Structured Literature Reviews
Abstract
This paper discusses using structured literature reviews to promote transparency and trust in the use and reporting of evidence in evaluations. Structured literature reviews aim to provide a summary of the most impactful, innovative, and recent research on a specified topic using systematic procedures for identifying and synthesizing studies. The paper presents a case study of an application of the method from an Independent Evaluation Group evaluation of the World Bank’s Doing Business project. It highlights the evaluation’s key lessons, which suggest that the World Bank Group’s programs need to establish strong criteria for filtering and reporting evidence. Doing so will help safeguard the objectivity, accuracy, and validity of the Bank Group’s research, mitigating potential reputational risks associated with insufficiently validated evidence and ensuring that findings do not affect clients and stakeholders adversely.