Evaluating Country Programmes - OECD Online Bookshop

Evaluating Country Programmes
162
Links to strategic or macro-economic issues are rarely made although sometimes
there are estimates of costs of environmental damage at a national level. Bank staff
are investigating ways to incorporate environmental issues more systematically and
effectively into selected CASs, possibly relating key environmental indicators and
issues to strategic macro-economic issues. These indicators should become an
important tool for evaluating the Bank’s response and forms of assistance.
Environmental issues have been raised in a number of the World Bank studies.
The Poland CAR discussed falling pollution levels, although not necessarily attributable
to the Bank’s interventions. CARs for Mozambique, Albania and Bangladesh
and recent CANs have addressed a number of environmental issues.
Environmental issues are becoming increasingly important in the preparation of country strategies
for a number of the MDBs. This should facilitate improving the coverage of environmental
issues in the country evaluations and encourage better reporting of results.
Institutional and implementation capacity
Institutional and implementation capacity constraints are frequently discussed
in country strategies, which usually include a diagnosis of the problems and
solutions (i.e. small projects and institution-building TCs to improve practices, standardising
procedures, decentralisation, training and closer collaboration with
NGOs and the private sector). In many of the World Bank’s CARs and in some CANs,
a central theme has been the need to strengthen institutional capacity to increase
aid effectiveness. This message is also reflected in the recent World Bank publication,
Assessing Aid: What Works, What Doesn’t, and Why. Chapter 4 of the report discusses
how donor agencies have adopted broader measures of project success, assessing
the effect of sector agencies on institutional capacity. The World Bank now rates
each project on the basis of whether it had an institutional impact, viewed as the
most important evaluation criterion for long-term effectiveness.
The 1998 Annual Review of Developmental Effectiveness reports that one factor which
recurs in country assistance evaluations is the weakness of institutions. The studies
for the low-income countries – Albania, Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia –
conclude that a lack of institutional capacity to absorb the volumes of aid provided
has been the central problem facing the use of aid in these countries. The Zambia
CAR noted that when the World Bank stopped lending, assistance from other
donors increased, thereby exceeding total investment, but this did little to increase
borrower ownership, strengthen institutions or reduce poverty.
Institutional and implementation capacity are increasingly recognised among the most important
elements of aid effectiveness. These issues need to be fully addressed in the country assistance
process, both in the preparation of strategies and in the evaluations.
OECD 1999