IFI governance

Background

UK civil society meeting with UK World Bank Executive Director Gwen Hines

5 June 2014 | Minutes

Wednesday 2 April 2014
22 Whitehall, London

Attendees:

World Bank:

Gwen Hines, UK Executive Director to the World Bank (by video)

UK government:

Rachel Grant, DFID

NGOs:

Helen Tugendhat, Forest Peoples Programme

Tim Jones, Jubilee Debt Campaign

Petra Kjell, Bretton Woods Project

Peter Chowla, Bretton Woods Project

Steve Lewis, RESULTS

Ashfaq Khalfan, Amnesty International

Malavika Vartak, Amnesty International

Mohga Kamal-Yanni, Oxfam GB

 

Agenda

 

1. World Bank Group strategy, particularly Strategic Country Diagnostics and Country Partnership Framework plans

NGO points:

NGOs raised concerns with the Bank in early March about the lack of consultation on the proposed new Strategic Country Diagnostics (SCD) and Country Partnership Framework (CPF), and also highlighted that social and environmental risk assessment must form part of an analysis of the situation in a given country. We would like to state again that the consultation period is too short, with too little outreach to stakeholders.

As a content point, we want to point out that despite the SCD guidelines stating that their purpose is to ‘form the analytical basis’ for the Bank’s understanding of a country context, and to explore constraints and opportunities for development, the guidelines do not include any political economy, social, environmental or other assessment of risks. Without these aspects being considered, how can the SCD be said to be addressing the ‘constraints’ on development. The CPF will include risk analysis, but consideration of the political economy and ‘political realities’ (wording from the SCD guidelines) cannot be consigned to the CPF. All four ‘guide’ questions currently posed in the SCD guidelines are framed on growth alone, and the analytics for the bank must be wider than this.

NGOs – Safeguard review powerpoint mentions EBRD a lot as a model, but the EBRD policies are actually in some areas short of the Bank’s policies and NGOs have recently released a critique of the new draft policies and shown how lack of due diligence has led to violations such as forced evictions. In consultations on its current policy reforms, EBRD publicly accepted, for example, that it had less disclosure than IFC.

Gwen Hines:

  • Pressure in this end to be quicker because we want the new model rolled out because it is due to start in July; can’t be extended
  • Country strategies need to explicitly target the twin goals and sustainability.
  • Trying to balance WB corporate strategy, robust evidence and country goals
  • Need to be explicit in the SCD about disagreements, CPF is to be agreed together
  • In terms of env and social risks – we have to see a few documents to come through to see how this is happening. Need to be robust and evidence based, but also not too technical, and needs to do some political economy analysis. SCD should be analytical, CPF can take into account political economy.
  • IEG changes – country strategy evals to come earlier; more joint work with teams on project completion reports – to get evidence on what we should do
  • “Growth” is because there are a lot of economists who use shorthand. This is sustainability and inclusive growth
  • Paper for development committee next week will cover this bit on inclusivity
  • Copy specific changes you want to me, when you send them to the Bank, so we can consider them
  • It is very hard for the Bank to write down paragraphs on political situations, for example elections in a country. It is about the mandate of the Bank that constrains this.
  • New GP and CCSA directors to be announced – each one of those issues/areas can be in the SCD. We know we can’t cover every area/issue in every country. It is the shift in mindset and not just process – it can’t take 2 years. They will get better over time.
  • Nothing agreed on safeguards yet, still in the discussion phase, please send me the EBRD safeguards inputs

 

2. Health sector: Lesotho health PPP, Nutrition indicators

NGO points:

Report to be launched on Monday on Lesotho PPP hospital, with IFC as the main actor with AS; problems of lack of government capacity to negotiate, costs escalated despite being promised to be neutral, advice from IFC was flawed, PPP contractor is making high financial returns, bad result for the health budget’s usage for example for achieving UHC; we want IFC to fund an independent evaluation of this PPP, and stop promoting this as a model project; UK funds went to the AS for Lesotho – we want UK to stop funding IFC AS on health until we have this evaluation

Gwen Hines:

  • Look forward to looking at the report on Lesotho and seeing the numbers in the report, want to see the numbers in terms of cost overruns;
  • Has CAO been tasked to look at this? CAO might be the most appropriate way forward to look at this. We can talk to them.
  • We think the AS should continue, but we agree this might not be the best project to use as a best practice example.
  • As part of One WBG there is a look at consistency of advice, especially on PPPs. New health global practice director will look at this for sure.
  • Sometimes IFC AS are incredibly helpful, so we shouldn’t stop overnight. UK is a key part of this and we will take a look at this. Phil Stevens in my team will look at the cost-benefit analysis models on this project.

NGOs on nutrition:

1/Can the ED tell us if a  stunting indicator was included in the final version of IDA 17, at the Moscow meeting in December 13?

2/ When will the IDA 17 documents be published?

3/ When will we start getting results in this?

4/ Referring to a pledge made at the June 8th Nutrition for Growth Summit in London, the Bank said “The Bank commits to reviewing every project in the agriculture pipeline as a step towards ramping up actitivies that improve nutrition outcomes”. Can the ED tell us if this is happening and if the results will be captured / collated / available?

