IEG's Role in Evaluating Climate Financing

Abstract

The Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) of the World Bank Group applauds the call by S. D. Donner et al. (“Preparing to manage climate change financing,” Policy Forum, 18 November 2011, p. [908][1]) for the use of rigorous, empirical evaluation of the impacts of climate finance. With billions of dollars and the planet's climate at stake, and with a quarter of humanity still subsisting on less than $1.25 per day, it is essential to assess the impacts of interventions on greenhouse gas reduction, poverty reduction, climate resilience, and growth. We need to learn rapidly from successes and failures in these difficult endeavors. However, the Policy Forum erroneously asserts—without citing data or peer-reviewed evidence—that development banks' internal evaluation groups “rarely find failure, even in the face of strong evidence.” In the case of IEG—the largest of the independent evaluation units of the international financial institutions—relevant data is available on our Web site. IEG rated the performance of about three-quarters of World Bank operations that closed in fiscal years 2008 to 2010 as at least moderately satisfactory, whereas the remaining quarter were moderately unsatisfactory at best ([ 1 ][2]). The Web site also includes the full of major thematic evaluations, which have been critical where evidence warrants, and which always include recommendations for improved effectiveness. IEG's recent evaluation of the World Bank Group's climate mitigation investments, in fact, found that those investments failed to adequately invest in feedback and learn from project experience (inadequacies of monitoring are not limited to World Bank Group projects) ([ 2 ][3]). The evaluation recommended that the World Bank Group should “measure projects' economic and environmental impact during execution and after closure and aggregate this information for analysis.” Such information, widely disseminated, would empower evaluators, academics, and stakeholders to undertake their own analyses, supporting the “loose network” of evaluators advocated by Donner et al. Indeed, we believe that such a network would complement IEG. It is important to recognize that all evaluators, internal or external, are potentially subject to bias or conflict of interest. External evaluators, for instance, may depend for funding on the agencies they evaluate. In the case of IEG, there are strong institutional mechanisms to ensure impartiality. IEG reports directly to the World Bank Group's Board of Executive Directors; Bank Group management has no influence on IEG's funding and cannot change IEG's evaluations. This is in accordance with good institutional design for global programs: The governing body of any such program needs an independent source of evaluation as part of its supervision of management. Thoroughness, impartiality, and insight in evaluation can be supported by a vigorous community of analysts, well-equipped with data. 1. [↵][4] Independent Evaluation Group, “Results and performance of the World Bank Group 2011” (2011); . 2. [↵][5] Independent Evaluation Group, “Climate change and the World Bank Group: The challenge of low carbon development” (2010); . [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1211886 [2]: #ref-1 [3]: #ref-2 [4]: #xref-ref-1-1 View reference 1 in text [5]: #xref-ref-2-1 View reference 2 in text