In 1996, the World Bank made a commitment to become a global knowledge bank. The Bank’s stated intention was to develop a world-class knowledge management system and to improve and expand the sharing of development knowledge with clients and partners. The objectives of this commitment were to improve the quality of Bank operations and enhance the capacity of clients to achieve development results.

Since FY97, the Bank has spent some US$220 million for corporate, network, and Regional knowledge-sharing activities and more than US$60 million for its three main global knowledge initiatives, the Development Gateway, the Global Development Learning Network (GDLN), and the Global Development Network (GDN). These programs and activities have sparked a lot of innovation, with potentially significant benefits for the scaling up of effective Bank interventions and for empowering clients to improve development outcomes. But new knowledge-sharing programs and activities need to be much better integrated into the Bank’s core business processes to achieve the initiative’s broad objectives. For this, senior management must provide greater strategic direction and oversight to corporate, network, and Regional units.

Evaluation Scope

The knowledge initiative aims to expand knowledge sharing as a way of doing business— not a separate line of business. It also proposes, appropriately, a comprehensive strategy to bring about both internal and external changes. This evaluation examines the relevance of that strategy and the institutional infrastructure put in place to implement it. It also reviews the effectiveness of the strategy’s three main areas of innovation:

• Network and Regional internal knowledgesharing activities among Bank staff
• Regional and country external knowledge sharing with clients
• The three Bank-supported global knowledge initiatives that have the broadest knowledge-sharing scope are: The Development Gateway, The Global Development Learning Network, and the Global Development Network.

Conclusions

The Bank, now entering the seventh year of the knowledge initiative, needs to move deliberately to embed knowledge sharing in its core operational processes by providing more direct support to task teams and more knowledge capacity enhancement for clients, and it needs to manage its knowledge services for results.

Recommendations

To realize more fully the knowledge initiative’s potential to enhance Bank operations and empower clients to meet their development goals, three sets of actions are needed:

1. Management should exercise more strategic direction and oversight over the Bank’s knowledge processes. To accomplish this, management should: define clear responsibilities and accountabilities of corporate, network, and Regional units for integrating knowledge sharing into the Bank’s core business processes; ensure that incentives are aligned with responsibilities, especially at the task-manager level; and establish a strategic approach to the Bank’s role in existing and any new global knowledge initiatives.

2. Network and Regional units should tightly link their knowledge-sharing activities to lending and nonlending processes. To achieve this, networks should set clear objectives for anchor, thematic group, and advisory service support of operational teams; and Regional and country units should make explicit the knowledge objectives and strategies of Country Assistance Strategies (CASs) and projects.

3. Vice-presidential units should set outcome objectives and supporting performance indicators for their respective knowledgesharing programs and activities, and they should agree, Bankwide, on procedures to be established for monitoring and evaluating Bank knowledge-sharing programs and activities.

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AN OED EVALUATION
CATHERINE GWIN

In 1996, the Bank made a commitment to expand the sharing of development knowledge among staff and with clients and other development partners. The purpose was twofold: to improve the quality of Bank operations and to enhance the capacity of developing countries to meet development goals.

This review assesses the relevance of this knowledge initiative as well as the effectiveness of new knowledge-sharing activities and global knowledge programs undertaken to implement it. The review also examines the institutional infrastructure that has been built over the past six years to support the initiative.

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FORWARD:

The World Bank’s commitment in 1996 to become a global knowledge bank proposed broad-ranging internal and external changes aimed at expanding the sharing of knowledge among staff, clients, and partners. While the transfer of knowledge and information had always been a dimension of the Bank’s role, the knowledge initiative sought to broaden the scope and raise the profile of this function.

The purpose was to improve the quality of Bank operations and enhance the capacity of client countries to achieve development goals.

Over the period FY97-02, the Bank has spent some $220 million on corporate, network, and Regional knowledge sharing activities, and over $60 million on its three main global knowledge initiatives.

Key Findings

Overall, this review finds that the Bank has made good progress in establishing the tools and activities to support its initiative, but it has not established adequate business processes and management responsibilities for achieving the strategic intent of making knowledge sharing a way of doing business and empowering clients. In the six years of the initiative, the Bank has substantially upgraded its information management system, initiated a wide variety of new activities for the aggregation and sharing of knowledge, and fostered a more open, knowledge-sharing culture within its staff. These steps, taken together, have provided staff, clients, and partners faster and easier access to Bank and other development knowledge.

Improved access does not, however, guarantee that the shared knowledge will be adopted, adapted, and applied. For that to happen, knowledge sharing has to be embedded in work processes. And, so far, the Bank’s new activities have not been well integrated into core lending and nonlending processes.

Two management shortfalls account in large part for this evaluation finding of weak integration of knowledge sharing with other core business processes. First, although highlevel leadership has stimulated innovations in Bank knowledge services, management has not adequately defined the roles and responsibilities of corporate, network, and Regional units for making knowledge sharing a way of doing business. Nor, according to staff, has it established adequate incentives for incorporating knowledge sharing into operational processes. Second, in contrast to good practice in other organizations and other processes of the Bank, there is no systematic monitoring and evaluation of knowledge sharing programs and activities.

Recommendations

To more fully realize the knowledge initiative’s potential to contribute to the scaling up of effective Bank interventions and enhance the capacity of clients to achieve development goals, this review recommends that the Bank take three sets of actions:

1. Management should exercise more strategic direction and oversight over the Bank’s knowledge processes. For this, management should: define clear responsibilities and accountabilities of corporate, network, and Regional units for integrating knowledge sharing into the Bank’s core business processes; ensure that incentives are aligned with responsibilities, especially at the task manager level; and establish a strategic approach to the Bank’s role in existing and any new global knowledge initiatives.

2. Network and Regional units should tightly link their knowledge-sharing activities to lending and nonlending processes. For example, networks should set clear objectives for anchor, thematic group, and advisory services direct support of operational teams; and Regional and country units should make explicit the knowledge objectives
and strategies of Country Assistance Strategies and projects.

3. Vice-presidential units should set monitorable outcome objectives and supporting performance indicators for their respective knowledge-sharing programs and activities, and they should agree, Bankwide, on procedures to be established for monitoring and evaluating Bank knowledge-sharing programs and activities.

Gregory K. Ingram
Director-General, Operations Evaluation

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