BOX 6.2 A Proposal for Spatial Public Expenditure Reviews (continued) Spatial PERs would focus on the individual place-based policy instrument as the unit of analysis, which would allow the evaluators to identify what is spent with which objectives, and therefore assess efficiency and effectiveness at a more detailed level. Spatial PERs could help support the following objectives: ■
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Redesigning and shaping place-based policies by using data and information about existing instruments Improving the ability of governments to coordinate by evaluating the design and implementation process and assessing the quality of the monitoring and evaluation system Adopting good practices in design, implementation, and coordination of place-based instruments by benchmarking instruments across countries (where appropriate) Formulating policy recommendations to eliminate redundancies and leveraging complementarities across the portfolio of instruments.
8. Weigh the costs and benefits of a place-based policy relative to migration or transfertype policies. Any project should make a strong case that it provides the most cost-effective way to solve the main problem described in the narrative. Diverting resources to a region with limited potential for growth from high-potential regions may address equity, but could reduce national growth and welfare over the longer term relative to, for example, providing incentives for people or firms to move or making targeted fiscal transfers.
Lessons from World Bank Evaluations of Projects to Enhance Agglomeration A recent review of 20 World Bank projects focused on agglomeration such as special economic zones, growth poles, and industrial clusters over the period 1998–2014 (Gelb et al. 2015) underscores the relevance of many elements of the proposed framework and further illustrates the challenges of pulling these together for appraisal. Most of these projects aim at increasing growth or economic activity, as well as promoting inclusive development focusing on rural areas or micro, small, and medium enterprises and increasing jobs, employment, or both. There are three types of projects: ■■
Twelve projects focus primarily on within-industry economies. They specifically identify particular industries within which they plan to intervene (such as Burkina Faso Bagre Growth Pole, Brazil Ceara Regional Economic Development, Cameroon Competitive Value Chains, and Ethiopia Sustainable Tourism Development).
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