IEG recently convened a panel to discuss why the World Bank seems to have a hard time ensuring that its projects and programs are systematically informed by experience from the past and analysis from available data. 

It is 1:55 pm in Lima, and I am puzzled myself.  I am moderating a panel at the World Bank IMF Annual Meetings in the Peruvian capital, and on a brightly lit stage to my left and right are leading World Bank clients. The Independent Evaluation Group  had brought them together to discuss, with thought leaders from the private sector, why the World Bank seems to have a hard time ensuring that its projects and programs are systematically informed by experience from the past and analysis from available data.  And to explore what one could do about this.  It seemed a simple enough question to answer.  Just use what you know.  But in the beginning our discussion draws out.   My panel members - they are Ministers in countries as different from each other as Rwanda, the Philippines and Sweden, they are leaders in the corporate world and in the World Bank Group itself - lean forward. They want to help figure out a solution. 

The challenge is that we are dealing with an "organizational habit". And a peculiar one for that matter. A "looking away" habit. The Independent Evaluation Group has found testament of this habit in several otherwise unrelated evaluations.  In fact, the evaluators consider it a conundrum that the World Bank, an organization whose staff and clients pride themselves in the first class knowledge that they help flow into and from their collaboration, would not ensure systematically the informed nature of its choices.  The World Bank is in good company, though.  Evaluators have found the "looking away habit" to plague others, too, such as DFID, the UK development organization, or Norad, the Norwegian development organization.  And it seems to be a stubborn behavior, a behavior that is as well-known as it is hard to "kick".  

A challenge is, of course, that the "looking away habit" does not show up all the time. The World Bank IMF Annual Meetings, concluding last weekend in Lima, celebrated, and rightfully so, the knowledge and insight gained and shared by the World Bank when working on some of the most complex and heart wrenching development challenges. The World Bank has brought extraordinary insight to mayors working to ensure the sustainable service delivery of their cities, pioneered the use of inequality  data in policy design, brought new experiences to the challenge of financing renewable energy, to name just a few. Often, the World Bank gets it right. The analyses offered on critical development challenges stimulate relevant and country wide reflections, and the experiences mobilized from elsewhere hit exactly the tone needed for policy makers and stakeholders to listen and formulate their own path ahead. As a result, countries often see the projects and programs succeed that they finance with money from the World Bank.

So what can one do to make this "the way we always work here" at the World Bank? 

The people on my panel know a thing or two about "kicking" the "looking away" habit in their own contexts. Each one of them has a track record of having succeeded in bringing learning into large organizations, or policy and development processes. Building on all the "good habits" that are already there, is one suggestion made.  Few other organizations invest as much in statistical capacity building , Claver Gatete, Minister of Finance of Rwanda points out.  He has seen data open eyes and enable decisions on what policies matter most for supporting economic development. The Minister has just been voted Africa's Finance Minister of the year, he would know. Timing matters, too.  Rene Almendras , Secretary of the Cabinet in the Philippines, speaks of a "race" in sustainable development.  He would like to see the World Bank and other organizations push knowledge fast and effectively from one side of the world, where it has been learned, to the other side. Himself a great supporter of continuous learning, Almendras also advocates for learning from what does not work - rather than only looking at success.  

Developing a better relationship with data, and investing more in data systems and management might help, suggests Isabella Lövin, Minister for International Development Cooperation in Sweden. This would require getting better at collecting data, especially from fragile countries, gender desegregating the data, and tracking progress. Good systems matter, agrees Caroline Heider, Director General of the Independent Evaluation Group. But even the best system cannot track progress when the underlying Monitoring and Evaluation Frameworks are wanting. And that's where IEG has found a clear correlation, between project success and the quality of the tracking frameworks.

Are we after something? "You will not succeed in this.  Unless learning from the past and from data becomes part of your DNA," cautions Pramod Panda , Vice President for Learning at Infosys. A winner of the Most Admired Knowledge Enterprise (MAKE)  award for over ten years, Infosys has created project cycle management systems that help staff to "automatically" seek out and take note of others' experiences. "Looping in Learning" is how they work, Panda says, explaining how the software and IT services giant's leadership promotes learning at every level of management. The other thing Infosys does is to check.  Regularly. Whether learning happens.  The regular checking, in fact, is something that Delivery Units , recently established in many prime ministers' offices and organizations such as the World Bank, have  taken up, addressing buerocratic inertia. Minister Almendras knows this well, he is running his own.  

Stefan Koeberle, OPCS Director for Strategy, Risk and Results, has his work cut out for him. He agrees, learning cycles where evaluations contribute to staff learning and operational design are important. He points to some real issues that cannot be solved by the organization alone - such as in-country politics around decision making.  And he lists a number of initiatives the World Bank has already put in motion. A new Country Engagement Model. Global Practices to help with knowledge transfer. The Global Delivery Initiative to inform about success and failure in service delivery. And client surveys to better understand feedback.

Will these initiatives be enough for the organizational habit of "looking away" to be "kicked"?  It seems deeply ingrained.  In fact, Alison Evans, Chief of the UK's Independent Commission for Aid Impact, recounted here, in the What Works blog, how even 16 years ago the very same efforts to improve monitor-ability and learning from project experiences were already ongoing.  IEG's Learning from Operations Evaluation  had even pointed to the 1992 Wapenhans  report that over 20 years ago had alerted the organization to the "looking away" habit, seemingly to little avail, despite huge efforts on the part of a succession of change agents. The World Bank's own seminal report Minds, Society and Behaviors offers great insight into the challenges of actually changing behaviors. It is tricky, though, as the Power of Habit argues. One has to replace poor behaviors with good ones, better ones.  Which would these be - for the World Bank - replacing the "looking away" habit?  

It is 2:15 and our panel members offer a number of concrete suggestions.  Setting accountabilities.  Checking in on expectations.  Developing a "play book" that would spell out "the informed way we work here". Organizational habit change specialists have plenty of such tools in their toolbox.  One would "just" need to use them. But then, soothing habits are tough to change. And what can be more soothing than the freedom of choice to ignore hard realities. "Disruption is needed for habits to change," cautions Michael Kim, CEO of HabitDesign. "No organization is primed to change its habits by itself". What will that disruption be, I wonder.  Is the rise of other "competitors" enough?  Time is running out.  The race towards the Sustainable Development Goals is on.  It's time to kick the bad habits.

You can watch the IEG panel discussion here. Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below!  How can the World Bank "kick" this habit?  How can it get better at systematically learning from is operations and using data to inform all its projects and programs?