EFI TRUST FUND PORTFOLIO

    Umbrella Facility for Poverty
    and Equity (UFPE)
    A global partnership to maximize the impacts of World
    Bank and client interventions on poverty and equity



       About the Trust Fund

       Duration: 2021-2028

       Geographic Scope: Global, regional and country levels

       Managing Global Practice: Poverty & Equity Global Practice, World Bank

       Current Partners (as of January 2022): Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Germany, the United
       Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and Sweden




             Purpose

The Umbrella Facility for Poverty and Equity (UFPE) is a new global partnership to inform and support the
design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of policies and programs to reduce poverty and promote
equity. The UFPE is the first global facility to focus on cross-cutting poverty and equity interventions. As data
and evidence are the foundation of development policy and effective implementation, the UFPE will help
maximize the impact of work being done across the World Bank to end extreme poverty, boost shared
prosperity, and fulfill the Sustainable Development Goals.

The value the UFPE brings to the umbrella landscape is:
•    Strengthening coordination and global partnerships on poverty and equity.
•    Leveraging WBG and government resources to amplify impact through the systematic application of a
     poverty and equity lens to policies and programs.
•    Leading and promoting innovation to address new poverty and equity challenges and support scale-up of
     proven solutions.
•    Advancing global knowledge on poverty and equity and facilitating knowledge sharing and learning at the
     country, regional and global levels.
•    Building country capacity to modernize national statistical systems.
•    Creating policy-relevant global public goods.

The UFPE also plays a critical role in supporting the successful implementation of the IDA19 and IDA20
Commitments on Data for Policy (D4P), the Jobs and Economic Transformation (JET) agenda, and COVID-19
relief and response efforts.
           Approach

The UFPE strategy aims to: (i) build the evidence base for policies and programs to promote poverty reduction
and equity through investments in data and analysis; and (ii) maximize operational effectiveness through
investments in targeting and monitoring tools and applying behavioral insights for policy and program design
and implementation.


I. BUILDING THE EVIDENCE BASE

PRIORITY AREA 1: DATA FOR POVERTY AND EQUITY-INFORMED POLICIES
The availability of timely, relevant and good-quality data is critical for effective and efficient decision making,
resource allocation and service delivery. Data are crucial to knowing where a country stands in terms of social
and human development and to assess the challenges ahead. Data are also needed to understand which
policies work and do not work for pro-poor and equitable economic growth and addressing social deprivations.
Across countries, comparable data are also needed to monitor progress towards the eradication of extreme
poverty and, more broadly, the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
To this end, the UFPE supports the Data for Policy (D4P) initiative, a priority policy commitment under IDA19
and IDA20, that helps modernize and strengthen the capacity of national statistical systems to be fit-for-
purpose for the data revolution. Under the D4P, the UFPE prioritizes data utilization, specifically embedding
evidence in policymaking. In addition to the D4P, the UFPE supports bringing visibility to invisible and
vulnerable groups (including women) through the production, use and dissemination of data, and
strengthening and innovating global welfare measurement and monitoring.


PRIORITY AREA 2: ANALYSIS FOR POVERTY AND EQUITY-INFORMED POLICIES
Understanding who the poor and vulnerable are, where they live and work, and how they are affected by
markets, institutions, risks, and government action is critical to designing policies and programs that tackle the
root causes of poverty and inequality in a sustainable way. Building a robust evidence base for poverty and
equity-informed policy is critical to ensuring that policies and programs improve well-being in society. For this
purpose, the UFPE supports analysis to understand the macro- and microeconomic drivers of and constraints
to poverty reduction and equity and assess the distributional impacts of selected policies, programs and
shocks to make policies work better for the poor and vulnerable. Example areas of distributional analysis
include taxes and expenditures, private sector development and competition, infrastructure, trade, spatial
transformation, labor markets, fragility and conflict, and climate shocks.


II. MAXIMIZING OPERATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS


PRIORITY AREA 3: ENHANCING OPERATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS FOR POVERTY REDUCTION AND
EQUITY
The success of development policies and programs depends as much on successful implementation as it does
on design. Policies and programs may fall short of their intended impact due to behavioral barriers that
undermine effective performance or limit beneficiary uptake of intended outcomes. Similarly, imperfect
alignment between objectives and resources and implementation bottlenecks, particularly in the early stages of
policy or program rollout, can hinder performance and, ultimately, compromise impact. Mainstreaming tools
and approaches that can help address behavioral, targeting, and implementation challenges for World Bank
and governments interventions could have significant payoffs in terms of enhanced operational effectiveness
for poverty reduction and equity. In this context, the UFPE supports the application of behavioral insights for
program design and implementation and tools for improved targeting and monitoring of policies and programs
with a poverty and equity focus.
                 Management and Implementation

   The UFPE is managed by the Poverty and Equity Global Practice. The Umbrella’s direction and strategic
   priorities are guided by the Partnership Council (PC). The PC is comprised of representatives from all
   contributing Development Partners that, as of January 2022, include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the
   Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), acting through and on behalf of the German
   Federal Ministry for Economic Development, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, acting
   through the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), and Sweden, acting through the
   Swedish International Development and Cooperation Agency (SIDA). The program also coordinates and
   collaborates closely with many World Bank teams and external partners, reflecting the importance and cross-
   cutting nature of the poverty and equity agenda.

   Resources are deployed to global, regional and county teams to support primarily bank-executed activities,
   although recipient-execution is may be considered in limited contexts. Global activities focus on the creation of
   policy-relevant global public goods, while regional and country activities focus on bringing a poverty and equity
   lens to operational and policy engagements. There are four main funding windows that align with the
   Umbrella’s strategy: (i) data for poverty and equity-informed policies; (ii) analysis for poverty and equity-
   informed policies; (iii) operational targeting and monitoring tools; and (iv) behavioral insights for program
   design and implementation.




Contact Information                                       Carolina Sánchez-Páramo           Jessica Adler
                                                          Global Director, Poverty and      Umbrella Program
For further details about the Umbrella Facility for       Equity Global Practice            Manager
Poverty and Equity, please contact:                       csanchezparamo@worldbank.org      jadler@worldbank.org