The records in this series contain the reports, correspondence, and studies compiled by the Directors of OED (OEDDR). The Director is selected by the Director-General, Operations Evaluation (DGO), and is responsible for the overall management of the OED. Principal functions include:

• assisting the Director-General in making periodic assessments of the adequacy and effectiveness of the operations evaluation system in light of the institutional objectives of the World Bank;

• carrying out reviews of the Bank's completion reports and other self-evaluations, performance audits on selected completed projects, impact evaluations, and evaluation studies focusing on operational programs, policies, strategies, and processes;

• assisting member countries to develop their own operations evaluation capacities; and

• disseminating evaluation findings both within the Bank and to the wider development community.

The series contains the records of Christopher R. Willoughby, who was the first Director of OED. Primarily consisting of memoranda, these records document the early development of the operations evaluation function and of the Operations Evaluation Department in the 1970s. Also contained in this file are records of subsequent OED Directors from the 1980s and 1990s. These records relate to a variety of topics.

This sub-series is a collection of memoranda and related records compiled by Christopher R. Willoughby who was among the first employees of the Operations Evaluation Unit and was appointed the first director of the Operations Evaluation Department in July 1973.

• The first set of files consists of memoranda (dated November 1970 - November 1972; February - April 1973; and February - August 1975) sent to President Robert McNamara from Christopher R. Willoughby and also John Adler, who was director when the Operation Evaluation Unit was established in 1970. The memoranda concern the early workings of Operations Evaluation including: the decision to begin with an in-depth look at the Bank's work in one country, Colombia, and in one sector, electrical power; the development of the format for these first two reports; progress reports on the work of the unit and on the development of future work programs; and the relationship between evaluation and supervision. Some of the original memoranda to McNamara were returned to Operations Evaluation marked with a red stamp indicating President has seen. One long memorandum for the record summarizes the January 1971 visit with the Colombia Operations Evaluation team of Dr. Lauchlin Currie who headed the Bank's General Survey Mission to Colombia in 1949. Included in this first set of files are handwritten notes and memoranda for the record summarizing meetings Willoughby and others had with McNamara.

The second set of files consists of memoranda (dated April 1970 - February 1976) sent and received by Willoughby and his copies of key memoranda documenting the development of the operations evaluation function and the changing position of the Operations Evaluation staff within the Bank. Included are Willoughby's handwritten drafts and final copies of the key issuances affecting Operations Evaluation and his notes from key meetings. One folder contains Willoughby's drafts of a September 29, 1975 memoranda from Mohamed Shoaib, Vice President, Operations Evaluation Division, outlining the history of the evaluation function from 1971 to 1975.

The sub-series contains the working files for special studies generated by the Country Evaluations and Regional Relations Division (OEDCR) as well as some records of its predecessor, the Country Policy, Industry and Finance Division (OEDD2).

• Much of this sub-series (six linear feet) consists of the 1999 - 2004 working files for the ODECR study The Gender Dimension of Bank Assistance I and II. These files include materials from the Bank gender issues workshops held in Nairobi, Delhi, Quito, and Warsaw in2000 and 2001.

• Other studies primarily concern finance, adjustment lending, civil service reform, and poverty reduction. Studies include: Civil Service Reform: A Review of World Bank Assistance (April, 1999); The World Bank and Microenterprise Finance from Concept to Practice (November, 1999); The Effectiveness of the World Bank's Poverty Reduction Strategy: An Evaluation (May, 2000); Adjustment Lending in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Update (1997); World Bank Assistance to Privatization in Developing Countries (August, 1994); Higher Impact Adjustment Lending (HIAL): Initial Evaluation (June 1999); The Impact of Public Expenditure Reviews: An Evaluation (1998); World Bank Assistance to CFA ('Communeaute Financiere Africaine'[African Financial Community]) Countries, An Evaluation of Selected Social, Economic and Regional Aspects of the Bank's Performance (2000); Financial Sector Reform: A Review of World Bank Assistance (1998); Fiscal Management in Adjustment Lending (1996); a joint 1998 OED/OEG study, An Evaluation of the Foreign Investment Advisory Service (FIAS); Implementation of Operational Directive 4.20 on Indigenous Peoples: An Independent Desk Review (2003); Legal and Judicial Reform in Europe and Central Asia (2002); Lessons for LICUS (Low Income Countries Under Stress) from OED Country Assistance Evaluations (2001 - 2004); and The Special Program of Assistance for Africa (SPA), an independent evaluation of the SPA as a mechanism to promote adjustment and development in Sub-Saharan Africa (1996 - 1998).

• The sub-series also contains incomplete background materials regarding two other studies: the Quality Assurance Group's 1996 assessment of the Argentine Convertibility Plan and OED's 1997 survey of the major participating financial institutions (PFIs) involved with the Industrial Guarantee Loan Fund (IGLF). The Argentine file primarily contains background information regarding the Convertibility Plan itself. The PFI survey file consists only of correspondence with officials at the Development Bank of thePhilippines concerning their advice regarding the design of the survey records. The survey was part of the OED evaluation of the IGLF program.

• In addition to study files, this sub-series contains files with copies of draft Bank issuances for which the OEDD2 and OEDCR staffs provided comments. Included are comments files for the Portfolio Improvement Program, proposed procedures for the Executive Directors, and Operations Manual draft chapters. The sub-series also contains a copy of the proceedings of a 1998 OED workshop on Indonesia that provided background information for a Country Assistance Review (CAR) of Indonesia.

