This post is also available in: Arabic
This new issue shines the spotlight on the World Bank Group’s new Corporate Strategy and what it will mean for how the Bank sets plans in borrowing countries. It also spotlights BIC-MENA and partner CSO engagements with the World Bank during the 2013 Annual Meetings. The issue also provides brief summary and analysis of two new Bank initiatives for CSO engagement.
Spotlight 1: Reorganization: The new World Bank Group Strategy
With the arrival of a new president, and in response to the changing development landscape, the World Bank Group (WBG) is embarking on an ambitious corporate reorganization plan in an attempt to stay relevant and to reposition itself in the field. The new WBG Strategy was approved during the October 2013 Annual Meetings and establishes two goals that will set the foundation of Bank’s new strategy and operations. The goals are (1) ending extreme poverty by 2030 with the aim of lowering the percentage of people living on less than $1.25 a day to no more than 3 percent by 2030 [currently at 18 percent]; and (2) promoting shared prosperity through focusing on the income growth of the bottom 40 percent of the population in every country.
The Bank Group has plans to integrate these goals into all its instruments and operations in an effort to become a “Solutions Bank” – a phrase we can expect to hear a lot of in the coming period – which the Bank describes as meaning being more evidence-focused with a stronger emphasis on early diagnostics and performance and learning reviews. Below, BIC-MENA identifies and discusses some of the key aspects of the new WBG strategy we think might be of interest to CSOs in the Middle East and North Africa.
New WBG country planning – what this shift could mean for CSOs
As part of its new corporate strategy, the WBG will be implementing a new model for how it develops programmatic plans in borrowing countries, using the following new instruments: A Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD), a Country Partnership Framework (CPF), which would replace the current Country Assistance/Partnership Strategy (CAS/CPS), and Performance and Learning Reviews to identify and capture lessons learnt throughout implementation of its project portfolio.
Systematic Country Diagnostics
Starting in July 2014, the Bank plans to use a Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) to serve as an instrument to identify the constraints and opportunities for reaching the development goals of the country in question. According to Bank documents, the SCD will build on existing country research and analysis, but will also focus on identifying the most critical and pressing issues. While the concept of the SCD makes a lot of sense, its usefulness will be determined by how robust it is and how much analysis it captures. In other words, if the Bank chooses to simply collect existing studies that have been prepared outside of the SCD context and in isolation from one another, capturing an accurate “diagnosis” of a country’s context, capacities, needs and risks will not be easily achieved. It is crucial that the Bank identifies and tackles the root causes of problems –not just their symptoms– and puts efforts into developing a holistic approach to its diagnostics and country engagements. Performing country wide or sector specific social and environmental assessments at this stage–as opposed to only at the project level– is one key component of adopting such a holistic approach. At this stage, it will also be critical to have a broad spectrum of voices providing input to the diagnostic to ensure that the picture being drawn is as accurate as possible. The Bank ought to make an increased effort to seek input from communities – especially those living in absolute poverty given that this will now be a priority target group for the Bank – and so consultation with communities and civil society at the stage of the SCD will be vital in this regard.
Country Partnership Frameworks
A new so-called Country Partnership Framework (CPF) will complement the SCD and will replace the current Country Assistance/Partnership Strategy (CAS/CPS). The new CPF will apparently feature a more rigorous analytical framework than the current CAS/CPS and will align closely with the two WBG goals according to the new corporate strategy. With regards to consultation, in the current CAS/CPS model, the Bank is supposed to consult with civil society, the government and the private sector. However, based on BIC’s experiences, the quality of civil society consultations in the Middle East and North Africa has not been ideal; it has been difficult for people to know when the meetings are happening; information is scarce and provided late, and civil society has always been left questioning if their voices were heard. If the Bank is serious about producing new strategies that are more “rigorous” and “analytical,” it is important that consultations with civil society be done in the early stages of the CPF process and that this stakeholder group be engaged throughout the process. Moreover, consultations should have a feedback mechanism incorporated in them so that those who are consulted know if and how their inputs were incorporated into the strategy and if not, then why. BIC is actively working on a campaign to pressure the Bank to hold open and meaningful country strategy consultation processes in the MENA region. We hope that the new Country Partnership Framework instrument will present an opportunity for Bank staff to start a fresh page and begin taking consultations with CSOs more seriously.
Performance and Learning Reviews
Similarly to the CAS/CPS, the CPF will presumably also cover a period of 3-5 years. Throughout the implementation and at the end of the CPF period, the Bank will conduct Performance and Learning Reviews of its portfolio to identify and capture lessons and determine midcourse corrections. The Reviews will be guided by the two strategic goals of reducing poverty and increasing prosperity, as well as by the different approaches the Bank identifies as necessary to achieve those two goals. In order for the Bank to accurately capture lessons learned, it is our opinion that these Reviews should not be based solely on reports provided by the various governmental or private agencies implementing Bank-funded projects but that they should rather be complemented by inputs from affected citizens. Currently, and while the Bank recognizes the importance of getting citizens engaged in monitoring the implementation of the projects that it funds, it doesn’t disclose enough information on the implementation of those projects. The Implementation Status Reports disclosed in accordance with the Bank’s Access to Information (AI) Policy do not contain nearly enough information. It is yet to be seen if the Bank will review its AI policy to stay true to its new strategic goals.
