The Development Effectiveness of the Use of Doing Business Indicators, Fiscal Years 2010-20 - An Independent Evaluation
IEG began preparing the evaluation in June 2020, in response to a request from the World Bank Group Board’s Committee on Development Effectiveness. In March 2021, IEG produced an Issues Paper identifying lines of inquiry for the main evaluation, di...
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| Language: | English |
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Washington, DC: Independent Evaluation Group
2022
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/620111647360684152/The-Development-Effectiveness-of-the-Use-of-Doing-Business-Indicators-Fiscal-Years-2010-20-An-Independent-Evaluation http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37143 |
| Summary: | IEG began preparing the evaluation in
June 2020, in response to a request from the World Bank
Group Board’s Committee on Development Effectiveness. In
March 2021, IEG produced an Issues Paper identifying lines
of inquiry for the main evaluation, distributed it for
internal and management reviews, and submitted it to CODE in
June 2021. In September 2021, as the evaluation was
undergoing final revisions, World Bank Group management
decided to discontinue the Doing Business report. In
announcing its decision, the Bank Group stated that it
intended to work on a new approach to assess business and
investment climates. In February 2022, the Bank published a
pre-concept note introducing the Business Enabling
Environment project (BEE), a new benchmarking exercise to
“measure the business enabling environment in economies
worldwide.” In this context and given the use of multiple
other global indicators in reforms, the learning from this
evaluation report is highly relevant. A cover note extends
its findings to the use of other global indicators,
including the successor Business Enabling Environment
Project. The evaluation seeks to guide any new approach
using evidence-based indicators so that it builds on the
many good practices observed in Doing Business and considers
the substantial power that these indicators have to motivate
and engage client countries in business environment reform.
It calls for indicators to be used in a balanced and
accurate manner guiding the choice of reform priorities in
client countries with the greatest development benefits for
their socio-economic situation. The following generalized
lessons can be drawn from the report: (i) Recognizing the
powerful motivational effect of reform indicators, this
evaluation notes the limitations in the coverage and
guidance offered by any single indicator set on its own and
advocates integrating them with complementary analytic tools
and indicators. (ii) Recognizing the granularity and
specificity of individual reforms in any given country
context, the findings suggest that it is better to avoid
using business regulatory or similar global indicators as
explicit reform objectives or monitoring indicators in Bank
Group projects and country strategies focused on improving
the business environment. This does not preclude the use of
primary data to track and measure agreed targets critical to
Bank Group institutional commitments. (iii) Global
indicators coverage and specifications are improved if, at
regular and predictable intervals, they are updated to
reflect learning from research and field experience to (i)
improve links to important development outcomes; (ii)
strengthen relevance to the experience of the subject of
coverage; and (iii) adapt to technological changes in the
areas covered by the indicators. (iv) The DB experience
indicates the need for mechanisms and safeguards to assure
the accuracy and validity of World Bank Group global
indicator-based reports and related communications, using
robust and transparent standards of evidence. |
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