DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE (Joint Ministerial Committee of the Boards of Governors of the Bank and the Fund on the Transfer of Real Resources to Developing Countries) NINETY-SIXTH MEETING WASHINGTON, D.C. – OCTOBER 14, 2017 DC/S/2017-0039(E) October 14, 2017 Statement by H.E. Hadizatou Rosine Coulibaly/Sori Minister of State for Planning and Development Burkina Faso On behalf of the Group II African Countries Statement by H.E. Hadizatou Rosine Coulibably/Sori Minister of State for Planning and Development Burkina Faso On behalf of the Group II African Countries 96th Meeting of the Development Committee October 14, 2017 Washington, D.C. My statement focuses on the four topics appearing on the agenda for our meeting, namely: 1. The World Development Report 2018: Learning to Realize Education’s Promise; 2. Maximizing Finance for Development: Leveraging the Private Sector for Growth and Sustainable Development; 3. Progress Report on Shareholding and; 4. Forward Look Implementation Update. I. WORLD DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2018: LEARNING TO REALIZE EDUCATION’S PROMISE We commend the Executive Directors and the Senior Management of the World Bank for the 2018 World Development Report on education. It was indeed time for the World Bank Group (WBG) to take a look at what the report does not hesitate to name: a crisis in education. This scourge is afflicting African education systems in particular. We believe that a distinction must be drawn between schooling and learning. We also agree with the finding that schooling without learning is a wasted opportunity and a great injustice. Furthermore, schooling without learning cannot fully live up to its promise as an instrument for eradicating poverty and promoting shared prosperity. Learning must therefore be improved at all levels of education. The WBG must put all technical, institutional, and financial arrangements in place to help all our States tackle this recognized crisis. Given that human development is both the means and the end of development, we call on the WBG to expeditiously implement the findings of this report and the pillars of its 2020 Education Strategy: Learning for All. We note that governments, mindful of the issue of human resources, will have to seek to achieve the best outcomes by putting an array of well-designed assessments in place to help teachers guide students, improve management of the system, and focus on learning. We understand that these measures can be used to identify inequalities, clarify policy choices, and monitor progress made. However, the WBG must work alongside States to support this process by providing adequate technical assistance and financing that will strengthen the public resources arising from the necessary increase in national education budgets. The WBG must also use its new “cascade” approach to help enhance the level and quality of private investment in this sector. Development partners and governments must place greater emphasis not only on financing education but also on learning and vocational training outcomes to help diversify and industrialize our economies. With close to 11 million young people entering the job market in Africa each year over the next decade, we expect the focus that will be placed on learning will help prepare young people to secure current and future jobs through learning for work and life. II. MAXIMIZING FINANCE FOR DEVELOPMENT (MFD): LEVERAGING THE PRIVATE SECTOR FOR GROWTH AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT We welcome the MFD initiative that seeks to maximize finance for development, thereby creating a framework for implementing the findings of the 2015 Addis Ababa Summit on financing for development, which recommend moving from billions of dollars in official development assistance (ODA) to trillions in resource flows to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs). We understand that this initiative implements the approach agreed upon by the multilateral development banks (MDBs) in order to more effectively use their financial leverage, scale up resource mobilization, and stimulate the private sector, in accordance with the Hamburg principles. We note that, based on the Addis Ababa Action Agenda reaffirmed in Hamburg, the WBG is committed to helping countries maximize financing for development, while preserving the public debt sustainability of countries. We believe that priority must be given to the search for solutions involving the private sector and scarce public resources must be set aside for the areas where they are needed most. To that end, we welcome the “cascade” approach recently introduced by the WBG to implement this initiative. We encourage the WBG to build on coordination and synergy among the various entities within the Group at the strategic and operational levels, market creation mechanisms of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the IDA18 window for the private sector, and the adjustments within the organization currently under way, with a view to achieving optimal results with the implementation of the MFD initiative and the “cascade” approach. We are pleased with the selection of two countries from our Group (Cameroon and Côte d’Ivoire) to represent Sub-Saharan Africa among the nine pilot countries identified to test the MFD approach. We are confident of a favorable outcome to this pilot exercise and look forward to the lessons to