World Bank Projects Research Articles

Exploring the impact of environmental, social, and governance on clean development mechanism implementation through an institutional approach.

The study hypothesizes that the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) of the host country have a significant effect on clean development mechanism (CDM) implementation. As CDM incorporates sustainable development as one of the objectives for the green transition, many countries endeavor to adopt and implement CDM as their cleaner production method. Based on the institutional theory, the study aims to investigate the mechanism by which the institutional process of each ESG pillar makes an opportunity for a host country and to see how such country-specific factors influence the implementation of CDM projects. A county-year unbalanced sample drawn from World Bank and multinational CDM project data was analyzed using panel logistic and Poisson regression. Panel regression results show that high-energy intensity and low renewable electricity output as an environmental pillar positively affect CDM implementation. Unemployment and undernourishment as a social pillar positively affect CDM whereas low government effectiveness and the high rule of law positively affect CDM. In the results of zero-inflated Poisson regression, the direction of government effectiveness was upturned. The findings have broadened and deepened the ESG pillar based on the institutional theory and emphasized sustainable development rather than economic outputs.

Self-regulation system of continual improvement of quality and efficiency in higher education: A case of Ukraine

Nowadays, the procedures for stimulating the improvement of the quality of higher education in Ukraine are mainly based on periodic expert evaluations. Besides, existing metrics of university efficiency are usually imperfect due to the frequent negative effects of Campbell’s Law and Goodhart’s Law. In addition, the war significantly limited resources for external quality assurance of educational programs. Given this, the aim of this paper was to develop a methodology for an additional self-regulation system of continual improvement of the quality and efficiency of educational activities of Ukrainian universities. The study is based on the advantages of the quantitative approach, measurement methods, and algorithmization in the management system of higher education. As a result, key indicators for the formation of national rankings have been developed by different segments. Moreover, the study elaborated algorithms and mechanisms to constantly encourage higher education institutions to improve quality and efficiency. The paper proposes preventive procedures to reduce the negative effects of unfair achievement of key performance indicators. The result of applying the methodology is additionally acquired or partially lost by the university the volume of license rights for the training of specialists in the current year. This will help curb the process of mass education with a low level of quality. In addition, the proposed system will balance the weaknesses of the accreditation expertise procedure, as well as actively stimulate the independent striving of each educational program for sustainable development and continual progress. Acknowledgment To the Armed Forces of Ukraine (https://www.mil.gov.ua/) and the democratic world (https://bit.ly/3BLtuem) for the protection of the future of the Ukrainian State and its people. To the National Agency for Higher Education Quality Assurance for the possibility to take part in accreditation expertise and consulting evaluation of educational programs in universities of Ukraine (https://en.naqa.gov.ua/). Also, the appearance of this alternative idea was facilitated by the declared goal of the World Bank project “Ukraine Improving Higher Education for Results” (ID P171050), namely: to improve the efficiency, conditions for quality, and transparency in Ukraine’s higher education system (https://bit.ly/3vpx2iM).  

Optimism Bias and World Bank Project Performance

This paper examines the correlates of optimism bias and its impact on World Bank project performance. We measure optimism bias in different ways using estimated Economic Rates of Return (ERR) of projects at approval and closure. We examine over 2,800 World Bank projects that were appraised between 1960 and 2019. We find that approximately 60% of projects in the sample were prone to optimism bias. Correlates of optimism bias include both project and country characteristics. Findings also indicate that the incidence of optimism bias reduces the chance of a satisfactory project performance rate at the time of evaluation by 17–20%. Recommendations include embracing complexity and uncertainty in considering projects for approval, providing organizational incentives for ensuring projects are successful rather than ERRs being accurate, shifting some resources from appraisal to implementation, and changing the nature of project supervision.

Audits by Comptroller and Auditor General of India and Their Contribution to Accountability in Development Cooperation Projects

Audit of development cooperation projects by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) contributes to ensuring accountability in using development cooperation funds. The present study examined such contribution to five different types of accountability: financial accountability, compliance accountability, performance accountability, accountability to stakeholders, and constitutional accountability based on the analysis of findings presented in the CAG's audit reports. The study examined the audit reports for six states of India – Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and West Bengal for six years with findings on World Bank and Asian Development Bank projects. The sample states were selected based on stratified random sampling, with one state each drawn from each of the six geographical regions of India. Further, the study analyzed three essential aspects of management of development cooperation projects such as project planning, project implementation & monitoring, and financial management, along with their relevant sub-categories like the number of findings; money value as a measure of the materiality of the findings; and the yearly consistency. The study's conclusions based on the different findings presented in audit reports revealed that CAG's audit reports contributed substantially to the respective types of accountability.

