IEG has a small but growing work program on impact evaluation that includes ex-post impact evaluations, systematic reviews of Impact Evaluation (IE) literature, and assessments of the relevance and effectiveness of IE work in the World Bank Group. This product line aims to add value through using innovative tools to evaluate development interventions. It also attempts to fill gaps in development knowledge by producing new evaluative research and integrating findings from IEs produced in and outside the Bank Group into project and thematic evaluations.
Lessons from Impact Evaluations of World Bank Projects
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Do Conditional Cash Transfers Lead to Medium-Term Impacts? Evidence from a Female School Stipend Program in Pakistan The Punjab Female School Stipend Program, a targeted CCT program in Pakistan supported by the World Bank, was implemented within the context of a larger education sector reform and in response to gender gaps in education. The evaluation found that four years into program implementation, adolescent girls in stipend districts were more likely to progress through and complete middle school and work less. Although less significant in a statistical sense, there is also some suggestive evidence that participant girls delay marriage by more than a year, and have fewer births by the time they are 19. DOWNLOAD THE REPORT |
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Assessing the Long-Term Effects of Conditional Cash Transfers on Human Capital: Evidence from Colombia This paper investigates the final outcomes in education of children from poor households who benefited from Familias en Acción, a CCT in Colombia supported by the World Bank. The analyses show that the program helps children, particularly girls and beneficiaries in rural municipalities, to accumulate more years of education. On average, participant children are 4 to 8 percentage points (equivalent to 8-16 percent) more likely than nonparticipant children to finish high school. Regarding impacts on tests scores, the analysis shows that program recipients who graduate from high school perform at the same level as equally poor non-recipient graduates in mathematics, Spanish, or the overall test. DOWNLOAD THE REPORT |  |
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An Impact Evaluation of a Multicomponent Irrigation Project on Farm Households in Peru
This impact evaluation of a Bank-supported irrigation project in Peru shows that the project led to agricultural improvements and economic welfare gains for farmers in the rural coastal area of Peru. The analysis also reveals complementarities in the multicomponent design between on-farm modern irrigation technology and infrastructure projects. Localities treated for on-farm modern irrigation technology alone show no impacts on total production value; while farmers in localities with both, on-farm modern irrigation and infrastructure rehabilitation components, increased their total production value by 7 percent. DOWNLOAD THE REPORT |
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What Can We Learn from Nutrition Impact Evaluations? High levels of malnutrition in developing countries contribute to mortality and have long-term consequences for children’s cognitive development and earnings as adults. IEG reviewed 46 recent impact evaluations of interventions and programs to improve child anthropometric outcomes – height, weight, and birth weight. The findings highlight the variability of results across studies, the distribution of benefits within studies, and the importance of understanding context in concluding "what works." DOWNLOAD THE REPORT |  |
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Evidence and Lessons Learned from Impact Evaluations on Social Safety Nets This report synthesizes the evidence on the impacts of social safety nets accumulated through impact evaluations over the last decade and identifies the main lessons learned to help develop effective programs in the future. Impact evaluations show that many safety net interventions, including conditional and unconditional cash transfers as well as workfare programs, have achieved their primary objectives of raising households’ immediate consumption and income, and reducing poverty. Programs with an insurance function, and even some without, have also enhanced abilities to mitigate the negative effects of shocks. DOWNLOAD THE REPORT |
IEG is working on the assessment of World Bank Group Impact Evaluations: Relevance and Effectiveness, which will examine the contribution of impact evaluations in the World Bank and IFC to improving different aspects of development practice. The report will analyze completed and ongoing impact evaluations for their relevance and technical quality. The assessment will also look at whether these evaluations are influential to operational decisions, policy dialogues and institutional strategies and evaluation, and
contributed to strengthening development knowledge and evaluation capacity. The report will be available in 2012.
