Independent Evaluation of IFC's Development Results : Knowledge for Private Sector Development

Independent evaluation of International Finance Corporations (IFC's) development results 2009 takes stock of the development performance of IFC's investment operations, and examines, for the first time, the development effectiveness of its Advisory Services (AS), thus offering the first holistic review of IFC's development results. On Investment Services (IS), the report finds that 72 percent of operations reaching early operating maturity between 2006 and 2008 met or exceeded their financial, economic, environmental, and social benchmarks, and made contributions to private sector development beyond just the project. This is a significant improvement over the 63 percent achieved between 2005 and 2007. Meanwhile, 70 percent of AS operations reviewed between 2006 and 2008 achieved high development effectiveness ratings. But these development results do not yet reflect the sharp deterioration in global economic conditions, which has just now begun to affect the economic environment in most developing countries. Experience suggests there are considerable risks to development results but crises can also offer new opportunities that need to be grasped. Projects approved in the years prior to a crisis were about 15 percent less likely to achieve good results than otherwise. In the wake of past crises, investing was likely to lead to better results. But measures to protect the portfolio have tended to crowd out the proactive pursuit of new opportunities to broaden impact. This will need to change in IFC's response to the current crisis, so that the tension between protecting the portfolio and responding to opportunities can be effectively managed.