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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Impact Evaluation of Business License Simplification in Peru: An Independent Assessment of an International Finance Corporation-Supported Project It is often claimed that inefficient business regulations and procedures lock enterprises into a vicious circle of informality, where firms have little effective access to financing and are constrained in their ability to grow and prosper beyond the status of microenterprises. At issue are not only the merits of specific business regulations but also the drag on development represented by informality itself. This evaluation verifies and validates previous conclusions and findings and also presents new evidence. It looks at the effects of reforms supported by the International Finance Corporation’s (IFC’s) Business License Simplification Project in the municipality of Lima, Peru. DOWNLOAD THE REPORT |
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World Bank Group Impact Evaluations: Relevance and Effectiveness In the study, IEG examines the relevance, quality, and influence of World Bank and International Finance Corporation (IFC) impact evaluations (IEs) on operational, institutional, and knowledge priorities by examining their experience throughout the IE production cycle, from initiation to implementation to dissemination and uptake. IEG finds that the Bank Group portfolio of IEs is largely aligned with project objectives and sector strategies. In particular, World Bank IEs initiated more recently are better integrated with operations and cover a broader range of sector and knowledge priorities than earlier ones. Still, some areas for improvement need to be addressed, in particular in consideration of the relatively high cost of producing IEs. DOWNLOAD THE REPORT |
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Impact Evaluations in Agriculture: An Assessment of the Evidence This meta-analysis examines the results of agricultural impact evaluations around the world—by diverse individuals and groups, including the World Bank—that met standard criteria for design and rigor. The report describes the state of impact evaluation literature in agriculture, provides a taxonomy of agricultural interventions to organize results, and examines discernable performance patterns for lessons to inform the design of future interventions. DOWNLOAD THE REPORT |  |
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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 |  |
