Memorandum submitted by Simon Burrall
THE WORLD
BANK IN
THE BROADER
AID ARCHITECTURE
1. This note focuses on the role of the
World Bank in the broader aid architecture and feeds into a submission
to the IDC from ODI on DFID's work and relationship with the World
Bank. It will focus primarily on two specific points raised in
the IDC's call for submissions:
a. Whether funding through the World Bank
is an effective mechanism for advancing DFID's overriding priority
of progress towards the MDGs; and
b. DFID support for making the multilateral
system more effective through better World Bank coordination with
other multilateral institutions, especially the UN agencies and
the International Monetary Fund.
ASSESSING MULTILATERAL
EFFECTIVENESS
2. Understanding and assessing the effectiveness
of aid delivered through different institutions in the international
system is obviously critical to understanding the effectiveness
of aid channelled through the World Bank. DFID carries out its
own assessments of the effectiveness of multilateral organisations
as well as contributing financially and intellectually to intergovernmental
attempts to assess effectiveness.
DFID's assessments
3. DFID's own Multilateral Effectiveness
Framework (MEFF) was published in 2005 and focuses on organisational
effectiveness, or the systems that need to be in place to ensure
development results. It draws on the results based management
(RBM) approach and assessed effectiveness in terms of eight systems;
corporate governance, corporate strategy, resource management,
operational management, quality assurance, staff management, monitoring,
evaluation and lesson learning, and reporting of results. It assessed
these systems across three dimensions: their focus on internal
performance, their focus on country-level results and their focus
on partnerships across three dimensions. DFID assessed 23 multilateral
organisations.[55]
Intergovernmental Assessments
4. The Multilateral Organisation Performance
Assessment Network (MOPAN) Survey is carried out by a group of
like-minded donor countries[56],
including the UK and is an assessment of multilateral organisations
in countries where they have bilateral programmes. MOPAN surveys
have been carried out on an annual basis since 2004. Three different
organisations have been assessed in each of the three surveys
to-date[57].
MOPAN captures the perceptions of in-country staff to assess behavioural
aspects of MO partnership performance with national stakeholders
and other development agencies in the country. The World Bank
was assessed in 2005.
5. Beginning in 2003, the Strategic Partnership
for Africa (SPA) has undertaken an annual survey to establish
the progress made by 20 budget support donors in aligning and
harmonising their activities in 15 Poverty Reduction Strategy
countries in Africa. The results are presented in a form that
prevents easy comparison between donors.
6. The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness
includes a process to monitor progress against the 12 indicators
in the Declaration. This survey is the first of three and is intended
to determine the baseline performance against the indicators to
enable future progress to be tracked. The survey was managed by
a National Coordinator who was appointed by the recipient government.
Questionnaires were separately completed by individual donors
and by the government.[58]
The Results of these Assessments
7. Overall the World Bank performs better
than average in all of these different assessments. Against many
of the individual indicators within the different methodologies,
it is often the best performer when compared to the regional development
banks and performs better than the majority of other multilateral
organisations assessed. The MOPAN survey of 2005 summarises the
World Bank's performance thus, " . . . a strong and influential
actor in development policy and cooperation . . ."[59].
DFID is now in the process of using the results from these assessments,
and other sources of information, to pull together a series of
scorecards for individual multilateral organisations. These will
be used to help to guide internal allocation decisions as well
as push for further reform.
The Missing Voice
8. DFID's assessments of multilateral effectiveness
use a mixture of RBM tools, project and donor evaluations and
perceptions data which is primarily drawn from donor staff, but
less frequently also draws on the perceptions of partner country
government officials. DFID is no different in this regard than
other bilateral donor agencies. Missing has been any systematic
survey of the perceptions of effectiveness of wider stakeholder
groups.
