Public resources--if invested well in public infrastructure and services--can catalyze private and community e orts and unleash an inclusive growth and development process. But too often public projects are selectedto support political patronage, poorly designed, underfunded, long delayed, very costly, or badly implemented, with little bene t to the population. This is a critical challenge for many countries, both rich and poor. This book identi es eight key institutional features that countries need to adopt to ensure that public investments support growth and development. The Power of Public Investment Management provides a clear, nontechnical discussion on approaches to improving project appraisal, disciplining political intervention in project selection, dealing with uncertainty (an issue that is likely to grow in importance with the e ects of climate change), integrating procurement skills into project design and implementation, and managing the decision on public-private partnerships. Byproviding a simple but comprehensive framework and global experience, the book provides policy makers the guidance to adopt good functional principles in the design of institutions to strengthen public investment management.

The Public Investment Management (PIM) Reference Guide aims to convey country experiences and good international practices as a basis for decisions on how to address a country-specific PIM reform agenda. The country references are drawn largely from previous diagnostics and technical assistance reports of the World Bank. The application of country diagnostics and assessments has revealed a need to address the following issues when undertaking a country reform in PIM: • Clarification of the definition and scope of public investment and public investment management • Establishment of a sound legal, regulatory, and institutional setting for PIM, making sure it is linked to the budget process • Allocation of roles and responsibilities for key players in PIM across government • Strengthening of guidance on project preappraisal, appraisal, and selection-prioritization procedures and deepening of project appraisal methodologies • Integration of strategic planning, project appraisal-selection, and capital budgeting • Management of multiyear capital budget allocations and commitments • Efforts to address effective implementation, procurement, and monitoring of projects • Strengthening of asset management and ex post evaluation • Integration of PIM and public-private partnership (PPP) in a unified framework • Rationalization and prioritization of the existing PIM project portfolio • Development of a PIM database and information technology in the form of a PIM information system. The PIM Reference Guide does not seek to provide definitive answers or standard guidance for the common PIM issues facing countries. Nor does it seek to provide a detailed template for replication across countries: this would be impossible given the diversity of country situations. Instead, each chapter begins with an overview of the specific reform issue, lists approaches and experiences from different countries, and summarizes the references and good practices to be considered in designing country-specific reform actions.

This paper introduces a new index that captures the institutional environment underpinning public investment management across four different stages: project appraisal, selection, implementation, and evaluation. Covering 71 countries, including 40 low-income countries, the index allows for benchmarking across regions and country groups and for nuanced policy-relevant analysis and identification of specific areas where reform efforts could be prioritized. Potential research venues are outlined.

Public resources, if invested well in public infrastructure and services, can unleash inclusive growth and development. This report provides a simple but comprehensive framework and global experience, to help policy makers adopt good functional principles in the design of institutions to strengthen public investment management.

This publication aims to convey country experiences and good international practices as a basis for decisions on how to address a country-specific PIM reform agenda. The country references are drawn largely from previous diagnostics and technical assistance reports of the World Bank.The application of country diagnostics and assessments has revealed a need to address the following issues when undertaking a country reform in PIM: clarification of the definition and scope of public investment and public investment management; Establishment of a sound legal, regulatory, and institutional setting for PIM, making sure it is linked to the budget process; Allocation of roles and responsibilities for key players in PIM across government; Strengthening of guidance on project preappraisal, appraisal, and selection-prioritization procedures and deepening of project appraisal methodologies; Integration of strategic planning, project appraisal-selection, and capital budgeting; Management of multiyear capital budget allocations and commitments; Efforts to address effective implementation, procurement, and monitoring of projects; Strengthening of asset management and ex post evaluation; Integration of PIM and public-private partnership (PPP) in a unified framework; Rationalization and prioritization of the existing PIM project portfolio; Development of a PIM database and information technology in the form of a PIM information system.The PIM Reference Guide does not seek to provide definitive answers or standard guidance for the common PIM issues facing countries. Nor does it seek to provide a detailed template for replication across countries: this would be impossible given the diversity of country situations. Instead, each chapter begins with an overview of the specific reform issue, lists approaches and experiences from different countries, and summarizes the references and good practices to be considered in designing country-specific reform actions.

This report reviews how various countries are seeking to boost public investment management performance (PIMP) in response to the current economic downturn. Public investment, for the purposes of this review, includes investment by the general government plus investment by government-owned corporations. The report was commissioned for the Public Sector Performance Global Expert Team (PSP GET) at the World Bank. The report focuses on the potential roles for public investment management in the current downturn, including: i) scaling-up investment spending i.e. simply doing more; ii) selecting investments that are likely to be most effective in terms of stimulating the economy or protecting particular social/vulnerable groups; iii) helping to accelerate investments by reducing the time between conception to implementation; and iv) other improvements in the general quality of investment spending, i.e. reducing waste or enhancing efficiency and effectiveness.

We evaluate the direct employment effect of the public investment in key infrastructure—electricity, roads, schools and hospitals, and water and sanitation. Using rich firm-level panel data from 41 countries over 19 years, we estimate that US$1 million of public spending in infrastructure create 3–7 jobs in advanced economies, 10–17 jobs in emerging market economies, and 16–30 jobs in low-income developing countries. As a comparison, US$1 million public spending on R&D yields 5–11 jobs in R&D in OECD countries. Green investment and investment with a larger R&D component deliver higher employment effect. Overall, we estimate that one percent of global GDP in public investment can create more than seven million jobs worldwide through its direct employment effects alone.