Developing Conflict: Elite Bias in the the Stakeholder Networks of World Bank Projects

World Bank development projects seek to increase the economic prosperity of communities and nations, as well as reduce conflict and promote peace. Yet, the selection, funding, design and governance of these projects is influenced by national governments who may favor certain identity groups over others. As a result, the economic benefits and costs of these projects may not be distributed equitably across stakeholder groups, which may aggravate, instead of moderate, conflict risk. Building on research that examines how elite bias in stakeholder networks (i.e., the favoring of elites at the expense of peripheral stakeholders) can exacerbate conflict, as well as past research that argues development aid can worsen conflict, we examine the impact elite bias in the stakeholder network of World Bank funded projects on conflict between stakeholders. Using a panel dataset of 763 World Bank funded projects across 124 countries and the media corpus of the Global Database of Environment Language and Tone (GDELT) from these countries, we measure conflict and elite bias in the stakeholder network of intergovernmental organizations at a micro-spatial level and analyze how the relationship between these constructs varies in the presence or absence of a World Bank funded project. We further explore the impact of the national composition of project contractors and the importance of state fragility. Our findings provide support for the argument that the World Bank and other financiers of development projects should take the distribution of benefits and costs across identity groups into account in their selection of projects.

The impact of Chinese aid on political trust

AbstractThis paper examines whether Chinese aid impacts citizens' trust in government by matching geocoded data on Chinese aid projects located in sub‐Sahara Africa (SSA) between 2000 and 2014 to respondents from rounds 3 to 6 of Afrobarometer survey. Implementing an instrumental variable (IV) estimation to control for the potential endogeneity of aid, this paper finds robust evidence that Chinese aid reduces trust in government. The decline in trust seems to be because the aid projects stimulate poor assessments of government performance and perceptions that government officials are involved in corrupt activities. Replication analysis reveals that World Bank projects are no different and also reduce trust in government. Consequently, these findings reignite concerns about the unintended consequences of aid and the need to adopt implementation approaches that mitigate unintended adverse outcomes.

Moving Beyond the ‘global’ and ‘international’ paradigms Reframe the discourse of development studies through the study of World Bank projects in Mainland China

Theoretical interpretation of development studies has been highly characterized by a highly antagonistic dichotomy. They propose two highly contradictory propositions, one advocating universality, dependence, and interconnectedness (the global paradigm), and the other emphasizing polarization, independence, and asymmetry on the opposite (the international paradigm). By analyzing the World Bank’s development projects in Mainland China from 1981 to 2021 , this study argues that while the ‘global paradigm’ to assess ‘development’ is more in line with the Chinese context, the ‘domestic’ nature rooted in development studies should also be elaborated and emphasized. Furthermore, this article seeks to revise the macro narration of the development studies by reconstructing a bottom-up narrative, which scholars in this field have so far failed to do.

A Puzzle with Missing Pieces: Explaining the Effectiveness of World Bank Development Projects

Abstract The identification of key determinants of aid effectiveness is a long-standing question in the development community. This paper reviews the literature on aid effectiveness at the project level and then extends the inquiry in a variety of dimensions with new data on World Bank investment project financing. It confirms that the country institutional setting and quality of project supervision are associated with project success, as identified previously. However, many aspects of the development project cycle, especially project design, have been difficult to measure and therefore under-investigated. The paper finds that project design, as proxied by the estimated value added of design staff, the presence of prior analytic work, and other specially collected measures, is a significant predictor of ultimate project success. These factors generally grow in predictive importance as the income level of the country rises. The results also indicate that a key determinant of the staff's contribution is their experience with previous World Bank projects, but not other characteristics such as age, education, or country location. Key inputs to the project production process associated with subsequent performance are not captured in routine data systems, although it is feasible to do so. Further, the conceptualization and measurement of the success of project-based aid should be revisited by evaluative bodies to reflect a project's theorized contribution to development outcomes.

