Cost-benefit analysis used to be one of the World Bank's signature issues. It helped establish its reputation as the knowledge Bank and served to demonstrate its commitment to measuring results and ensuring accountability to taxpayers. It was the Bank's answer to the results agenda long before...

During the period FY01-08, the World Bank was Mozambique's largest development partner, providing over $1.3 billion in International Development Association (IDA) funds. The Bank's strategy, which was aligned with and sought to support the government's poverty reduction strategy, focused on...

Almost a third of all Bank projects approved since 1997 have been water related. Water lending grew 55 percent in commitment terms during the period evaluated, and project performance has improved steadily, led by a significant performance improvement in the Africa region. Water has been...

Poverty Reduction Support Credits (PRSCs) were intended to help countries implement comprehensive, country-owned development strategies to promote growth, improve social conditions, and reduce poverty. PRSCs were intended to ease conditionality, make annual flows to recipient countries...

The World Bank's current gender policy resulted directly from the 2001 gender strategy endorsed by the board. This evaluation which covers the period fiscal 2002-08, finds that the Bank made progress in gender integration compared with an earlier Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) evaluation on...

Beginning in the late 1990s, the World Bank significantly expanded its engagement at the state level in Brazil, India, Nigeria, and Russia. This pilot cross-country study reviews the selected cases of World Bank's lending and analytic work at the state level in those four large federated...

The 2008 World Bank project performance data shows improvement in achieving development outcomes, allaying concerns that the weakened 2007 performance could signal a new downward trend. The decline in performance in 2007 was modest, and it has rebounded in 2008. Bank performance is rated on a...

Bangladesh is among the World Bank's largest International Development Association (IDA) eligible borrowers, with a country portfolio of 21 active projects and net commitment of $1.9 billion as of FY08. The Bank's strategy has been to support government efforts to improve governance as a...

The World Bank's Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) assess the conduciveness of a country's policy and institutional framework to poverty reduction, sustainable growth, and the effective use of development assistance. It plays an important role in the country performance ratings...

This assessment reviews earnings and employment outcomes in Colombia, Tunisia, and Turkey during 1998-2007, as well as five policy areas (the MILES framework) likely to affect those outcomes: macroeconomic conditions, investment climate, labor regulations, education, and social protection....