government capacity was lower. Finally, an additional finding of the evaluation is that clients in middle-income countries (MICs) prefer non-lending to lending services, and clients in all countries prefer TA to ESW.‖ (IEG, 2008) Furthermore, the World Bank has conducted research on its own research—that is, the publication record of the World Bank and its use by scholars. Ravallion and Wagstaff (2010) use bibliometric data to analyze the World Bank publications. They find that the sheer volume of publications on development surpasses any other academic institution. In terms of indicators of quality and relevance, the Bank‘s scholarly publications are on a level with, or superior to, the top universities. One somewhat negative finding, though, was that there is a fair share of publications that receive no citations.

The above discussion refers to scholarly use of the Bank‘s publications, but what about Bank staff themselves: do they use the Bank‘s research? Ravallion (2011) analyzes data from a recent survey of World Bank staff to find that the results are mixed. Most Bank senior staff value the Bank‘s research and know it well. On the other hand, a substantial minority find the research difficult to access. Others find little value in the research for their daily work. Poverty, human development and economic policy oriented staff seem to value and use the research more than staff in the more ―lending-intensive‖ sectors of agriculture, rural development, energy and mining, and transport and urban development.<sup>70</sup> The Bank‘s own Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) implicitly admitted that the measurement of development effectiveness of knowledge activities is weak when it put this topic on the agenda of their ―evaluation week‖ at the World Bank offices in the fall of 2011. At the center of the discussion was the first Knowledge Report produced by the Bank.<sup>71</sup> The Knowledge Report lays out a new knowledge strategy for the Bank and establishes a general results monitoring framework moving forward. It centers on three initiatives: (1) establish more detailed results monitoring indicators; (2) establish a comprehensive knowledge management framework with clear objectives; and (3) promote ―open‖ knowledge through publicly accessible data, research tools, free electronic publishing and knowledge platforms that partner with outside institutions (including other multilateral development banks). Part of this process is the annual production of these knowledge reports to track inputs (budget), outputs and results (to the extent feasible).

The first Knowledge Report commemorates the fifteenth anniversary of the ―Knowledge Bank‖: in 1996, World Bank President James Wolfensohn proposed this concept during the IMFWorld Bank Annual Meetings.<sup>72</sup> His initial proposal focused on improving networking and pooling of information on experience across countries to consolidate the lessons from experience and improving the sharing of information by the World Bank on its knowledge products. Part of the inspiration was the basic recognition of the small size of the Bank‘s overall portfolio: the

> 70 There are a number of initiatives to track the use of Bank analytic work.  For a review of work on human development issues, see Adam Wagstaff‘s blog at: http://blogs.worldbank.org/developmenttalk/are-the-knowledgebank-s-assets-actually-being-used-the-case-of-the-world-bank-s-human-development-s 71 See World Bank (2011).

> 72 See Cohen and La Porte (2004).   Also see the speech of President Wolfensohn at the Annual Meetings of the IMF and World Bank in 1996 where he proposed a ―new knowledge partnership.‖

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