Formative assessment of the knowledge for development program
The World Bank Institute Evaluation Group (WBIEG) conducted a formative evaluation of the Knowledge for Development (K4D) Program to identify program strengths, opportunities for improvement, and demand for new products and services. Overall, the evaluation concluded that a program specifically focused on the knowledge economy (KE) agenda is essential to future Bank operations. However, the results also showed that K4D had not remained abreast of current developments to meet operational needs. Stakeholders had varying views of the program's mission or objectives and felt that implementation processes could be more effective. Thus, this evaluation recommends a three step action plan for World Bank Institute (WBI) management and K4D to improve its implementation and effectiveness: (i) establish a committee to review and clarify the K4D Program's role vis-a-vis the future work of the Bank including representatives from WBI management, the K4D team, and major stakeholders in Bank operations; (ii) develop a strategic plan for achieving the program's mission and objectives. Specifying the program's objectives and intended outcomes will have direct implications for K4D's work program and the mix of staff skills and resources required; and (iii) implement program improvements according to the project objectives and the strategic plan, considering suggestions from stakeholders examined in this report related to products and services, education and marketing, and linking to Bank operations.
The effectiveness and impact of WBI FY01-05 activities : results from 25 focus countries
The current work tests whether WBI's learning program effectiveness and impact changed over time in WBI's focus countries. This study is based on a regionally diverse sample with five time points, FY01-FY05. Thus, the study allows exploration of the relationships between activity and participant characteristics and WBI effectiveness and impact over time. This study addresses three questions: (a) Has the impact of WBI's learning programs changed over time; (b) What aspects of WBI activities enhance WBI's effectiveness; and (c) Where did WBI's learning programs have the largest impact and, among which participants did WBI succeed in providing learning that was later applied. Within the 25 countries, the respondent sample includes data from participants who attended WBI learning events in FY01, 02, 03, 04, and 05. Surveys were administered to a random sample of respondents eight to 22 months after their attendance in FY03, 04, 05, and 06. Sampling was based on a random selection of participants within target countries.
Remotely-Piloted Helicopter Citrus Yield Map Estimation
A remotely-piloted Gas Xcell mini-helicopter with GPS, wireless Ethernet, and a machinevision system was flown over orange trees to take overhead images. The individual tree images were processed to estimate the number of orange pixels in the images. The fruit yield of individualtrees at harvest a month later had an r-squared value of 0.373 with the number of orange pixels onthe irrigated tree images. While it was demonstrated that a remotely-piloted mini-helicopter could beused to acquire useful overhead images of citrus trees, substantial further research is needed toimprove the accuracy of estimates of individual tree yields or health.