Argentina

Ratings for the Provincial Maternal-Child Health Sector Adjustment Loan Project for Argentina were as follows: outcomes were satisfactory, risk to development outcome... Show More + was moderate, Bank performance was highly satisfactory, and borrower performance was satisfactory. Ratings for the Provincial Maternal-Child Health Sector Investment Project for Argentina were as follows: outcomes were satisfactory, risk to development outcome was moderate, Bank performance was highly satisfactory, and borrower performance was moderately satisfactory. Ratings for the Family Health Extension Adaptable Lending Project for Brazil were as follows: outcomes were satisfactory, risk to development outcome was moderate, Bank performance was highly satisfactory, and borrower performance was satisfactory. Some lessons learned included: An important finding from this three-project assessment is the comprehensive and innovative approach used by International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) to support existing government health reform programs. Reforms included institution building, legal changes, reorganization of the care process, training of medical and administrative staff, modification of financial incentive framework, data collection and analysis, audits of performance data, and regular feed-back of results to government units and providers. Both countries aimed to improve health outcomes and system performance with the reforms. While the peer-reviewed literature identified various factors that have contributed to decreasing infant mortality rates in addition to improved access to family medicine; both countries made substantial progress in advancing the health reforms. Modifying the incentive framework required upfront investment in data collection and analysis. In both countries IBRD disbursed earmarked health funds tied to tangible results to the government to target existing health reform programs. The central governments applied the same approach to transfer additional health funds tied to performance targets to the local governments. Show Less -

The principal ratings for the Argentina National Highways Rehabilitation and Maintenance Project are as follows: the outcome was moderately satisfactory, the risk to... Show More + development outcome was moderate, the Bank performance was satisfactory, and the borrower performance was moderately satisfactory. Some of the lessons learned from the project include the following: performance-based contracts for road maintenance, such as the CREMA contracts, are an efficient tool of maintenance management, and likely to be useful to other countries looking for ways to increase the effectiveness of their road maintenance management systems; A road maintenance strategy should include a menu of management options with maintenance carried out by the private sector, thus improving efficiency and reducing the extent of maintenance carried out by government personnel; and project components which are fully locally-financed are useful parts of a project as they provide a more complete perspective of the sector assisted by a project, yet they are difficult to monitor. Show Less -

The First Secondary Education Project of Argentina had the following ratings: outcome was moderately satisfactory; risk to development outcome was moderate; Bank performance... Show More + was satisfactory; and borrower performance was satisfactory. The Second Secondary Education Project of Argentina had the following ratings: outcome was moderately satisfactory; risk to development outcome was moderate; Bank performance was satisfactory; and borrower performance was satisfactory. The Third Secondary Education Project of Argentina had the following ratings: outcome was moderately satisfactory; risk to development outcome was moderate; Bank performance was satisfactory; and borrower performance was satisfactory. Lessons learned from this assessment included: 1) Argentina may benefit from interventions to maximize student engagement in learning activities and thus increase systemic efficiency and learning outcomes. Policies could include offering textbooks to students and rationalizing teaching hours in schools; 2) Reading skill influences achievement in secondary education, and low reading skills may account for students' failure in schools. Unless students get considerable practice in reading during primary school, they remain slow readers and may be unable to interpret complex text or get through the substantial amounts normally expected in secondary school; 3) Monitoring indicators to track progress towards the attainment of longer term objectives such as improved learning outcomes must be included in the project design; otherwise it may be impossible to evaluate whether changes are attributable to project interventions or the lack incentives to focus on learning outcomes; and 4) Decentralization of school management to provinces and municipalities is not a panacea. Unless managers are strong and can effectively supervise and control quality, the poor may receive limited service due to ineffective oversight. Show Less -