The series primarily consists of Impact Evaluation Reports (IERs) and the working files produced during the creation of those reports. The series also consists of a number of special studies produced by the OED. IERs assess the performance of operations at full development, some five to ten years after the close of disbursements on the Bank's loan. The evaluations are selective; only a small percentage of projects undergo an impact evaluation. These evaluations provide a second look at a project by analyzing the long-term effects - intended or unintended - on people, institutions, and the physical environment. The evaluations assess projects against the goals that were stated at appraisal and also against a broad set of criteria that relate to social dynamics, income distributions, effects on women and families, institutional development, sustainability, and the environment. This series consists of IERs from the very beginning of their production in 1979 and through into the 1990s.

The content of the files for impact evaluations varies somewhat but the more complete files contain: copies of the Completion Reports, Audit Reports, and other OED-generated records relating to the project; non-Bank background reports and publications relating to the project; Terms of Reference for the OED staff members and/or consultants assigned to evaluation; drafts of the Approach Paper and Study Design Paper; memoranda and correspondence regarding the team's travel plans if a mission was required; a Back-to-Office Report regarding the mission; intra-OED correspondence regarding the format for the evaluation; various drafts of the evaluation; comments on the drafts from OED and Regional staff, officials in the client country, and representatives from other aid/lending organizations; drafts of comments by the Director-General, Operations, (DGO) to the Committee on Development Effectiveness (CODE) or its predecessor, the Joint Audit Committee (JAC) regarding evaluations; minutes of CODE or JAC meetings at which the evaluation was discussed; drafts of the DGO's transmittal memorandum to the Executive Directors and the President; and summaries of the Executive Directors' discussion of the evaluation and copies of the Board chairman's published comments. Many of the impact evaluations relied on field surveys to gather opinions of stakeholders. The raw survey data is not included in an evaluation file, but sample survey questionnaires and data derived from the surveys may be in the file.

The series contains the first IER produced by theOED, referred to as a Project Impact Evaluation Report (PIER). The report was for the Mexico Third Irrigation Project (1978 - 1979) which focused on irrigation rehabilitation programs in irrigation districts Nos. 17 (Region Lagunera) and 23 (San Juan del Ro). The evaluation was undertaken by Chief Evaluation Officer John Malone about five years after the performance audit was conducted for the project. Other early impact evaluation reports in this series are for: Kenya's First Smallholder Agricultural Credit Program (1980); the Kenya First Livestock Development Project (1981); the Roseires Irrigation Project in the Sudan (1980); the Burundi-First Arabica Coffee Improvement Project (1980); the Malaysian Muda and Kemubu Irrigation Projects (1981); the Atlantico Irrigation Project in Colombia (1982); and the San Lorenzo Irrigation and Land Settlement Projects in Peru (1982). In addition, records related to an IER conducted jointly with the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) and the Central Bank of the Philippines on the Philippines Second Rural Credit Project are included. The report was issued in 1983 after an extensive evaluation that involved a survey of beneficiaries in different regions. Also issued in 1983 was an IER for the Indonesia Irrigation Rehabilitation Project.

The series contains many other IERs and IER working files produced through the mid to late 1980s and 1990s. Agriculture, urban, education, transport, industry and transmigration projects are represented. Of note, one IER covers three income generating projects for refugees in Pakistan for which the Bank acted as executive agency on behalf of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Also contained are background materials on Indonesia that OED's Agriculture and Human Development Division (OEDD1) gathered from a wide variety of sources in preparation for a 1993 impact evaluation covering loans for three transmigration projects in Indonesia. The files include the Project Completion Reports for two of the loans (Transmigration II [L1707] and III [L 2248]) and Terms of Reference for the impact evaluation but no other documents regarding the impact evaluation.

The series also includes a number of special process and thematic studies. Reports and related working papers include: a 1987 and 1988 OED special study entitled Management of Renewable Resources in Agricultural Operations; two transport sector evaluation studies entitled The Transport Sector in Mexico: An Evaluation (1998) and Transport in China: An Evaluation of Bank Assistance (1999); a copy of a 1998 paper (The Industrial Organization of Corruption: Why Corruption Hurts More in Africa than in Asia) prepared by Sector and Thematic Evaluation Division (OEDST) staff members Antti Talvitie and Binyam Reja, based on their participation in an OED evaluation of five transport projects in Indonesia; background records for a 1996 Infrastructure and Energy Division (OEDD3) process study, Effectiveness of Environmental Assessments and National Environmental Action Plans (EA/NEAP Study), which evaluated the Bank's use of project-level environmental assessments (EAs) and highlighted the differences between countries that had an approved National Environmental Action Plan (NEAP) and those that did not; working files for the 1995 Country Policy, Industry and Finance Division (OEDD2) study The Social Impact of Adjustment Operations: An Overview; and special impact evaluation studies covering a range of agriculture topics, including Harvesting the Waters (1980s), The World Bank and Structural Adjustment in Agriculture; Reforming Agriculture: The World Bank Goes to Market, Irrigation O & M [Operation and Maintenance] and System Performance in Southeast Asia (1996), Natural Resource Management in Bolivia: 30 Years of Experience (1993), and Dynamics of Rural Development in Northeast Brazil: New Lessons from Old Project (1991), as well as one file for a special process study entitled Monitoring and Evaluation Plans in Staff Appraisal Reports Issued in Fiscal Year 1995.

Also in this series are correspondence, reports, and publications that evaluator Christian Polti gathered while OEDD1 was working on two impact evaluation studies. The first study deals with the World Bank's experience with irrigation development and examined irrigation projects in Morocco, Mexico, the Philippines, and Thailand. The second study deals with cotton development programs in Cote d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, and Togo.