9. To plug this gap, DFID commissioned ODI
to undertake a six country pilot survey of the perceptions of
five different stakeholder groups of the effectiveness of multilateral
organisations (a copy of the project briefing and the full report
is enclosed with this submission). The results of this survey
clearly show that the range of criteria that recipient stakeholders
take into account when they assess multilateral effectiveness
differs from the range of criteria used within the assessment
methodologies used by donors. In particular it appears that stakeholders
place greater importance on the policies and procedures of donors—how
donors operate—rather than the way they fund. Additional
comments made by respondents to the survey suggest that issues
of ownership and governance are of particular importance.[60]
Given the clear consensus that ownership of the development process
is critical to aid effectiveness, embedding an understanding of
stakeholder perceptions into DFID's overall effectiveness assessments
will be critical.
BUILDING A
MORE EFFECTIVE
MULTILATERAL SYSTEM
10. There are two key international processes
ongoing where DFID has the opportunity to support more effective
coordination between the World Bank and other multilateral institutions.
The ECOSOC Biennial Development Cooperation Forum
11. Among the new functions assigned to
ECOSOC by the 2005 UN Summit was to convene a biennial Development
Cooperation Forum (DCF). The first DCF took place in Geneva in
July 2007. This regular forum is intended to: review trends in
international development cooperation, including strategies, policies
and financing; promote greater coherence among the development
activities of different development partners; and strengthen the
links between the normative and operational work of the UN. The
DCF will involve donor and recipient governments as well as a
wide range of intergovernmental and multilateral organisations.
In addition, the DCF is expected to open with a multi-stakeholder
dialogue. This will offer an opportunity, which is not present
in other international fora such as the OECD/ DAC for the involvement
of a broader range of actors in the debate about the reform of
the international aid architecture. Despite the first DCF having
already taken place, awareness about it and the opportunities
it represents remains very low.
Financing for Development
12. The United Nations hosted the International
Conference on Financing for Development (FfD) in 2002 in Monterrey.
FfD's main aim was to agree how the financial resources required
for achieving the MDGs could be raised. An important element of
the conference outcome was the mandated regular follow-up process.
In addition to the regular components of the follow-up process,
the UN General Assembly has agreed to hold a follow-up International
Conference on Financing for Development in Qatar in September
2008. A key part of the FfD process has been to address ways of
enhancing the coherence and consistency of the international monetary,
financial and trading systems in support of development. The international
conference therefore will offer opportunities for engagement in
debates about reform of the aid architecture in relation to other
elements of the institutions of global governance.
Suggested Questions for DFID
13. DFID appears committed to assessing
the views of a wider range of stakeholders as it makes its assessments
of multilateral effectiveness. It is concerned though that bilateral
assessments will have limited impact and is attempting to secure
the agreement of a broader group of bilateral donors to develop
a methodology to secure this broader range of views. What progress
is DFID making in securing the agreement of a broader group of
bilateral donors that recipient country stakeholder perceptions
about the effectiveness of the World Bank and other multilateral
organisations are an important element of overall assessments
of effectiveness?
14. What is DFID's assessment of the
progress made at the first DCF? What action is DFID taking with
its partners to ensure the success of the next DCF, particularly
in the area of enhancing cooperation between the World Bank and
other elements of the multilateral aid system?
15. What does DFID hope to achieve at
the next FfD conference in 2008?
55 Scott, 2005, DFID's Assessment of Multilateral Organisational
Effectiveness: an overview of results, DFID Back
56
Austria, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland
and the United Kingdom. Back
57
Multilateral Organisations Performance Assessment Network (MOPAN)
(2005) The MOPAN Survey 2005: Perceptions of Multilateral Partnerships
at Country Level; Multilateral Organisations Performance Assessment
Network (MOPAN) (2004) The MOPAN Survey 2004, Survey Report; Multilateral
Organisations Performance Assessment Network (MOPAN) (2006) The
Annual MOPAN Survey 2006: Donor Perceptions of Multilateral Partnerships
at Country Level. Back
58
OECD/DAC (2007) Aid Effectiveness, 2006 Survey on Monitoring the
Paris Declaration, Overview of the Results (Pre-publication copy),
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/0/45/38597363.pdfOECD/ DAC (2006)
[explanatory note http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/13/25/36306334.doc],
Accessed on 4 June 2007 Back
59
MOPAN Survey 2005, P7 Back
60
Burall et al, 2007, Assessing Key Stakeholder Perceptions of the
Effectiveness of Multilateral Organisations, ODI Back
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