The impact of the adoption of international accounting and auditing standards on corruption perception

Purpose This study aims to investigate the impact of the adoption of international accounting and auditing standards on corruption perception. In addition, this study examines the strength of auditing and reporting standards (SARS) that mediate the relationship. Design/methodology/approach Agency theory and bonding theory were applied in this paper to investigate the impact of the adoption of international accounting and auditing standards on corruption perception. Data from 130 countries during three years were collected from Transparency International, Worldwide Governance Indicators, International Federation of Accountants, World Economic Forum, World Bank, Freedom House and World Justice Project. Hypotheses were tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling. Findings The results show a positive impact of the adoption of international accounting and auditing standards on corruption perception, directly and indirectly, through the SARS. Practical implications The results provide an insight into corruption eradication strategy through the adoption of international accounting and auditing standards and strengthen the auditing and reporting standards. Originality/value This study is distinctive, as no study has yet examined the impact of the adoption of international accounting standards construct, which contains International Financial Reporting Standards and International Standards on Auditing, on the corruption perception. The corruption perception construct is developed by combining the corruption perception index and the control of corruption indicators.

Developing sustainable capacity for urban assemblies: Case study of a World Bank project in Ghana

AbstractDonor partners have been supporting developing economies in capacity development through donor‐funded projects to enable them to achieve sustainable development. To understand the effectiveness of such projects, this paper adopted a mixed‐methods approach to study a capacity development project funded by the World Bank and implemented in 46 metropolitan and municipal assemblies in Ghana. The study employed the European Centre for Development Policy Management's core capabilities model (5Cs) to examine the World Bank project. The study recommends that, to ensure sustainability, capacity development projects should be embedded in Ghana's development programmes. We also propose an alternative model for the implementation of capacity development projects to achieve sustainable development.

International Bureaucrats and Organizational Performance. Country-Specific Knowledge and Sectoral Knowledge in World Bank Projects

Abstract International organizations (IOs) try to incorporate policy-specific best practices and country-specific knowledge to increase well-informed decision-making. However, the relative contribution of the two kinds of knowledge to organizational performance is insufficiently understood. The article addresses this gap by focusing on the role of staff in World Bank performance. It posits that country-specific knowledge, sectoral knowledge, and their combination positively contribute to World Bank projects. The argument is tested drawing on a novel database on the tenure, nationality, and educational background of World Bank Task Team Leaders. Three findings stand out. First, country-specific knowledge seems to matter on average, while sectoral knowledge does not. Second, there is some evidence that staff that combine both kinds of knowledge are empowered to make more positive contributions to performance. Third, the diversity and relevance of experience, not length of tenure, are associated with more success. The findings contribute to discussions on international bureaucracies by highlighting how differences between the knowledge of individual staff shape their decision-making and performance. IOs could better tap into the existing resources in their bureaucracies to enhance their performance by rotating staff less frequently between duty stations.

Tomorrow's Debt, Today's Duty: Debt Sustainability as Anticipatory Global Governance

ABSTRACT Sovereign debt projections permeate international economic affairs. While concerns about debt sustainability motivate much policy analysis and commentary, this article unpacks the anticipatory practices through which (un)sustainable future debt is turned into a governance object in the first place. To this end, I examine the joint Debt Sustainability Analysis (DSA) of the International Monetary Fund (IMF or Fund) and the World Bank (or Bank). I empirically focus on the cases of Sudan and Somalia, both of which are low-income countries (LICs) classified as weak performers under the Fund-Bank Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. Based on documentary evidence from twelve DSAs, I argue the IMF and World Bank's projections reflect a contractual understanding of debt, embrace economic growth as a panacea for chronic indebtedness and downplay structural constraints on debt sustainability. The resulting futures reveal some of the political choices inscribed in seemingly neutral instruments of anticipatory global governance.

