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'1 by James D. Wolfensohn Public Disclosure Authorized I POVERTY in Public Disclosure Authorized World Bank Scries on Evaluation and D~velopmant Volum~3 Public Disclosure Authorized Osvaldo . feinstein Robert Picciotto Public Disclosure Authorized EVALUATION and POVERTY REDUCTION World Bank Series on Evaluation and Development Robert Picciotto, Series Editor Evaluation and Development: The Institutional Dimension edited by Robert Picciotto and Eduardo Wiesner Involuntary Resettlement: Comparative Perspectives edited by Robert Picciotto, Warren van Wicklin, and Edward Rice Evaluation and Poverty Reduction edited by Osvaldo N. Feinstein and Robert Picciotto EVALUATION and POVERTY REDUCTION World Bank Series on Evaluation and Development Volume 3 Edited by Osvaldo N. feinstein and Robert Picciotto foreword by James D. Wolfcnsohn Transaction Publishers New Brunswick (U.S.A.)and London (U.K.) Copyright O 2001 byThe World Bank. Published byTransaction Publishers, New Brunswick, New Jersey. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conven- tions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by anymeans, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed toTransaction Publishers, RutgersThe State University, 35 Berme Grcle, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854- 8042. This book is printed on acid-free paper that meets the American National Stan- dard for-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. Library of Congress Catalog Number: 00-067305 ISBN: 0-7658-0092-6 (cloth); 0-7658-0876-5 (paper) Printed in Canada Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Evaluation and poverty reduction 1edited by Osvaldo Feinstein and Robert Picciotto; foreword by James D. Wolfensohn. p. cm.-(World Bank series on evaluation and development; 3) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7658-0092-6 (cloth : alk. paper)-ISBN 0-7658-0876-5 (paper : alk. paper) 1. Poverty-Evaluation-Methodology. I. Feinstein, Osvaldo Nestor. LT. Picciotto, Robert. 111. Series. Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii FOREWORD ix James D. Wolfensohn WELCOME ADDRESSES xiii Jan Piercy and Elizabeth McAllister Synthesis and Overview Osvaldo Feinstein and Detlev Puetz 3 1. Valuation and Evaluation 19 Partha Dasgupta Floor Discussion 36 2 Evaluation in a World of Complexity and Information Failures 39 Joseph Stiglitz Floor Discussion 49 3. Panel Discussion: Evaluation Perspectives on Poverty Reduction 51 Vinod Thomas, Alison Evans, Moise Mensah, Niels Dabelstein Floor Discussion 58 4. Impact Evaluation: Concepts and Methods 65 Kene Ezemenari, Anders Rudqvist, Kalanidhi Subbarao Comments Thomas Cook, James Heckman 76 Floor Discussion 85 5. Panel Discussion: Quantitative and Qualitative Methods in Evaluation 89 Timothy Marchant, Sarah Gavian, John Eriksson Floor Discussion 101 6. Theory-Based Evaluation: Theories of Change for Poverty Reduction Programs 103 Carol H. Weiss Evaluation and Poverty Reduction 7. The Front-End Costs and Downstream Benefits of Participatory Evaluation 115 Edward 7: Jackson Comments Nicoletta Stame 127 Floor Discussion 131 8. Building Local Capacity for Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation Rolf Sartorius Comments David Marsden Floor Discussion 9. Africa and Asia: Evaluation of the Poverty Alleviation Impact of Alternative Development Strategies and Adjustment Responses 151 Erik Thorbecke Comments Richard Gerster 163 Floor discussion 166 10. Lessons Learned from Evaluation of DFID's Aid Program Andrew Shepherd Comments Octavio Damiani Floor Discussion 11. Evaluating Microfinance's Impact: Going Down Market 193 Monigue Cohen Comments Mohini Malhotra 204 12 Evaluating Targeted Versus Nontargeted Approaches to Poverty Reduction 209 Joachim von Braun, Mona Bishay, Sohail J. Malik Floor Discussion 21 8 PART VII: SOCIAL FUNDS AND SAFETY NETS 13. What Are Social Funds Really Telling Us? 223 Judith Tendler Comments Soniya Carvalho 228 Floor Discussion 23 1 14. Economic Crises and Social Protection for the Poor: The Latin American Experience 235 Nora Lustig, Arianna Legovini Comments Raghav Gaiha 246 Floor Discussion 248 Contents 15. Delivering Social Services: Lessons on Health, Nutrition, and Population Susan Stout Com me nts Margaret Goodman Floor Discussion 16. Tackling Horizontal Inequalities Frances Stewart Comments Lawrence Haddad Floor Discussion 17. Governance and Anticorruption: New Insights and Challenges Daniel Kaufrnann Comments Anwar Shah Floor Discussion 18. Panel Discussion: Combating Public Corruption Jack Titsworth, Navin Girishankal; El Sayed Zaki 19. Nongovernmental Organizations and Evaluation: The BRAC Experience Salehuddin Ahrned, Moharnrnad Rafi Comments Ariel Fiszbein Floor