Gwen Hines:

1/ The UK was supportive of the indicator on nutrition and pressed for its inclusion in the RMS (Results Management System)  – the indicator is height for age.

You will also be pleased to know that stunting has also gone into the WBG tier 1 Apex scorecard. Another step forward is that the New HNP director is an expert on nutrition;

2/ IDA 17 report went to the board, it will be released any day

3/ The new indicators will begin to be collected in the new financial year 1st July 2014 so nothing will be reported till June 2015. A more useful focus will be the IDA17 mid-term review 18 months in (so potentially Dec 2015 tbc);

The WBG scorecard reports every year; but the nutrition team at the Bank are dependent on DHS data (Demographic Health Surveys). So we are thinking about proxies given that surveys areonly done every few years;

4/ Previously  agriculture reviews were under Rachel Kyte, but will now be with the agriculture global practice director. “I have already seen that agriculture projects coming to the board are getting better on nutrition component”,

I don’t know if the nutrition reviews of projects will be published in any way. I will  follow up on this.

 

3. Resettlement – Lagos, Badia East

NGO points:

We have sent you details on Badia East case. There are serious concerns on resettlement action plan (RAP), and lack of consultation, inadequate compensation, lack of effective remedy. This is a lack of compliance with resettlement policy framework; RAP clearly admits that Lagos is not fully using the Bank’s resettlement policy, but still the Bank has approved the RAP; we want a public statement of non-compliance and discussions with the Lagos state government, compensation as an interim measure, with an open process; and we have questions as to whether such non-compliance by Lagos with standards related to human rights was taken into account in considering whether new lending to Lagos may lead to further violations? While we have called for the financial compensation to be paid without delay as an interim measure we are concerned that the World Bank will be satisfied that “some compensation is being paid” and not ensuring compliance with their policy on resettlement.   Lagos is making people sign away right to make further claims in order to  this   compensation.

Gwen Hines:

IP chair, WB staff, and board thought the IP pilot process was helpful in getting some compensation paid, please tell why if you think differently; some compensation getting paid was a priority, which was a point NGOs had raised ; Bank staff thinks RAP was compliant and spent more than a year discussing it with Lagos government. If you think not, the option on the RAP is to challenge this through the IP, that process is still an option. Communities need to lodge a complaint in that case. The reality is that the Lagos government has to follow the Bank’s procedures, regardless of what Lagos’ government says in its rhetoric. New Lagos loan met all the requirements for that tool. IP investigation should not stop other projects in country. The interim compensation shouldn’t be viewed as the end point – no value judgement on level of compensation being sufficient – that should be determined through the RAP process.  And will check with Bank staff on why they think it complies.

 

4. IFC and financial intermediaries

NGO points:

India, Cambodia cases at CAO now, Guatemala there are serious concerns; We find the Action Plan unacceptable, and have proposed many specific additions; where does the UK stand on this?

On Dinant: Progress on lessons learned document? And revising the action plan?

Gwen Hines:

  • This is an ongoing issue; the Action Plan has[3]  been endorsed by CODE, it is approved by the board, it requires judgement to be exercised.
  • We are tracking CAO cases, We hope we see fewer of these cases coming forward. We are not saying there will be no cases.
  • Dinant is provoking a lot of discussions. Board is being tested – we don’t want the IFC to be required to do the individual subproject checking. FI model doesn’t work if IFC does all the due diligence itself for sub client[4] s, need a management systems approach. Is that checking sufficiently robust? We don’t expect all subclients to be checked. Some spot checking can happen.
  • Have you talked to Morgan Landy on this? He is new and had a different approach and is thinking hard about this
  • Bulk of the E&S staff are based in client countries to be near the projects
  • I routinely bug the IFC to equally prioritise E&S with finance
  • We left third party verification open, not uniform implementation but could consider for special cases; We are breaking new ground here in terms of audit – we need to find new mechanisms. We get an update on Dinant on Friday, we are trying to explore this. We will see new models in the future on the reporting.
  • On Dinant: We pushed for a revised action plan on Dinant – I have had 2 conversations with staff on investigations of allegations; Friday is board update on action plan and lessons learned; we pushed for full transparency on the lessons learned, but that may need to happen over time to protect the security of staff

 

5. AOB

NGO points:

Chixoy reparations: is the UK supporting Chixoy reparations? What is happening at the Bank?

Gwen Hines:

  • Talking a lot to the US and WB country director, we have a problem in responding to your supporters individually given the number of letters, we will do a standard reply which you can share with your supporters.

NGO points:

Kenya – Thank you for the UK delegation’s work on Kenya, we had a real change from WB management and the WB country director. The pressure is enormous, but the challenge we face is a lack of change in the on the ground situation. Can financial pressure be brought to bear?

Gwen Hines:

  • Would love to hear your views on the Kenya government letter. Be in touch with Phil to follow-up on this.

Gwen Hines on Bank restructure:

  • Lots of noise from the Bank staff to be expected given new global practice directors, the prospect of lower perks, and perhaps reduced staff levels, frankly I am very supportive of Kim and what he is doing