Improved outcomes for women and children - more education, lower fertility rates, higher nutritional status, and lower incidence of illness, among other outcomes - have broad individual, family, and societal benefits. For nearly 15 years, the targets of the millennium development goals (MDGs)...

This IEG evaluation brings a fresh perspective to the debate by assessing the development effectiveness of the Bank's recent work. It presents evidence -- including views from the client countries themselves -- about the outcomes of the Bank's support to individual countries over the past 12...

This study assesses the development effectiveness of World Bank assistance in addressing constraints to agricultural development in Africa over the period of fiscal years 1991-2006. This Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) review of World Bank assistance to agriculture in Africa has a twofold...

This report analyzes the Bank's assistance to support pension reform to determine if the Bank's strategy was relevant and if it was followed. The evaluation assesses whether pension reform decisions reflected best practice guidelines at entry, and whether Bank-assisted reforms achieved their...

This report is a synthesis of three evaluations carried out by the Independent Evaluation Group and completed between July 2005 and February 2006, on different aspects of Bank assistance to financial sector development in client countries. The three evaluation reports are World Bank Lending for...

The Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) prepared this synthesis note as an input to the ongoing process surrounding the international agenda for Small States. Its purpose is to provide a perspective on some of the issues small states face through a review of World Bank experience with country and...

Home to almost 500 million people, roughly half of whom earn less than a dollar a day, fragile states, until recently known in the World Bank as Low-Income Countries Under Stress (LICUS), have attracted increasing attention. The Bank identified 25 such countries in fiscal 2005 based on their...

This Annual Review of Development Effectiveness (ARDE) brings together evaluative evidence from the recent work of the Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank to address three questions surrounding this results chain in countries, with a particular focus on the Bank's role in the chain:...

Technological innovation drives economic progress. Information and communication technologies (ICT) can be leveraged for development, but harnessing this potential depends on an enabling environment for their production, diffusion, and use. Otherwise, technology can widen rather than narrow...

Technological innovation drives economic progress. Information and communication technologies (ICT) can be leveraged for development, but harnessing this potential depends on an enabling environment for their production, diffusion, and use. Otherwise, technology can widen rather than narrow...