Study evaluates World Bank's governance, anticorruption strategy

Well-governed countries are better able to produce policies that promote growth, deliver essential services to the poor and regulate financial and product markets, a report by the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) said.

IEG, which reports directly to the World Bank Group’s boards of executive directors but conducts studies independently, released a report Thursday assessing the World Bank’s 2007 governance and anticorruption (GAC) strategy and implementation plan.

“This evaluation is concerned with the relevance and effectiveness of the GAC strategy and its early implementation efforts with regard to country operations,” said Vinod Thomas, director general and senior vice president of IEG, in a memorandum to the executive directors and the president of the World Bank.

On the mass protests and calls for regime change that have recently swept across the Middle East and North Africa region, the report said, “The appeal of governance reform and the fight against corruption can resonate widely across diverse countries and social groups, as demonstrated by recent events in [MENA].”

In order to be practical in MENA, the report took into consideration political-economic aspects, including population growth and urbanization, which “pressure state institutions,” and increased perceptions of corruption that led to extraordinary mass protests.

Reforms targeting marginalized groups have met with limited success, the report stated. “In addition to women, the youth and rural dwellers lacked basic access to services, markets, and jobs.”

As an outcome of the GAC strategy, the bank’s country programs in MENA were most likely to identify and maintain GAC efforts […] to improve governance in “natural resources management.”

While the bank’s success at project or institutional levels fared better, it saw limited success in “effectively addressing systemic corruption or deep-seated governance pathologies, such as distribution of public goods on the basis of loyalty.”

Projects which supported specific points during 2004-2010 made moderate progress, the report found. For example, 42 percent of projects that specified core public sector reform as an entry point had achieved their objectives to a larger degree.

“Similarly, 41 percent of projects that support demand-side entry points, for example, through community-driven initiatives, achieved their objectives,” the report said.