IEG Evaluation Briefs summarize topics from country, sector, or thematic evaluation reports or present original research. The list of Evaluation Briefs below includes hyperlinks to those that are public.

Risk Intensity and Project Outcomes
This Evaluation Brief presents three findings: i) the more high-risk factors present at project approval, the lower are the project’s chances for success; ii) good IFC work quality can help mitigate project risk; and iii) improved IFC work quality has contributed to lower risk intensity in recent IFC commitments.

IFC's Experience in the Leasing Sector
OEG reviewed 27 years of IFC’s experience with 186 leasing projects and found that evaluated leasing projects have had strongly positive impacts on private sector development, particularly in the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector. By contrast, investment returns deteriorated sharply after 1991, and the leasing sector has been among IFC’s worst financial performers in recent years. This Evaluation Brief explores five crosscutting issues while identifying other topic issues and provides lessons to help guide future investments.

IFC Operations in Romania: Investment Climate-Driven
IFC's strategies in Romania have closely followed the country's journey from socialism to the free market. Appropriately, IFC has concentrated on the investment climate, pursuing investment operations in financial markets and technical assistance activities in private sector development and privatization. Early results suggest these efforts are bearing fruit, although it is still too early to judge the overall results.

An Evaluation of IFC's Frontier Country Strategy
Is it time for IFC to expand its frontier strategy to include countries that have a medium- or low-risk rating but nevertheless qualify on the grounds of poor investment climates? This Evaluation Brief explores this question and assesses IFC's results in the current group of frontier states.

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
With the MDGs, the development community now has a broadly endorsed focus for its fight against poverty. Data shows that countries with better investment climates are more likely to achieve the MDGs. IFC’s frontier strategy focuses on low-income or high-risk countries (or regions within countries) where foreign capital flows are scarce and IFC’s catalytic additionality is high. Read more about how the MDGs and IFC fit together.

IFC's Assistance to Transition Economies
In the 1990s, transition economies presented few bankable investment opportunities for IFC. To pave the way for investment operations and to improve IFC's understanding of the business risks, IFC’s work emphasized technical assistance and advisory services. This brief reports on the outcomes and lessons from value-added projects in transition countries.

IFC's Financial Results in Brazil
Brazil has always been one of IFC's largest investment portfolios, but its contribution to IFC's overall profitability has been disproportionately low. These low returns are mostly attributable to equity investments approved since 1990. In this Evaluation Brief, OEG digs into the reasons for IFC’s poor returns, recommends ways to get better results in the future, and summarizes lessons learned from its Brazil Country Impact Review.