Management of the World Bank thanks the Independent Evaluation Group for sharing the report, The Development Effectiveness of the Use of Doing Business Indicators, Fiscal Years 2010–20, along with the cover note. Management notes that this evaluation was substantially completed before management took its decision—on September 16, 2021—to discontinue the Doing Business report. The World Bank Group will actively continue its work to advance the role of the private sector in development and will work through multiple channels to help governments design a business environment that supports this objective. Since mid-2020, the Bank Group has undertaken several reviews and audits of the Doing Business report and its methodology, process, and governance. Independent Evaluation Group’s findings, and the findings of other reviews and audits, will be taken into consideration as management develops new approaches to assessing the business and investment climate to inform its support for private sector development.

International Finance Corporation Management Response

The management of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) welcomes the Independent Evaluation Group’s evaluation of the Doing Business report and its summary of the lessons drawn from this experience for the World Bank Group. As users of the indicators, IFC has also benefited from the evaluation and has identified a few lessons for its future application and use of global data sets:

• Global indicator data sets can be very good door-openers for the discussion on key policy issues. These cross-country comparisons offer very useful information and incentives for governments. IFC management welcomes the investment in building such data sets, despite the limitations they may carry.
• For IFC, it is important to ensure that the teams using these data sets are fully aware of the limitations in scope, as they apply, and ensure that planned activities are set within the broader context of the World Bank Group country strategies and the upstream and investment climate focus of the activities.
• Teams will also be selective in using the relevant indicators from these datasets as monitoring and evaluation indicators.