follow-up to the first volume released for the 2014 Annual Meetings. The World Bank Group A to Z series builds on previous editions of A Guide to the World Bank to include features not found in its predecessors including: a graphical introduction to the World Bank Group, highlighting the Bank Group's goals, financials, regions, and results; examples and photos of Bank Group projects and programs; and tools to guide you to the information you are looking for (even if you don’t know exactly what that is). It also reflects the wide-ranging reforms that have taken place within the World Bank Group in recent years, including the launch of the new World Bank Group Strategy; new approaches to development; the establishment of new Global Practice Groups and Cross Cutting Solutions Areas; and the goal of becoming a "Solutions Bank," one that will marshal the vast reserves of evidence and experiential knowledge across the five World Bank Group agencies and apply them to local problems. With more than 280 entries arranged in encyclopedic A-to-Z format, readers can easily find up-to-date information about the five agencies of the World Bank Group and the wide range of areas in which they work: from agriculture, education, energy, health, social protection and labor to gender, jobs, conflict, private sector development, trade, water and climate change. The World Bank Group's work in all of these areas now focuses on two new twin goals: eliminating extreme poverty by 2030 and boosting shared prosperity of the poorest 40 percent in every developing country.