Development Effectiveness

Achieving positive development results is at the core of IFC's mission. IFC recognizes the importance of measuring the performance of our projects, which is critical to helping IFC demonstrate development results and to improving performance. The Development Effectiveness Unit is responsible for developing a rigorous tracking system, metrics and reporting standards that give IFC and the public a better view on IFC's development impact.

Systematic Results Tracking

We are enhancing our system for tracking the results of our activities. IFC’s new development outcome tracking system (DOTS) systematically tracks the development results of projects throughout the project cycle, allowing us to monitor our performance and use our experiences to improve operations more quickly than before.
IFC activities include investments, technical assistance and advisory services.

When assessing development results, we consider the achievement of objectives as well as the project's overall performance. For investment projects, the four broad areas of overall performance that are considered in assessing development results are:

• the project's business success (or financial performance),
• its return to society (or economic performance),
• its social and environmental performance, and
• private sector development impacts (such as demonstration effects, linkages, impacts on the investment climate, or corporate governance aspects).

Development Effectiveness Reporting

Public reporting is an important aspect of our accountability as a public institution. IFC will report on its development effectiveness at least once a year, starting with its 2007 Annual Report. The results of our activities will be presented, showing what worked, what did not work, and what we are doing to learn from our experiences and address shortcomings in the future.

We reported to our Board on early development results coming out of our new system in last year's Annual Portfolio Performance Review FY06, which summarizes results of about 1,100 companies in IFC's portfolio.

Development Effectiveness Unit

This new unit was set up in 2005 to coordinate IFC’s results measurement, monitoring and reporting.
Core functions of the Development Effectiveness Unit include:

• refining IFC's measurement framework for development results;
• assisting investment departments in articulating and measuring development impact of their activities;
• coordinating with other units to ensure that development impact data from different sources is collected in a systematic manner and can be aggregated for IFC;
• collating, analyzing, and reporting IFC’s development results; and
• providing training, disseminating best practice and reviewing existing project documents.

Contact Us

Please feel free to contact us with any questions or comments. Also, do send us your contact details if you wish to receive updates regarding IFC’s development effectiveness reporting. Send your email to deveffectiveness@ifc.org