Through our various meetings and interactions with the Bank, BIC’s MENA team learned that much of the details of the Bank’s new strategy and instruments are still unclear – even to senior Bank management itself– and have yet to be fully fleshed out and developed. This presents an opportunity for CSOs and other stakeholders to engage early with the Bank to influence the design and the mechanics of these components, which will ultimately set the foundation for how the Bank engages with countries, including its citizens. BIC-MENA will closely follow the latest developments and provide relevant resources and information in the coming months.
Spotlight 2: BIC-MENA welcomed 11 CSO partners from Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen for World Bank’s Annual Meetings; pushed for CSO consultation at the country strategy level
BIC MENA hosted 11 CSO partner representatives from across the region working on various issues such as access to land and housing, economic rights and community engagement, to attend the World Bank/International Monetary Fund 2013 Annual Meetings and the Civil Society Policy Forum which runs parallel to them. Our partners participated in several meetings, panels and trainings during the week of October 7th – 12th, 2013 to present proposals about participation in country partnership strategies, while expressing their concerns about problem projects to relevant Bank staff directly.
All CSO representatives from the region were invited to participate in a meeting with the Bank’s Vice President for the MENA region, Inger Andersen. BIC-MENA also organized and facilitated several meetings for CSO partners with other high level officials; the participants from Egypt and Yemen met with their representative on the Bank’s Board of Directors, Dr. Merza Hasan, Country Director for Egypt and Yemen, Hartwig Schaefer, and Country Manager for Yemen, Wael Zakout, as well as the Bank’s Inspection Panel and the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO) of the IFC. Our Tunisian partners held meetings with Country Director for the Maghreb, Simon Gray, and Country Manager for Tunisia, Eileen Murray.
The meetings provided a face-to-face opportunity for discussions about lessons learned and new ideas for consultations from the viewpoint of both the Bank, as well as the CSOs from the region. Mr. Schaefer and Mr. Zakout specifically asked our partners to follow up with tools and fresh ideas that CSOs would like to see integrated into the Bank country strategy consultation process. Both parties agreed to continue the discussions when they return to the region. Within the context of CPS consultations, BIC-MENA organized a panel comprising CSO representatives and Bank staff to further the discussion on CPS consultations and bridge information and expectation gaps between the Bank and civil society.
BIC-MENA also organized region- and country-specific strategy sessions for our partners, focusing on how to frame advocacy messages, upcoming opportunities for influencing the Bank, and peer learning between the CSO representatives. These strategy sessions were crucial in order to identify and build new avenues for collaboration on issues that the CSOs want to push for in the upcoming World Bank Country Strategies that will be developed for Egypt, Yemen and Tunisia in 2014.
The CSO representatives BIC-MENA hosted from the MENA region were:
Tunisia: Selima Abbou (Touensa), Yazid Skandrani (Touensa), Adel Beznine (Independent activist).
Egypt: Mohamed Abdel Azim (Egyptian Center for Civil and Legislative Reform), Mahinour El-Badrawi (Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights), Abdelmawla Ismail (Egyptian Association for Collective Rights), Habiba Ramadan (Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights), Joseph Schechla (Habitat International Coalition/Housing and Land Rights Network), Yahia Shawkat (Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights), Baher Shawky (Egyptian Center for Civil and Legislative Reform).
Yemen: Sameera Balah (Min Haqqy Organization – My Right for Awareness and Development Organization). BIC’s Yemen consultant, Lina Al-Saffi also joined us in Washington, DC for the meetings. (Note: The Yemeni delegation was limited in size because the other individuals we invited were unable to secure visas).
Spotlight 3: Bank Initiatives for CSO Engagement
World Bank mainstreaming citizen engagement, piloting in MENA
The World Bank Group has recently committed to mainstreaming citizen engagement (CE) across country engagements and operations. Not surprisingly perhaps, given the recent political and social shifts in the region, the Bank has opted to pilot the CE initiative in the MENA region. This is a welcome but challenging step and we are excited to see how the Bank rolls out its plans given that the initiative in many ways consolidates a lot of what civil society has been demanding for a while. A cautionary note is that while the CE guidance note places much weight on non-state actors being able to hold their own governments accountable, it perhaps does not assign enough weight to how the Bank is committed to maintaining responsibility for the projects and programs that it funds. BIC-MENA will be producing more in-depth analysis of the Bank’s citizen engagement program, so stay tuned!
Read the WB blog post on citizen engagement.
World Bank launches new Consultation Guidelines and Hub
The WBG has developed a new set of Consultation Guidelines which include strong principles for Bank staff to refer to when organizing consultations. This is a positive development and we hope that civil society will also use the document as a reference point for pressuring the Bank to hold meaningful consultations. The Bank also launched an online Consultations Hub, where CSOs and other stakeholders can obtain information and give feedback on projects and consultations. The website is currently only in English and we have recommended that the Bank have it available in different languages, including Arabic, before it starts publicizing and seeking comments for consultations through this new tool. Given that the new Guidelines are not mandatory, and are rather simply best practices that Bank staff is encouraged to use, we strongly urge that senior Bank management mandate and provide the necessary resources for Bank staff in the MENA region to follow the new Guidelines as a minimum standard and do more whenever possible, especially given that the MENA region is a pilot for Citizen Engagement as is described in the previous section.