Credit guarantee schemes (CGSs) are an increasingly popular form of government intervention in credit markets to ease access to finance for SMEs. CGSs are established to improve access to finance for SMEs and in some cases to deliver other important results such as investment and jobs. However, a crucial public policy question is whether or not these results are actually achieved.

To provide guidance to CGS managers, policymakers and stakeholders on how to design and implement an impact evaluation of CGSs, the World Bank Group and the FIRST Initiative in partnership with a task force of experts representing international associations of CGSs around the world have developed a Toolkit. The Toolkit, included in the consultative document, reviews a variety of existing impact evaluation techniques and proposes a selection process for an impact evaluation framework that is rigorous, credible, and at the same time practical, straightforward, and relatively inexpensive to implement.