What we can learn from the Bank Group’s engagement with the MDGs

President Kim gave a speech last week to the Center for Strategic and International Studies calling 2015 the most important year in development in recent memory. To mark this momentous year in typical evaluators'€™ fashion, we looked at the past to see what it has to offer in building a better future.

One of the most striking things that global decision-makers should keep in mind at this time: goals and targets focus our efforts and determine outcomes. The MDGs foresaw halving the percentage of people living below the poverty line (comparing rates in 1990 and 2015). Come 2011, we celebrated early success as the rate dropped from 43% to 17% four years ahead of schedule. An incredible success meaning about 900 million people were lifted out of poverty; however, over 1 billion people remain below the poverty line. All things being equal, the World Bank Group'€™s twin goals require that some 750 million people move out of poverty to reach "€œ3% by 2030.€" The SDGs are more ambitious, aiming for zero poverty by the same year.

Our annual Results and Performance (RAP) report looked at what we can learn from the way the World Bank Group engaged with the MDGs. Here’s what we found:

Taking a Broader Approach, but Selectively. From the outset, the Bank Group took a much broader approach to poverty reduction than that envisaged under the MDGs. The approach combined private-sector led growth, country ownership and inclusion, in addition to integrating MDG targets into its work on relevant sectors such as education, health, and water supply and sanitation. The SDGs will embrace a much wider agenda than their predecessors, with the risk that, without exercising selectivity, the net is cast too wide and may lead to a dispersion of resources. But exercising selectivity isn'€™t easy! IEG has repeatedly urged the Bank Group to be more selective to better steer its own success, and that of its clients.

From Data to Knowledge to Solutions. The World Bank’s knowledge work provided the intellectual underpinnings for, among other things, the debates at the global summits in the 1990s. The Bank also undertook the necessary statistical and data work to help develop measurable goals and targets. Subsequently, a number of World Development Reports, the Global Monitoring Report, and an increasing amount of resources for analytical work focused on issues central to the MDGs and their achievement. But, applying knowledge does not happen as a matter of course. In its 2013 Strategy, the Bank Group recognized the need to renew its support for statistical capacity development, and to strengthen its capacity to translate knowledge into locally tailored solutions.

Country Ownership: Local Priorities and Global Goals. Over the years, the World Bank has strengthened its model for working with countries, from the Comprehensive Development Framework approach to the Systematic Country Diagnostic and Country Partnership Frameworks of today. Despite this, it can be difficult for a global player like the Bank Group to balance high level goals with priorities at the local level. The Bank Group must continue to find ways to constructively leverage its knowledge and experience with the needs and priorities of country stakeholders.

Measuring and Managing for Results. The MDGs have rallied the global community around agreed targets and set systems in motion to measure progress. We have seen weaknesses in both the targets that were set, and the systems to track them. Getting them right is essential: they signal what’s important, whether things are improving or need corrective action. Going by the experience with the MDGs, we foresee that the Bank Group needs to make a more deliberate effort to define where and how it wants to engage in the implementation of the SDGs to ensure its resources – knowledge, finance, and guarantees - are applied most effectively.

The SDGs present a major challenge for the Bank Group and for the development community as a whole. In July, public and private sector leaders will meet in Addis Ababa to discuss how to finance development before the UN General Assembly agrees on the post-2015 Goals. Just as for the transition from MDGs to SDGs, we have many lessons from evaluations that speak to the Financing for Development agenda. I will keep blogging about them, so please stay tuned.