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The unanticipated spike in international food prices in 2007-08 hit many developing countries hard. International prices for food and other agricultural products increased by more than 100 percent between early 2007 and mid-2008. Prices for food cereals more than doubled; and those for rice doubled in the space of just a few months. The food price increases were particularly hard on the poor and near-poor in developing countries, many of whom spend a large share of their income on food and have limited means to cope with price shocks. An estimated 1.29 billion people in 2008 lived on less than $1.25 a day, equivalent to 22.4 percent of the developing world population. In addition, the Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that 923 million people were undernourished in 2007. Simulation models suggested that poverty rose by 100-200 million people and the undernourished increased by 63 million in 2008. The World Bank organized rapidly for short-term support in the crisis, launching a fast-track program of loans and grants, the Global Food Crisis Response Program (GFRP). The GFRP mainly targeted low-income countries, and provided detailed policy advice to governments and its own staff on how to respond to the crisis. The Bank also scaled up lending for agriculture and social protection to support the building of medium-term resilience to future food price shocks. The International Finance Corporation responded by sharply increasing access to liquidity for agribusinesses and agricultural traders in the short and medium term, as well as new programs to improve incentives for agricultural market participants. This evaluation assesses the effectiveness of the World Bank Group response in addressing the short-term impacts of the food price crisis and in enhancing the resilience of countries to future shocks.

High levels of child malnutrition in developing countries contribute to mortality and have long-term consequences for children’s cognitive development and earnings as adults. Recent impact evaluations show that many different interventions have had an impact on children’s anthropometric outcomes (height, weight, and birth weight), but there is no simple answer to the question “What works?” to address the problem. Similar interventions have widely different results in different settings, owing to differences in local context, the causes and severity of malnutrition, and the capacity for program implementation.Impact evaluations of programs supported by the Bank, which are generally large-scale, complex inter-ventions in low-capacity settings, show equally variable results. The findings confirm that it should not be assumed that an intervention found effective in a randomized medical setting will have the same effects when implemented under field conditions. There are many robust experimental and quasi-experimental methods for assessing impact under difficult circumstances often found in field settings.The relevance and impact of nutrition impact evaluations could be enhanced by collecting data on service delivery, demand-side behavioral outcomes, and implementation processes to better understand the causal chain and what part of the chain is weak, in parallel with impact evaluations. It is also important to understand better the distribution of impacts, particularly among the poor, and to document better the costs and effectiveness of interventions.High levels of child malnutrition in developing countries are contributing to mortality and present long-term consequences for the survivors. An estimated 178 million children under age 5 in developing countries are stunted (low height for age) and 55 million are wasted (low weight for height). Malnutrition makes children more susceptible to illness and strongly affects child mortality. Beyond the mortality risk in the short run, the developmental delays caused by undernutrition affect children’s cognitive outcomes and productive potential as adults. Micronutrient deficiencies—vitamin A, iron, zinc, iodine, for example—are also common and have significant consequences. Progress in reducing malnutrition has been slow: More than half of countries are not on track to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of halving the share of children who are malnou-rished (low weight for age) by 2015. The food price and financial crises are making achievement of this goal even more elusive.

An independent evaluation of the World Bank??s extensive support to developing countries on trade issues between 1987 and 2004. The study assesses the development effectiveness of World Bank trade-related advocacy, capacity-building, lending and research. It examines the extent to which the Bank??s policies and assistance have met its stated objectives in the area of trade and makes recommendations to strengthen the effectiveness of future Bank trade assistance.

As England's Industrial Revolution started the process of urbanization that has since characterized development throughout the world, a poet worried about the \"dark satanic mills\" that were such a fundamental part of this revolution. However, despite his misgivings, he also suggested that it was necessary for societies to arm themselves with \"chariots of fire\" and other weapons so that they could master this process. In a somewhat more prosaic poetic vein World Bank President Robert McNamara launched the bank's shelter assistance programs saying that 'If cities do not begin to deal more constructively with poverty, poverty may begin to deal more destructively with cities.' These concerns would appear to have even more resonance today as the population of cities in developing countries increasing by unprecedented levels of more than 1 billion people per year for the next 15 years. This magnitude suggests the scale of the increase in the investment in shelter needed to meet the needs of this growing population.

This evaluation takes the premise that beyond in-forming IDA allocation, the CPIA is useful as a broad indicator of development effectiveness. It reviews the appropriateness of the CPIA as an indicator that assesses the conduciveness of a country's policies and institutions to fostering poverty reduction, sustainable growth, and the effective use of development assistance. It assesses the relevance of the content of the CPIA through a review of the economics literature. It also assesses the reliability of CPIA ratings in two ways -- through comparing CPIA ratings with similar indicators, and through reviewing the CPIA ratings generation process. Based on these assessments, the evaluation derives recom-mendations for enhancing the CPIA.