Search 3043 lessons extracted from 991 World Bank project evaluations across 176 countries. Find what worked, what failed, and why — before you design your next project.
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📚 Each item on the DFAT procurement pipeline links directly to lessons from similar projects.
What it is. A searchable database of 3043 lessons extracted from 991 recent World Bank Implementation Completion Report Reviews (ICR Reviews). Each lesson is tagged by topic, linked to its source project with outcome ratings, and searchable by keyword.
How it works. Lessons are extracted from the full text of ICR Reviews via the World Bank Documents API. Each lesson is tagged using keyword matching against 14 topic categories (procurement, M&E, community participation, sustainability, etc.). Search uses client-side keyword matching — no server, no model calls, no data leaves your browser.
Who it is for. Project designers writing concept notes or proposals, bid teams researching predecessors, M&E specialists designing frameworks, and anyone preparing a new development intervention who wants to learn from what happened before.
Limitations. Lessons are extracted by pattern matching from ICR Review text, not manually curated. Some lessons may be truncated or miss context. The keyword tagger captures ~72% of lessons; untagged lessons still appear in keyword searches. Coverage: 991 of 7,300+ available ICR Reviews — the most recent evaluations across all regions and sectors. Older and less common document types are not yet included.
Source. World Bank Documents & Reports API. Data fetched 2026-10-07. See the synthesis analysis →