W O R L D B A N K O P E R A T I O N S E V A L U A T I O N D E P A R T M E N T


            OED REACH
Number 31                                                                                               May 10, 2001




The IDA10-12 Partnership for Poverty Reduc-
tion
· Over the past seven years,IDA has strengthened its poverty reduction mission,repositioned its country
   assistance programs to better respond to development priorities,introduced new lending instruments,
   and accelerated its efforts in aid coordination.
· IDA project performance has improved steadily.Outcomes of completed projects have risen to over 70
   percent satisfactory,and institutional development impact and sustainability have also improved,
   although from low levels (see figure,below).
· To deepen and broaden the gains from the existing policy framework,IDA should concentrate on imple-
   mentation,adequately aligning resources to strategic priorities,and consolidating its mandates in keeping
   with CDF principles and countries'poverty reduction strategies.This calls for a strong focus on IDA's
   strategic-level areas of comparative advantage and capacity building,greater monitoring of results,and
   taking on a more proactive role in aid coordination at the country and global levels.

The Study                                                  development, gender, and environmental sustainability
At the request of IDA's donor governments and its          into its country programs.Taking account of a host of
executive directors, OED carried out a review of IDA's     factors not under IDA's control, the development out-
implementation performance during IDA10-12. OED            comes of IDA programs are rated partially satisfactory.
found the IDA10-12 replenishment commitments               Much remains to be done by IDA and its partners to
highly relevant and timely, but extraordinarily demand-    meet the multifaceted challenge of supporting sus-
ing for both IDA and its borrowers.The commitments         tained, pro-poor, broad-based growth.
include: (1) sharpening the poverty focus of support
for country development; (2) expanding access to           Next Steps
social services, fostering broad-based growth, promot-     In moving forward, IDA should focus on implementa-
ing good governance, and integrating gender and envi-      tion of its existing policy framework, align resources
ronmental considerations into development efforts; and     with strategic priorities, and consolidate its mandates.
(3) increasing its development effectiveness through       IDA should concentrate more on its areas of compara-
more selective, more participatory, and better-coordi-     tive advantage--work at the strategic level in support of
nated CASs.                                                economy-wide, sector-wide, and government-wide
                                                           reforms--and make capacity building a core dimension
IDA's Performance                                          of every aspect of its work.With the full support of its
Overall, OED finds IDA's performance in relation to its    shareholders, it should also play a more proactive role
replenishment undertakings to be satisfactory, but with    in fostering aid harmonization and coordination--at the
qualifications. IDA has done much to sharpen the           global and country levels--to reduce the high transac-
poverty focus of its analytical work, policy dialogue, and tion costs of aid for borrowers.
lending. It has established a strong presence in the       This will require greater country and program selec-
social sectors. Recently, it has brought governance to     tivity; expanded work in the critical areas of gover-
the fore and markedly expanded its work on public sec-     nance and institutional development; and a joint
tor management.At the same time, the quality of lend-      commitment with partners to move from ad hoc to
ing and nonlending services has improved.Yet it has        structured coordination of aid programs. Internally it
made limited progress in integrating private sector        will also require reinvestment in IDA's analytical

work; strengthened accountability for policy compli-         Project Outcomes, Institutional Development, and
ance; and full, multi-year funding of Country Assis-         Sustainability Improving
tance Strategies.                                                                                            ID Impact (% subst.)

IDA would also benefit from adjusting the replenish-            Percentage                                   Outcome (% sat.)
ment process.Three changes would improve the                                                                 Sustain. (% likely)
                                                             100
process: developing a longer-term vision, focused on
results; engaging developing countries in setting priori-     90

ties and monitoring IDA performance; and defining             80

commitments in terms of monitorable and achievable            70

objectives, with realistic costing, focused on agreed indi-   60

cators of development progress.                               50

                                                              40

                                                              30

                                                              20

                                                              10

                                                               0
                                                                   IDA9(1991-1993)   IDA10(1994-1996)       IDA11+(1997-2000)


                                                                                   IDA replenishment periods




                                                                          Director: Gregory Ingram (202) 473-1052

                                                         Brief produced by OEDPK: ecampbellpage@worldbank.org