World Bank Group Evaluation Principles

The World Bank Group is committed to its twin goals: to eradicate extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity in a sustainable manner. The World Bank Group’s Forward Look – A Vision for the World Bank Group in 2030 outlines how the World Bank Group strives to achieve these goals in close partnership with our shareholders: first, by working to accelerate inclusive and sustainable economic growth; second, by helping countries to invest more effectively in people; and third, by fostering resilience to global shocks and threats.Implementing the Forward Look and contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals require the World Bank Group to continually adapt to rapidly changing situations based on evidence of what works and what does not. Timely and appropriate adaptive management requires building a culture of continuous improvement and problem-solving, based on evidence. Evaluation plays a key role in generating the evidence about what works in different contexts, and in identifying lessons for World Bank Group stakeholders. The 2015 External Review of the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) recommended that the World Bank Group develop an “institution-wide, principles-based living evaluation policy” that outlines the principles, criteria, and accountabilities for evaluation across the organization. In response, World Bank Group Management and IEG have jointly developed common principles for evaluation in the World Bank Group, which form the foundation of this document. The common principles include core principles for evaluation, and principles for selecting, conducting, and using evaluations. These aim to strengthen accountability and learning for evidence-based decision making and program improvement to enhance development results. They are designed to: (a) align the World Bank Group’s evaluative efforts with global challenges and the World Bank Group’s strategic focus; (b) clarify the roles and responsibilities of key actors and encourage synergy among them throughout the evaluation process; and (c) ensure that all World Bank Group evaluations are robust, of high quality, and credible.