The Operations Evaluation Department is pleased to announce the Fourth World BankConference on Evaluation and Development - The Partnership Dimension. The Conference will be held on July 23-24, 2001, in Washington, D.C.

The idea of partnership in development is not new. Three decades ago, Lester Pearson in Partners in Development pointed to the need for partnerships between donors and recipients of development assistance. Since then, the concept of partnership has come increasingly into use to describe a wide range of links across the development community: between development institutions, between donors and recipients, and between the public, private and civil sectors. Given the extensive experience in recent years with the establishment and implementation of partnerships, and their growing role for defining linkages and processes in the development assistance system at the global, national and local levels, the time has come to come together and discuss the extent to which the concept has met expectations, identify factors associated with success and failure, and derive lessons and implications for the future.