An Evaluation of World Bank Group Support to Jobs and Labor Market Reform through International Development Association Financing (Approach Paper, March 2, 2023)

The International Development Association (IDA) has included jobs as a special theme since the 17th Replenishment of IDA (IDA17) in 2014, when it explicitly recognized the role played by labor markets in intermediating between growth and inclusion. This acknowledgment of jobs marked a shift in IDA’s inclusive growth strategy. Before the IDA17 strategy paper, IDA emphasized growth and the use of social safety nets to mitigate the effects of poverty. Beginning in 2014, however, jobs became more central to IDA’s strategy for inclusive growth and for achieving the twin goals. IDA17, the 18th Replenishment of IDA, and the 19th Replenishment of IDA established specific policy commitments and results indicators under the jobs-related special theme. At the same time, the World Bank Group expanded and deepened its attention to jobs, resulting in an increasingly multidimensional jobs agenda characterized by a growing body of lending, technical assistance and diagnostics, and a strong focus on IDA-eligible countries, including through use of the Country Private Sector Diagnostic and IDA’s private sector window. This evaluation will assess IDA’s support for jobs-related objectives over fiscal years (FY)14–22, the period covering three IDA replenishments during which jobs became an IDA special theme (IDA17, the 18th Replenishment of IDA, and the 19th Replenishment of IDA). The objectives of this assessment are to interrogate the contribution of IDA’s Bank Group financing to improving outcomes related to more, better paying, and more inclusive jobs; the role of IDA’s jobs strategy at the corporate, country, and operational levels in this context; and the analytical underpinnings of jobs-related interventions. The evaluation will provide lessons and recommendations to inform the design of the Bank Group’s future multidimensional jobs support and enhance IDA’s effectiveness in this space based on eight years of strategic, diagnostic, and operational experience.