ФАКТОРЫ УСПЕХА ИСПОЛЬЗОВАНИЯ ПРОЕКТНЫХ МЕТОДОВ ДЛЯ РЕАЛИЗАЦИИ ПОЛИТИК РАЗВИТИЯ

Introduction: project methods play a significant role in implementing state policy aimed at attaining national development goals. However, Russia’s current regulation is mostly focused on the procedure for project preparation and implementation rather than quality requirements to the projects themselves. Objectives: to work out a set of quality criteria for development projects and testing these criteria using the World Bank projects implemented in Russia as cases. Methods: structural and comparative analysis, case study. Results: based on literature review and considering the specificity of development and key governance quality parameters, the paper proposes 7 quality requirements applicable to development projects, namely: variability and cyclical nature of development; qualitative nature of changes entailed by the project; positive benefit-cost ratio; sustainability of outcomes; motivation of development agents; risk management; impact assessment and “waste of development” utilization. The proposed quality requirements were tested using the data on two implemented projects aimed at supporting institutional development in tax and customs services in Russia. The results demonstrate that both projects met the proposed quality criteria to a varying degree, which affected the duration of project implementation and the level of outcomes long-term sustainability. Conclusions: to differentiate developmental projects from other types of projects, it is recommended to amend the legal framework and to use the proposed quality requirements in designing and implementing national and federal projects, as well as in external performance audit of such projects.

Nature-Based Solutions in Sub-Saharan Africa for Climate and Water Resilience: A Methodology for Evaluating the Regional Status of Investments in Nature-Based Solutions from a Scan of Multilateral Development Bank Portfolios

This technical note outlines the methodology used to create a region-wide dataset of projects that have implemented NBS for climate- and water-resilience objectives in two multilateral development bank (MDB) portfolios — the World Bank and the African Development Bank. The resulting dataset includes 85 projects led by these MDBS over a 10-year period (2012‒21), including 46 projects from the World Bank and 39 projects from the African Development Bank. Total budgets for World Bank projects were $7.9 billion (including $2.5 billion for components with NBS), and total budgets for African Development projects $4.2 billion (including $2 billion for components with NBS). The countries with the largest number of projects were Ethiopia (10), Ghana (7), Malawi (7), Tanzania (6), Uganda (6), and Democratic Republic of the Congo (5). The technical note also demonstrates how these projects are leveraging NBS to address urgent challenges faced by communities in SSA, including urban flooding, coastal flooding, and water security. Additionally, the note illustrates numerous types of co-benefits that NBS are generating, including biodiversity, livelihoods, and opportunities for carbon sequestration.

Climate Adaptation Finance in World Bank Economic Development Programs: The Challenges of Systemic Transformation via “Scaling Up”

Worldwide only about four percent of the estimated $500 billion-plus in public and private climate finance in 2017 was destined for adaptation. However, institutions like the World Bank are positioning themselves for a transformation in adaptation finance, seeking to provide substantially more adaptation finance as distinct from financial support for greenhouse gas mitigation. This article explores the recent emergence of adaptation as a higher priority and how a longer-term time horizon is necessary if a transformation in climate change governance is to occur which places greater emphasis on sustainable development goals relating to improvement of circumstances of citizens in the most climate-vulnerable nations, mostly in the Global South. The article also considers the important debate in the climate change policy literature over the extent to which funds supporting adaptation are going to lower-income nations or people, as might be anticipated given the view that the poor are more vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change. Data linking World Bank project funding to climate change adaptation and mitigation, derived from a keyword-matching approach, show that from 2010 to 2018, the share of climate-change-related finance devoted to adaptation in World Bank projects increased considerably. The data indicate that adaptation funding tends to be directed more to more climate-vulnerable nations and those with greater state fragility, but not to low-income countries versus high-income countries. Implications are considered for how this change might be “scaled up” to achieve a transformational status.

Potentially harmful World Bank projects are proximate to areas of biodiversity conservation importance

For many countries in the global south the World Bank is a key funder of development. A subset of the activities it funds have the potential to cause harm to biodiversity. Currently, however, little is known about the spatial coincidence of Bank-funded projects and important areas for biodiversity. Using a dataset of World Bank projects funded between 1995 and 2014, we examine the relationship between potentially harmful project activities and the ranges of globally threatened birds, mammals, and amphibians, Key Biodiversity Areas, protected areas, and biodiversity hotspots. We find that 5 by 5 km cells containing a project activity are more likely to contain a Key Biodiversity Area, or a biodiversity hotspot, and have on average greater richness of globally threatened species, than those without. This relationship was statistically significant even after considering human population and country-level socio-economic effects except in the case of Key Biodiversity Areas. We also found limited evidence that activities are systematically placed within countries to avoid the ranges of threatened species or Key Biodiversity Areas. By contrast, we found a negative relationship between project activities and protected areas globally and within most countries, which may be evidence that potentially harmful activities are placed to avoid protected areas. Our findings raise questions about whether the Banks environmental safeguards have adequately translated into avoidance of highly diverse areas. Given the size of the World Bank’s lending portfolio and its role in setting industry best practice our results are concerning for conservation efforts.

