The World Bank - a Knowledge Bank
PIC was established to make available a series of WB operational documents which were previously restricted to official users. The change in policy took place in January 1994 and is not retroactive (i.e. earlier documents are still confidential). Documents are available for consultation via a network of PIC Reading Rooms, country missions. Documents can be ordered direct from the PIC (some free, some charged for); some are available in full text of summary on the World Bank WWW/gopher server (see separate entry).
Data available via PIC includes materials from various stages of the project cycle:
(a) Project Information Documents (PID): brief summary of projects under preparation. Summary is expanded as the project goes through later stages of project cycle.
(b) Staff Appraisal Reports (buff cover reports): for approved projects. Abstracts online, full text can be ordered
(c) International Finance Corporation (IFC) documents: environmental assessments (list only), environmental review summaries (list only), summaries of project information (list, with full text of those since May 1995), list of other IFC documents. See also separate entry for IFC
(d) Environmental documents: environmental assessments (for specific projects, most have abstracts available online); national environmental action plans (NEAP: abstracts only online); environment data sheets (prepared and updated quarterly for each project: full text online); industrial pollution prevention and abatement handbook (summary and introduction available online)
(e) Operations Evaluations Department (OED) documents: evaluation studies (at country or sector level: summaries available online, full documents can be ordered); impact evaluations (evaluation of projects five to eight years after end of funding: executive summary available online); annual review of evaluation results (executive summary); OED Precis (full text summaries of key finding and recommendations) ; Lessons and Practices (full text of recommendations and best practice guidelines for development practitioners). See also separate entry for OED.
(f) Economic and sector reports: ("grey cover reports") country economic memoranda; country sector reports; country topical reports (e.g. poverty assessments, public sector reviews). WWW site has abstracts of these, searchable by country, sector, date and text of abstract. Full report can be ordered from PIC.
(g) Sectoral Policy Papers: summary only
(h) Trust Funds for the Environment: documents relating to the Global Environment Facility, Montreal Protocol and the Rain Forest Pilot Programme
(i) other documents on Bank procedures
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