WB mission due in city July 1

FE Report

The World Bank (WB) will evaluate its role in and contribution to Bangladesh's public finance programmes that will help it in taking up its future development projects in much efficient way.

To this effect, a WB mission will visit Dhaka from July 1 to July 6, 2018.

During the visit, a team of the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) will meet with government officials knowledgeable about policy dialogue and partnership with the WB on public finance issues.

They will also meet with those who have been responsible for the implementation of the WB-financed activities concerning public finance, in particular the mentioned three lending operations.

Besides, the IEG mission will meet with relevant development partner representatives in the country.

According to a WB letter, the Board of Executive Directors of the World Bank Group, the Independent Evaluation Group is undertaking an evaluation of public finance for development, the main objective of which is to assess the role and contribution of the WB to the improvement of the public finance policies and institution in member countries.

The evaluation will focus on assessing how well the WB has designed (together with member governments) its public finance programs, how effectively it has implemented them, and with what results, the letter said.

To this end, the evaluation will cover the WB activities in support of public finance in four thematic areas such as public revenues, public expenditures and aggregate public spending, fiscal and debt sustainability, and public financial management (PFM) systems.

The evaluation aims to draw lessons and recommendations to improve the effectiveness of future Bank programs in support of public finance reform.

The evaluation is examining the design and implementation by the Bank of its public finance programs, and is not evaluating the Bank's work in any particular country or group of countries.

However, carefully selected country case studies are essential for the evaluation to be able to go into depth and to receive feedback from relevant stakeholders. It is very important for such evaluations to learn from the views, experiences, and lessons of bank group counterparts in governments and from other relevant stakeholders in partner countries.

The letter said, "We have selected Bangladesh as one of the country case studies, given the extensive Bank work on public finance in your country, with several lending operations (Development Support Credits, Public Procurement Reform Projects, and the Value-Added Tax Improvement), in addition to policy dialogue, advisory products and technical assistance."

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