An overview of the World Bank Group’s new country engagement model

Sponsor:  WBG (Operations Policy and Country Services Department)

Panelists:  Edward Mountfield (Manager, OPCS), John L. Nasir (Economic Adviser, OPCS), Ambar Narayan (Lead Economist, PREM), Arthur Karlin (Chief Strategy Officer, IFC)

Chair: Linda van Gelder

Presentations

John Nasir, World Bank

• We intend to build on the CAS process to be a better partner and more effective and focus on our goals, becoming more selective
• We want to unify WB Group efforts

• SCD is new, Ambar will explain
• CPF – identify objectives for the country/WBG: we start with the country’s own development plans, and then look for the elements that we can support; changes from the CAS: more focussed, flexible (modifications but for a longer time), WBG-wide
• PLR (Performance and Learning Review) – every 2 years engage with client to discuss needed changes in the programme – in partnership with stakeholders
• CLR (Completion and Learning Review) – learning tool mainly, use it for the design of the next CPF, plus gain lessons for rest of world
• Country Engagement Note will replace the existing ISN – this is for shorter-term engagements (like Myanmar or post-conflict). Expect fewer CENs and more CPFs
• Eliminate mandatory PRSP / JSAN process for IDA countries – countries will still do their own development strategies, especially as we had stuff upfront; will discuss with IMF in the CPF itself
• Goes into effect from 1 July 2014; from 1 Jan 2015 no more CAS

Ambar Narayan, World Bank on the SCD

• SCD is a WBG product; to identify the key development priorities and constraints and opportunities
• Should be based on best available evidence – not just from the World Bank – and find the gaps in knowledge that needs more attention
• Multi-sectoral teams including GPs and CCSAs, led by country team; robust, transparent and contestable review process
• Transparency based on ESW disclosure policy
• These are interim guidelines for now – broadly defined, by end of year we will finalise into full SCD guidelines
• SCD value added is the integration of analysis, plus enables selectivity based on evidence, an independent analysis
• Flexible model for citizen engagement and participation – recommendations but no fixed mechanisms for engagement; we might have best practices document later; we will get feedback to test the evidence and try to get ideas
• 5 areas/high level question: framing the issues, factors constraining growth, factors determining inclusivity of growth, how sustainable (env, social, fiscal) is growth, identify select priorities for the country

Arthur Karlin, IFC – Private sector is an essential part of achieving these goals, it is an integrated approach

Cherian Samuel, MIGA – we are moving to a country focussed approach, new instrument non-honouring of financial obligations will allow us to work with WBG other institutions; MIGA can work well when PPP is too complex

Discussion

Q: criteria for CSOs to be selected and engaged? Can you be more specific about you want from CSOs? We need a more two-way conversation between CSOs and WBG

Q: can the Bank push its values in a more proactive way?

Q: IFC- problems are in failure to understand context, how will WB help? On inequality – you need to look at the top part of the income distribution?

John – balancing our goals with client goals – there will be overlap; but there will be data and evidence, this allows us to push the bottom 40% We cannot impose our will, start from country vision

Ambar – history and country context is very important, you can’t be fully comprehensive, the goals will be the start of that; the extent of political economy analysis is important; on the top of the income bracket – in a way yes because we look at bottom 40% over time, and we will see inequality impact on institutions and policies, interaction of growth and households is markets (as well as institutions)

Arthur – integrating IFC thinking will add value, it will be a forum for discussing issues and coming to consensus

Linda – we haven’t been prescriptive on the consultation process, I take that we can do better, meaning interaction; management has recognised the importance with consultation guidelines, we need to continue to try to do better, similarly we need better beneficiary feedback and better use of the feedback

Q: rhetoric on consultation is good, but the practice is not living up; the Bank has a mixed record of meaningful consultation; the context of difficult environments and how to get CSO involved; the consultation on these guidelines are too short and too flawed. Where and which kind of risks are being assessed, at which point? Can we have more SESA?

Q: How is our feedback going to be used? What is the openness to change? Also can you build back in the work from Voices of the Poor? What is the risk rating tool? How will it address high power inequalities? How different will SCD be? Will there be human rights impact assessment? Ex-ante evaluation is better than ex-post, why are you doing the evaluation only every 2 years especially in high risk environments?

Q: How are you going to deal with capacity and strengthening of country systems?

Q: Impossible to get consultation in a couple of weeks, need to do some country standards assessment so that we can determine what are the highest possible standards. You need to turn the question around – not constraints to growth, it is about what is impoverishing people; no automatic assumption should be made on the need for large infrastructure. Lessons from IFC: need to recognise role of military, community consultation needed. Alarm at the way this is being structured and what constitute meaningful consultation.

Q: citizen engagement needs to be built into the design from the very beginning; SCD/CPF should make consultation mandatory; no diagnostics for citizen engagement in the country, how open is the country to this. Where do you take into context the political/social context?

Ambar

• Growth is not primary, our goals are primary; but evidence says growth is important to prosperity; growth is necessary but not sufficient to end poverty
• SCD will not do a HR assessment; we do have overlaps though with the HR community
• There can be trade-offs across goals, so we SCD teams to analyse those
• Need to take into account citizen views is not optional, it is the mechanism by which you do it that is optional; we are also working on some guidelines but it is too premature; we understand that there is little lead time, we can improve in the future
• SCD will be integrative, we will still do PSIA on specific policies or projects
• Risk is the flip side of sustainability; risk in the CPF and SCD will be different; env/social/fiscal risk will broadly be included in SCD, we would look at it from the point of view of the long-term
• Governance analysis is in the SCD, so is political economy and institutions

John

• Consultation is a requirement for SCD and CPF, we have guidelines coming out on this; time line is short because we need to roll out; this will be continuous process of learning by doing particularly over the next year
• PLR – continuous process of M&E going forward for the programmes, but every 2 years we do a full review and tell the board

Q: Fragile state SCD? Which countries piloting? Please share presentations

Q: What use will you make of natural capital accounting? Spatial planning as part of the exercise? SESA?

Q: role of the evaluation department? Coordination with RDBs?

Q: why did you not include HR assessment? ORAF would be more efficiently done upstream; CAO complaints are phrased in HR terms; safeguards review defined HR as a key emerging topic and HR is in the IFC/MIGA performance standards;

Q: IMF roles in CPF; IEG warning on selectivity; “Independence” is questioned when you have WB country staff leading

John

• We will continue to JSANs for HIPC countries; will treat the IMF as any other stakeholder
• CPF will not directly link to SCD, other development partners might work on some sectors, so we will try to coordinate with other partners (donors, RDBs, etc); we’ve talked about joint SCDs with partners
• IEG will continue to play role, IEG will validate CLR, it will have a robust role
• We are finalising a list of SCD countries, will be public soon; will do something similar to a PID for announcing the beginning of the process

Linda

• Safeguards is still a process, not finalised yet
• IEG will probably evaluate the process of doing this as some point; IEG looks at CAS now, so we will agree a methodology to look at CPF as well

Ambar

• We have guidance for using natural capital measures and the teams will use these
• Learning from failure is in the science of delivery more than other things; SCD cannot have the burden of analysing a specific project; forward looking exercise – not for reviving old arguments, there is space within the SCD for this

Linda: This is an ongoing process.