The Safeguards Policy Review is one of two thematic studies, called the effectiveness of World Bank support for community-based and -driven development, (CBD/CDD Study). The study reviewed project appraisal, supervision, and completion documents for a sample of 84 projects to assess their compliance with the Bank's safeguard policies. A further review of the design and implementation experience of the same sample of CBD/CDD projects was done to help identify challenges CBD/CDD operations face in applying the Bank's safeguards and assess the extent to which the interventions complied with safeguard requirements. Four broad themes emerge from the analysis: (a) although there has been clear improvement, safeguard compliance in CBD/CDD projects does not yet fully meet Bank standards
(b) while quality at entry needs improvement, safeguards compliance during implementation warrants much greater attention by the Bank and borrowers, and may indicate the need for greater allocation of supervision resources
(c) gaps in the compliance system may be leading to significant environmental and social impacts, which may not be caught by the monitoring and reporting systems typically used
and (d) the Bank appears to have particular difficulty in ensuring safeguard compliance in its largest borrowers.