Unpacking the Processes that Catalyzed the Adoption of Best Management Practices for Lowland Irrigated Rice in the Mekong Delta

Vietnam is supportive of the transition to sustainable rice production in the Mekong Delta. The national program promoted best management practices for rice production through “1 Must Do and 5 Reductions” (1M5R). This review traces the technological development and uptake of 1M5R in national policies and by end-users. We highlight the outcomes from various policy-supported initiatives and unpack plausible pathways that generated the widespread adoption of 1M5R in eight provinces in the Mekong River Delta: at least 104,448 smallholder rice farmers were reached, and 1M5R practices adopted on 113,870 hectares. The scaling of 1M5R was enabled through a convergence of different socio-technical systems with varied foci, including sustainability certification, contract farming, consolidation of production, and improved use of inputs, aside from the development of sustainable technologies. In addition, 1M5R was promoted with incentives generated by a World Bank project and other initiatives in line with a national policy of increasing the quality of rice production for national and international markets. The interconnections of varied socio-technical systems, enacted by different intermediaries, catalyzed the spread of 1M5R. The widespread adoption by smallholder farmers increased their profits and raised awareness across diverse stakeholder groups of the higher marketability of rice produced with sustainable practices.

Lessening procurement deviations using procurement post reviews: evidence from Ghana

PurposeMultilateral aid agencies generate most of their funds from taxpayers, and therefore, it is necessary to ensure that recipients or borrowers use the funds for the intended purposes. The World Bank is one of the major multilateral aid agencies that fund infrastructure projects in developing countries. Like other multilateral aid agencies, the World Bank uses oversight instruments/auditing tools to manage procurement risk on their funded projects. However, empirical insight about the effectiveness of these auditing tools is limited. This paper aims to assess the effectiveness of one of such multilateral aid agencies’ auditing tools (i.e. World Bank’s procurement post review [PPR]) in procurement risk mitigation on funded projects in a developing country context.Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on secondary data obtained from the World Bank PPR reports carried out in the 2014, 2015 and 2016 financial years. Five projects with the highest loan amounts and five with the lowest loan amounts for the three-year period were selected from the 24 active World Bank projects during the time of the study. A purposive sampling technique was used to select a representative sample from a list of contracts under the 10 projects.FindingsThe results of the analysis showed a clear decline in the number of both major and minor deviations over the three-year period while an increase in the number of contracts with “No Deviation”. The study therefore concludes that procurement risk experienced a decline amongst the World Bank projects in Ghana where post reviews were carried out on yearly basis.Originality/valueThe study identifies the need for more frequent PPR and makes a case for the need to investigate whether PPR is a superior auditing tool compared to the other tools.

Leviathan’s Latent Dimensions: Measuring State Capacity for Comparative Political Research

State capacity is a core concept in political science research, and it is widely recognized that state institutions exert considerable influence on outcomes such as economic development, civil conf...

Building Change Detection Method to Support Register of Identified Changes on Buildings

Based on a newly adopted “Rulebook on the records of identified changes on buildings in Serbia” (2020) that regulates the content, establishment, maintenance and use of records on identified changes on buildings, it is expected that the geodetic-cadastral information system will be extended with these records. The records contain data on determined changes of buildings in relation to the reference epoch of aerial or satellite imagery, namely data on buildings: (1) that are not registered in the real estate cadastre; (2) which are registered in the real estate cadastre, and have been changed in terms of the dimensions in relation to the data registered in the real estate cadastre; (3) which are registered in the real estate cadastre, but are removed on the ground. For this purpose, the LADM-based cadastral data model for Serbia is extended to include records on identified changes on buildings. In the year 2020, Republic Geodetic Authority commenced a new satellite acquisition for the purpose of restoration of official buildings registry, as part of a World Bank project for improving land administration in Serbia. Using this satellite imagery and existing cadastral data, we propose a method based on comparison of object-based and pixel-based image analysis approaches to automatically detect newly built, changed or demolished buildings and import these data into extended cadastral records. Our results, using only VHR images containing only RGB and NIR bands, showed object identification accuracy ranging from 84% to 88%, with kappa statistic from 89% to 96%. The accuracy of obtained results is satisfactory for the purpose of developing a register of changes on buildings to keep cadastral records up to date and to support activities related to legalization of illegal buildings, etc.