IEG findings and conclusions 2. Coordination of fragmented funding In the World Bank and IFC: IEs increasingly depend on donor support through trust funds. Although access to multiple sources of financing eases the budget constraint, their fragmentation adds to staff transaction costs. Reliance on trust funds is not necessarily detrimental to IE relevance, but there is less flexibility over allocation and strategic planning.
3. Integration of IEs into project design In the World Bank: Overall, there is a modest feedback loop among IE production, project operations, and learning. There are notable examples of IE influence on development practice, including project assessment, decisions to design and sustain evaluated and future projects, raising the profile of certain types of interventions, informing policy dialogue and institutional strategies, and building local M&E capabilities. Such examples indicate that, overall, IE is regarded as a valuable tool to increase development effectiveness through better evidence. But in some instances, even when IEs have been relevant and of good quality, they appear to have had limited use and influence for varying reasons: poor timing, failure to engage project teams and decision makers, or lack of dissemination. However, there are signs of improvement, including, for example, dedicated SIEF support for results dissemination as well as closer collaborations with operations and clients in design of ongoing IEs.
IEG recommendations Coordinate fragmented external funding with core funds at the World Bank and IFC to strategically finance the production of IEs: • At the World Bank, explore options for consolidation of external funding for IEs, including pooled trust fund facilities (umbrella funds), as IEG recommended in the 2011 evaluation of trust funds, to better coordinate and mobilize trust fund resources along with internal funds to support IE production within the strategic priority areas agreed by management and clients. • At IFC, explore options to coordinate IE funding from different sources (that is, donor, business line/Region budget), including possible financing window(s) under the monitoring and evaluation budget for the conduct of IEs in the Development Impact Department. Improve the integration of IEs into the design and review of projects at the World Bank and IFC to sharpen the focus of project operations on results by: • Stating clearly in the implementation design of the IE how it will achieve operational usefulness, serve the key decision points of the project, engage operational teams and local counterparts, and disseminate the findings to the relevant audience, in particular local counterparts. • Strengthening the use of IE evidence in the appraisal and ex post assessment of World Bank and IFC projects, wherever such information is available. • Effectively communicating IE evidence to the global audience by maintaining a central repository of IEs and undertaking thematic syntheses of existing IE evidence. • Building capacity of project teams and other local counterparts to understand and integrate IE evidence in program and policy decisions.
In IFC: The evidence indicates that IFC IEs were often used by the project teams, but their use beyond the project has been less common. In particular, the link between IEs and learning has not been fully established. The evidence indicates that there is a limited awareness of IE applicability to operational work and policy, which constrains wider uptake and use of IEs.
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