It gives me great pleasure to announce the winners of the First Annual "Improving the Lives of People in ECA" Competition.

We received about 60 proposals covering a wide variety of ECA's work — knowledge products, DPLs, investment projects, M&E work — and almost all subsectors and countries. Judges on the panel, from within ECA and outside the Region, all agreed that all the submissions were excellent. We aimed for about 15 winners but choosing the best among the best presented a real challenge for the jury. We ended up going beyond our target, awarding 19 prizes for a total of 22 activities. The winning entries showcase results, real impact, achieved with our support as well as solid work to monitor and evaluate those results. They illustrate the value of innovation, solid implementation, and sustainability.

The winners are listed below in alphabetical order by country. Beside them, we have noted the strategic pillars to which each one contributes:

• 1 = Poor Countries
• 2 = Fragile and Conflict Affected Countries
• 3 = Middle Income Countries
• 4 = Global Public Goods
• 5 = Knowledge and Learning

• Armenia Dam Safety Project (1)
• Armenia Programmatic Poverty Assessment (1)
• Bosnia and Herzegovina—Country Program that has supported progress after conflict (showcasing three BiH projects as examples—Solid Waste Management, Pilot Cultural Heritage, and Local Initiatives Microfinance) (2)
• Bulgaria Revenue Administration Reform Project (3)
• Georgia Program of Poverty Reduction Support Operations (1)
• Kazakhstan Syr Darya Control and Northern Aral Sea Phase 1Project (3, 4)
• Kyrgyz Republic Health and Social Protection Sector-Wide Approach (1)
• Moldova AIDS Control Project (1, 4)
• Moldova Pilot Water Supply and Sanitation Project (1)
• Multicountry Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (5)
• Multicountry European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (5)
• Multicountry Knowledge Economy Fora (5)
• Multicountry Public Expenditure Management Peer Assisted Learning (5)
• Multicountry Registration, Cadastre and Land Administration Projects (showcasing two projects as examples—Bulgaria Registration and Cadastre and Kyrgyz Republic Land Registration (1, 3)
• Multicountry Roma Education Fund (4)
• Romania Rural Education Project (3)
• Turkey Marmara Earthquake Emergency Reconstruction (3)
• Turkey Social Risk Mitigation Project, Conditional Cash Transfer Component (3)
• Ukraine People's Voice (3, 5)

The selection of activities dedicated to knowledge generation and transfer proved particularly difficult. We are all still learning how best to track results for knowledge activities: attribution can be difficult; and there is a chain of intermediate effects before the general citizenry may feel the impact. Nevertheless, the winning proposals were selected on the grounds that they are well implemented and widely appreciated, especially where convening peer groups to share experience is an important element. ECA has an important role to play for the Bank in advancing this discussion.

I invite you all to celebrate with this inaugural year's winners the results in ECA countries, and our endeavor to improving the lives of people in ECA.

Please join me in congratulating the winners.

Best wishes,
Shigeo