Committing to Results : Improving the Effectiveness of HIV/AIDS Assistance, An OED Evaluation of the World Bank's Assistance for HIV/AIDS Control

This evaluation assesses the development effectiveness of the World Bank's country-level HIV/AIDS assistance defined as policy dialogue, analytic work, and lending with the explicit objective of reducing the scope or impact of the AIDS epidemic. This is the first comprehensive evaluation of the World Bank's HIV/AIDS support to countries, from the beginning of the epidemic through mid-2004. Because the Bank's assistance is for implementation of government programs by government, it provides important insights on how national AIDS programs can be made more effective. For the purposes of the evaluation, HIV/AIDS assistance includes policy dialogue, analytic work, and lending with the explicit objective of reducing the scope or impact of the AIDS epidemic. Few HIV/AIDS projects have been completed and the vast majority of projects and commitments are ongoing. With this in mind, the three substantive chapters address: 1) The evolution and phases of the Bank's institutional response and an overview of the portfolio of HIV/AIDS assistance since the start of the epidemic. 2) Findings on the efficacy of the "first generation" of completed World Bank country-level, HIV/AIDS assistance, and lessons from that experience. 3) An assessment of the assumptions, design, risks, and implementation to date of 24 ongoing country-level AIDS projects. in the Africa Multi-Country AIDS Program (MAP).