This report addresses IEG s work over the last year, summarizing findings from its evaluations and discussing the trends that are revealed as they relate to the World Bank Group s work. IEG sees that a sharper focus on results and learning from experience are essential

This review provides an independent assessment of the World Bank Group's performance in achieving key development objectives, with a special focus on support for environmentally sustainable development consistent with economic growth and poverty reduction.

The Independent Evaluation Group’s (IEG) Results and Performance of the World Bank Group (RAP) is a comprehensive assessment of World Bank Group performance, drawing on recent IEG evaluations. The report also examines how effectively the World Bank Group addressed current and emerging development challenges. This year’s RAP focuses on gender integration in World Bank Group operations, building on previous examinations of World Bank Group approaches to risk management (RAP 2013) and the Millennium Development Goals (RAP 2014). 'No country, community, or economy can achieve its potential or meet the challenges of the 21st century without the full and equal participation of women and men, girls and boys.' This statement from the World Bank Group website’s topic page on gender states the essential importance of gender for development. In line with that view, the World Bank Group made considerable progress in addressing gender issues during the past 15 years. Gender has been a prominent corporate objective since the first World Bank Group strategy, introduced in 2001. This year, a new World Bank Group gender strategy has been launched—the first joint World Bank†“International Finance Corporation (IFC) strategy to focus on gender. It is an important step toward sharpening the corporate focus on gender and improving the approach to gender mainstreaming. This report describes how mechanisms for integrating gender in projects and country strategies are working, and to what extent they provide meaningful information about progress and results on gender. The analysis aims to inform World Bank Group efforts to strengthen the approach to documenting, assessing, and evaluating results as part of the new strategy rollout. The report also reviews how effectively the World Bank Group’s portfolio and country programs deliver results, and its system for monitoring the implementation of IEG’s recommendations.

The World Bank Group A to Z provides ready-reference insight into the history, mission, organization, policies, financial services, and knowledge products of the world's largest anti-poverty institution.

This book centers around an intense debate among donors, policymakers, development practitioners, and academics on the efficacy of aid in eradicating poverty while promoting human development. It seeks to fill the gap in present literature by presenting stories of better spending through implementing Sustainable Development Goals and addressing Agenda 2030 via indigenization of global development goals with initiatives at local and national levels. The book adopts an innovative approach to dealing with aid effectiveness by highlighting the relevance of better spending, rather than excessive spending. It does so with real-life examples of interventions made in the Global South to realize the vision of "thinking globally and acting locally". These case studies speak to the significance of communities’ role in shouldering responsibility for planning, financing, operating, and maintaining local developmental initiatives. The examples also demonstrate how aid serves its purpose when used as an investment in communities and enterprising individuals, in order to realize the strategic impact of giving and build a local "receiving mechanism" for indigenizing and achieving global development goals. The book references cases of better spending by governments, philanthropists, and civil society organizations (CSOs) from across Asia, Africa, and Latin America on a range of issues and will, thus, be of interest to development practitioners, policymakers, donors, philanthropists, civil society organizations, and academics and students of international development studies.

The World Bank Group A to Z provides the most concise and essential information about the mission, policies, procedures, products, and services of the new World Bank Group. This second edition is a follow-up to the first volume released for the 2014 Annual Meetings. The World Bank Group A to Z series builds on previous editions of A Guide to the World Bank to include features not found in its predecessors including: a graphical introduction to the World Bank Group, highlighting the Bank Group's goals, financials, regions, and results; examples and photos of Bank Group projects and programs; and tools to guide you to the information you are looking for (even if you don’t know exactly what that is). It also reflects the wide-ranging reforms that have taken place within the World Bank Group in recent years, including the launch of the new World Bank Group Strategy; new approaches to development; the establishment of new Global Practice Groups and Cross Cutting Solutions Areas; and the goal of becoming a "Solutions Bank," one that will marshal the vast reserves of evidence and experiential knowledge across the five World Bank Group agencies and apply them to local problems. With more than 280 entries arranged in encyclopedic A-to-Z format, readers can easily find up-to-date information about the five agencies of the World Bank Group and the wide range of areas in which they work: from agriculture, education, energy, health, social protection and labor to gender, jobs, conflict, private sector development, trade, water and climate change. The World Bank Group's work in all of these areas now focuses on two new twin goals: eliminating extreme poverty by 2030 and boosting shared prosperity of the poorest 40 percent in every developing country.

The Independent Evaluation Group found that the World Bank Group s investment in innovation can be enhanced through systemic efforts, and presented recommendations for the Bank Group, including examining alternative approaches for financing start-ups and promoting knowledge sharing.

The World Bank Group was a principal founding partner of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) in its pilot phase in 1991, and of the restructured GEF in 1994. The Bank plays three different roles in the GEF: (a) as trustee of the GEF and related trust funds, (b) as implementing agency, including the implementation of private-sector GEF projects by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and (c) as the host organization of the functionally independent GEF secretariat. Focusing primarily on the role of the Bank as an implementing agency, this review documents how the partnership that the GEF and the World Bank Group established in the early 1990s has evolved over time, offers explanations for observed changes, and draws a number of lessons. The review addresses the following issues: * The mutual relevance of the World Bank Group and the GEF * Inter-organizational coordination along the World Bank Group-GEF project cycle * The introduction of the GEF’s resource allocation systems in 2006 and 2010 * The evolution and effectiveness of the Bank Group’s GEF portfolio * Catalytic approaches in the Bank Group-GEF partnership: co-financing, blending, and mainstreaming * The World Bank’s corporate activities as a GEF implementing agency. The principal purposes of this review are (a) to help improve the relevance and effectiveness of the Bank Group’s partnership with the GEF, and (b) to draw lessons for the Bank Group’s partnership with the GEF and other large global partnership programs.

The unanticipated spike in international food prices in 2007-08 hit many developing countries hard. This evaluation assesses the effectiveness of the World Bank Group response in addressing the short-term impacts of the food price crisis and in enhancing the resilience of countries to future shocks.

This study from the Independent Evaluation Group draws lessons for development and climate change mitigation from the World Bank Group's far-reaching portfolio of projects in energy, forestry, transport, coal power, and technology transfer. Reviewing what has worked, what hasn't, and why, the evaluation's key findings include: Energy efficiency can offer countries direct economic returns that dwarf those of most other development projects, while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Tropical forest protected areas, on average, significantly reduce tropical deforestation, preserving carbon and biodiversity. Deforestation rates are lower in areas that allowed sustainable use by local populations than in strictly protected areas. Deforestation rates were lowest of all in indigenous forest areas. For renewable energy projects, long-duration loans have been important in making projects financially viable.. But at prevailing carbon prices, carbon offset sales had little impact on most renewable energy projects rate of returns, and did not address investors need for up-front capital. Technology transfer broadly understood to include diffusion of technical and financial innovations related to low-carbon development has worked well when the logic of piloting and demonstration is well thought out, and when grants are used to mitigate the risk of pioneering efforts.