The current global financial and economic crises are likely to put enormous pressure on governments to respond with immediate measures and to undertake far-reaching reforms in the medium term, requiring a substantial increase in donor support. To protect the poor and enhance benefits to them,...

This paper reviews recent impact evaluations of interventions and programs to improve child anthropometric outcomes- height, weight, and birth weight-with an emphasis on both the findings and the limitations of the literature and on understanding what might happen in a non-research setting. It...

In an effort to bridge the evidence gap, the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) prepared a systematic review that gathers and analyzes the available impact evaluation evidence in developing countries from 1990 to 2013 on whether early childhood interventions shape future outcomes. Its purpose is...

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. The CPIA enters the calculation of country performance ratings...

The World Bank Group's positioning in relation to Rwanda's Vision 2020 goal of rapidly attaining Middle-Income Country (MIC) status reflected many of the elements that are critical to realizing the country's goal: (i) Under a first pillar of promoting economic transformation for sustained...

This appendix is an adjunct to the main report. It is not intended as a free-standing Country Program Evaluation (CPE) on the World Bank in Tonga. It provides additional underpinning and evidence for the overall story of the Bank's relevance and effectiveness in the PICs provided in the main...

Improved outcomes for women and children - more education, lower fertility rates, higher nutritional status, and lower incidence of illness, among other outcomes - have broad individual, family, and societal benefits. For nearly 15 years, the targets of the millennium development goals (MDGs)...