World Bank Snub

I am doing some research for a Program Evaluation class. My task is to try to find a specific evaluation report and critique it based on what I've read (and been taught) in that class. So my first instinct is to find some kind a report on Lebanon. The two major international instutions that come to my mind are USAID and the World Bank.

- USAID has some evaluation reports from the NGOs that spend its monies in Lebanon. Unfortunately, the quality of these evaluations are so poor that I don't think I'll be allowed (or even able) to tackle them. In other words, rather than critique what they did wrong in their report, I'll have to design and construct a proper evaluation from scratch.

- Do you know how many published evaluation reports the World Bank has for Lebanon? None. For the entire Middle East and North Africa? None. Here is what they have on other regions, though:

- East Asia & the Pacific.......................6 reports
- Europe and Central Asia...................5 reports
- Latin America and the Carribian.....54 reports
- South Asia...........................................10 reports
- Africa...................................................15 reports

Why? That's an interesting question. In fact, it is the one question that drove me to publish this entry. It appears that god intervenes in the affairs of the Middle East too much for there to be an effective evaluation of a World Bank program. A more accurate analysis would also consider the number of World Bank projects in the specific regions; but I simply don't have time to do that right now. Whatever the case though, the fact that the Middle East does not even have one evaluation report is somewhat indicative of the way things work in the region. Who knew? Influence is a two-way street... even in the case of the all-powerfull World Bank!

Addendum: It appears that the links above don't take you where they're supposed to. Click here, instead.