be learned from this experience. We call on the WBG to implement the MFD approach in all our countries as soon as possible upon conclusion of the pilot exercise. In the same vein of expanding financing for development to achieve the SDGs, we reiterate our call to the World Bank to step up the process already under way to help African countries combat illicit financial flows (IFFs) and build their capacity to mobilize internal resources. While we believe that the existing mechanisms for coordination among development partners are adequate, collaboration between governments and their respective private sectors must be strengthened. III. PROGRESS REPORT ON SHAREHOLDING We would like to once again express our gratitude to the Executive Directors and Senior Management of the World Bank for this report that presents the work that they have accomplished with respect to rebalancing shareholding based on three pillars: (i) the agreement on the Dynamic Formula and the package of commitments; (ii) the agreed shareholding review principles; and (iii) formula guidance. We are pleased to note that some consensus has been reached in discussions on IBRD and IFC shareholding, and that these discussions continue to reflect the collaborative spirit that has been a hallmark of the implementation process of the Lima roadmap. We endorse the idea of engaging in informal consultations with shareholders to ascertain their interest in realigning their IFC shareholding in order to pursue the next steps of this process with increased confidence. However, while we hail the significant scale-up of 2 resources under IDA18, the financial capacity of IBRD and IFC will, in our view, have to be strengthened to increase synergy of WBG development actions. We welcome the progress made in this regard and note that the Executive Directors wish to continue their discussions on the issue of shareholding with the aim of securing an agreement on a comprehensive and balanced suite of proposals to be submitted for our decision. Cognizant of the fact that more work is needed to achieve this objective, we approve the Executive Directors’ commitment schedule, which provides for a more in-depth review of the options and a shareholding agreement for spring 2018. We nonetheless wish to once again reiterate the need to continue to use all measures to protect the interests of small and poor countries. IV. FORWARD LOOK IMPLEMENTATION UPDATE We commend the Executive Directors and Senior Management of the WBG for this update on the progress and challenges associated with the implementation of the activities related to the vision for the World Bank Group in 2030, as outlined in the Forward Look. We wish to commend the Bank in particular for the progress made in the implementation of reforms within the institution in recent years. We encourage the Bank’s Senior Management to maintain this momentum and scale up its engagement with all its member countries, while continuing to ensure that its resources are being strategically deployed to tackle global challenges and address specific country needs. We call for greater flexibility in engagement with countries, particularly on the implementation of the new policy on environmental and social safeguards, procurement, and guarantees. We encourage the Bank to continue scaling up support to our countries to strengthen their national systems and capacity in order to maximize the impact of Bank support on their development. We applaud the ongoing efforts to achieve a better, stronger Bank with the doubling of IDA resources under IDA18, the expansion of MIGA’s capacity through increased reinsurance and guarantee limits, the launch of the “cascade” approach to maximize finance for development, and discussions under way to boost the financial capacity of IBRD and IFC. We call on the Bank to take all necessary steps to support our countries’ efforts to further strengthen their human, institutional, and financial capacities in order to help them implement the ambitious IDA18 financing package and be in lockstep to ensure the careful implementation of the ambitions set forth in the Vision for the World Bank Group in 2030. To that end, we believe that a stronger Bank presence on the ground, particularly in fragile and conflict-affected States, will be necessary to strengthen the capacity of countries to execute operations and implement the World Bank’s new environmental safeguard and procurement procedures. During the process to strengthen the institutions of the World Bank Group to facilitate implementation of the forward look approach and achievement of the SDGs, consideration should be given to the current needs of economies and their development. We therefore call on IFC to leverage its position as the implementing entity for the private sector window (PSW) of IDA18 in order to improve its interventions, which are still too few in number, while seeking greater involvement of the States in identifying the priority sectors in which it operates. IFC must also strengthen the technical, regulatory, and institutional capacities of States for the implementation of the public-private partnership, with a view to helping countries leverage more private financing, as advocated by the WBG’s “cascade” approach. Lastly, IFC must pay closer attention to the development of national private sectors and tailor its interventions to the specific needs of each country, especially in the case of small island nations. 3