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Session Title: Evaluating Support to Poverty and Gender in Cross Country Aid Programs
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Panel Session 316 to be held in CROCKETT C on Thursday, Nov 11, 1:40 PM to 3:10 PM
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Sponsored by the International and Cross-cultural Evaluation TIG
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| Chair(s): |
| Cheryl Gray, World Bank, cgray@worldbank.org
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| Abstract:
This panel highlights how a set of three recent IEG multi-country evaluations tackles assessing the World Bank’s support to poverty reduction and gender. The findings are drawn from IEG’s evaluations of World Bank support to Poverty and Social Impact Analysis; Gender; and the use Poverty Reduction Support Credits as instruments for poverty reduction and social outcomes. The panel focuses on standard evaluation criteria and some insightful tools and approaches used in these challenging multi-country program evaluations.
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Evaluating the Effects of Policy Reforms on the Poor Through Analytic Work: Effectiveness of World Bank Support to Poverty and Social Impact Analyses
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| Soniya Carvalho, World Bank, scarvalho@worldbank.org
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The World Bank introduced the Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA) approach to help governments and the Bank address the consequences of reform on the poor and to contribute to country capacity for policy analysis. Accordingly, the IEG evaluation of Bank support to PSIAs assessed the effects that this analytical work has on country policies. A particular issue in evaluating analytical work is that the client’s decisions may accord with the recommendations of the analytical work, but the decisions may be the result of other sources. Hence, it is difficult to assess the contribution of analytical work, compared for example, with effects of investments. Based on experiences from the evaluation, this presentation focuses on the multiple methods used to assess the effects of analytical work. The criteria used, country case study questionnaires, interview protocols, and approaches for thematic reviews are shared. Ms. Carvalho was the team leader for the evaluation.
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Assessing Gender Dimensions of Aid Programs at the World Bank
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| Gita Gopal, World Bank, ggopal@worldbank.org
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Ensuring that both men and women benefit equitably from programs is critical for achieving gender equality and enhancing development effectiveness. It is important to understand whether interventions achieve their objectives in a gender-aware manner. The assessment of gender dimensions adds an extra layer to evaluation processes and resources. The lack of gender-related data; attribution challenged; and aggregation of project results to the sector/country level, increases complexity. Different social contexts add further to the difficulties of defining evaluation frameworks. Yet, ensuring gender aware evaluations cannot be avoided because they increase accountability for gender equality and provide lessons for enhancing development effectiveness. To ensure that evaluations effectively capture the gender dimension of results, the presentation will provide guidance on developing evaluation designs and methods, and present good practice principles, based on lessons from a recently completed evaluation of World Bank support for gender. Ms. Gopal was the team leader for the evaluation.
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Assessing the Poverty and Human Development Outcomes of Aid Through World Bank Supported Lending Programs
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| Anjali Kumar, World Bank, akumar@worldbank.org
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This paper illustrates the methods of evaluating the relevance and effectiveness of programs to support poverty reduction by directly addressing social outcomes in pro poor sectors such as health, education and water supply, through one of the Bank’s key tools to support poor countries; the Poverty Reduction Support Credit (PRSC). The evaluation illustrates the difficulties of setting up a counterfactual in the context of country programs, and also illustrates evaluation issues that arise when program benefits parallel similar interventions/ flows from other sources. In the absence of tools for rigorous impact evaluation, it shows how the use of methods such as difference-in-difference can be used to trace outcomes in growth and poverty at an aggregate level. These tools are combined with qualitative methods for tracing and comparing program outcomes across countries, in specific sectors especially health and education. Ms. Kumar was the team leader for the PRSC evaluation.
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