Discussion 20. Social Exclusion and Rural Underdevelopment Adolfo Figueroa Comments Aloysius Fernandes Floor Discussion PART XI: CONCWSIONS 21. Panel Discussion: Final Roundtable Frances Stewart, Ravi Kanbur, Joachirn von Braun, Nora Lusfig Floor Discussion 22 Concluding Remarks Robert Picciotto Acknowledgments The Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (SDC) provided important support for the organization of the workshop and the publication of this proceedings volume. SDC's cooperation is gratefully acknowledged. The Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United Kingdom's Department for International Development enabled the partici- pation of developing country evaluators and policy makers. Detlev Puetz made a distinguished contribution to the organization of the 1999 conference and supported the initial editorial work. OED's Outreach and Dissemination team, led by Elizabeth Campbell-Pagt, played a key role during the editing and production of this book. The Conference was jointly organized by the Operations Evalua- tion Department (OED)and the World Bank Institute (WBI). toreword I am delighted that this conference is a joint efforrof the World Bank's Operations Evaluation Department (OED) and the World Bank Institute (WBI). I am also grateful to our guests for coming here to participate in our ongoing search for knowledge and evaluation. Evaluation is a central aspect of any poverty reduction endeavor. Evaluation implies that we have adopted a methodpiogy that allows us to look in an effective way at the results of what we are doing so that we can, in turn, adapt our future actions toward the effective achievement of our goals. Evaluation adds value if we can learn something useful from it. It is not just a scorecard. It is something that helps us change our behavior or influence the behavior of others. When we do not do that, we lose a tremendous advantage of the evaluative process. I am committed to evaluation-to having the results of the evaluative process incorporated in the learning agenda of the World Bank. Evaluation is needed not because what we are doing so far is not right, but because we do not yet have the answers to some fundamental issues. Setting Goals Broader Than Individual Projects I have been at the Bank for four years. I come from a discipline where results become clear fairly quickly so that managers know whether they have achieved their goals or not. In the development business, however. we work with a range of goals in trying to confront poverty in a sustain- able way. For instance, targets such as those formulated by the Develop- ment Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Evaluation and Poverty Reduction Cooperation and Development (OECD) call for halving the percentage of poverty over a predetermined period, for raising school enrollments, and for enhancing gender equality. Can these targets be achieved? While the percentage of poor people is diminishing in some countries, the absolute number is increasing. Over the last five years, we have moved from a world total of 1.3 billion people who live on less than US$1 a day to more than 1.4 billion people. Three billion people live on less than US$2 a day. At the same time, the absolute numbers of people without access to clean water, health care, and sewerage systems are moving in the same direction. Evaluators should look closely at the interdependencies and synergies among the different targets. For instance, what are the implications of making health care accessible where there are no sewerage systems? What happens if education but not health care is brought to communities? How effective is a school built with communal help that only serves a third or a half of the number of school-age children because there are no roads? And if the school situation is dire and teachers have not been paid for months what is the likely quality of education? If you want to evaluate the effect of projects by international donors to improve road infrastructure, you have to see whether the roads were built to the ministers' houses or to the markets. Roads built to the markets help the poor people market their chickens or eggs. So continuous evaluation is needed, not only at the end when the road is already built, but also prior to project implementation. We need to measure quality in terms of poverty impact at entry. Bad quality at entry leads to poor results. People tell me that we should be doing more poverty projects. But what is a poverty project? Quite apart from macroeconomic and financial policy, a functioning legal system and a functioning justice system that work are poverty projects, as are good governance and fighting corruption. We have just seen in Indonesia, the

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