Economics & Development

On May 28, 2026, the Executive Directors of IBRD and IDA and the Boards of Directors of IFC and MIGA approved on an absence-of-objection basis a document titled Official Travel of Executive Directors, Alternate Executive Directors, Senior Advisors and Advisors to Executive Directors as of May 18, 2026, which records the official travel of these officials as of that date, following circulation dated May 27, 2026.

This validation of the World Bank Group’s (WBG) Completion and Learning Review (CLR) for Ethiopia covers the period of the Country Partnership Framework (CPF), fiscal year (FY)18-22. The validation also reflects on the FY23-FY24 period, during which there was no CPF in place. The Ethiopia CPF was aligned with the country’s major development challenges identified in the Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) and government strategies. The WBG supported program aimed to promote structural and economic transformation, increase social inclusion and resilience, and improve institutional accountability while confronting corruption. The program was aligned with the WBG’s twin goals. It supported the poor by enhancing access to health services and the quality of primary education; improving early childhood nutrition and early learning outcomes; increasing access to services and job opportunities for refugees and host communities; and improving the sustainability and effectiveness of safety nets. Other objectives supported poverty reduction indirectly, such as through the emphasis on improving agricultural productivity and commercialization, promoting infrastructure investments for growth, enhancing the provision of equitable services, and improving access to energy.

At the core of the World Bank Group’s development mandate is a commitment to protect those who are most vulnerable so that everyone – regardless of their gender, race, religion, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, or disability – can benefit from development. The Cooperation in International Waters in Africa (CIWA) is a World Bank program that provides support to address constraints to cooperative management and development of transboundary waters in sub-Saharan Africa. CIWA is committed to fostering an inclusive approach to the programming it supports. Concretely, CIWA wants to ensure that stakeholders directly involved with CIWA projects have sufficient understanding and capacity to create opportunities to promote equality and inclusion for women and men in all their diversities and sources of vulnerability within the transboundary water context. CIWA has therefore developed a tool kit specifically targeted to social development and related experts working to provide technical expertise on the development and implementation of CIWA programming at the institutional and project level. Working together with CIWA teams, it provides significant detail to assist experts to understand the critical steps they can take to facilitate the integration of social inclusion considerations throughout the project cycle. This note has been developed to provide an overview to CIWA staff members and partners of some of the main steps that can be taken so they can play a support role in the development and implementation of socially-inclusive programs within the transboundary water context at the project and institutional level.