The Bank should develop a formal policy on engaging with GRPPs, including among other things: Standard approval processes for Bank engagement with new partnership programs, independent of how they are financed. A policy for hosting the management units (secretariats) of GRPPs inside the Bank.
Original Response: Partially Agreed. Management does not consider it would be appropriate to develop a formal operational policy at this time. Instead, Management plans to develop a partnership management framework that will entail guidelines and best practices for Bank units involved in partnership programs, including governing bodies and secretariats. This framework will include strengthened standard approval processes for new and restructured partnership programs and expected to be completed in FY12.
IEG takes Management's comments into account but also notes the lack of progress on a policy or principles for hosting partnership programs.
As noted in the response to MAR Recommendation 66 and 70, progress on implementing the Management Framework for World Bank Partnership programs and FIFs has continued in FY15. Following-up on the 2014 update, the internal process for establishing new Partnership Programs has been revamped under the new ADM framework, engaging GPs, Regions, and CMUs as relevant. Specifically, a new Bank Procedure for the Approval of Trustee Level Trust Funds was issued on July 2, 2015. A new Bank Directive on a Cost Recovery Framework for Trust Funds was also published in July 8, 2015. This Directive aims to move towards full cost recovery from trust funds, and is guided by principles of transparency, fairness, simplification, standardization and consistent treatment across all development partners. It simplifies and harmonizes very significantly cost recovery for trust funds.
Management's actions in response to IEG's evaluation are a work in progress. IEG agrees with Management's ratings as indicative of where more work is currently being done those areas rated 'substantial as opposed to medium. IEG reserves judgment on the outcomes of this work, such as the preparation of the new Partnership Program Management Framework (PPMF) and the revision the DGF eligibility criteria, until these are completed and start to be implemented by the Network and Regional VPUs responsible for partnership programs and by the programs themselves. Overall, IEG is pleased to see that Management is doing a substantial amount of work on implementing its policy agenda to promote effective partnership arrangements in comparison with the previous 23 years.
IEG also interprets these ratings against what Management agreed in the cases where Management did not fully agree with IEG's recommendations. For example, IEG recommended that the Bank should develop a formal policy on engaging with GRPPs a recommendation with which the majority of EDs who commented on the recommendation agreed. IEG hopes that the preparation of the Partnership Program Management Framework will end up being the first step towards a formal policy. IEG remains doubtful that the Bank's accountability for governance, management, and results of the GRPPs in which it is involved will be sufficiently accepted and exercised Bank-wide in a decentralized Bank in the absence of a formal policy, like, for example, OP/BP 14.40 on trust funds. IEG sees a particular and pressing need for a formal policy on hosting the management units (secretariats) of GRPPs in the Bank in order to address the existing confusions regarding their status.
IEG agrees that systems, databases, and business processes for engaging with GRPPs should be linked to the ongoing work on Trust Fund and DGF reforms. There should be one reliable Bank-wide system for tracking GRPPs and the sources of funds that finance their activities. However, trust funds and DGF grants are not programs in and of themselves, although they have often been labeled as such. They are dedicated sources of funds to support GRPPs and other activities agreed between the donors, the Bank, and other partners. They are like the fuel in an automobile. And like a car and its driver who steers the car towards a destination, it is the programs, their governance and their management that produce the results with the aid of the fuel provided by trust funds, DGF grants, and other resources dedicated to the programs. Partnerships are first and foremost about building relationships among the partners, and IEG found in its recent evaluation that past systems, databases, and business processes had put excessive emphasis on the funding of the programs to the relative neglect of forging strong institutional relationships among the program partners.
The essence of partnership programs, as opposed to other activities that trust funds and DGF grants support, is shared governance. IEG continues to recommend that the PPMF should focus, at least in the first instance, on partnership programs with shared governance, for the three reasons given on pages 1214 of our evaluation: (a) such programs challenge the Bank's traditional programmatic and financial accountability mechanisms; (b) the Bank is dedicating increasing amounts of senior management time to their governance; and (c) the Bank expects the programs activities to be appropriately linked to the Bank's country operational work. In addition, the Bank can reasonably expect more requirements from such programs when they are established, such as a charter or some other constitutive document which defines the partnership.
Everyone in the Bank, including IEG, is dependent on the systems and databases that Bank Management establishes to keep track of the Bank's activities, in this case GRPPs. Since Bank Management appears to have decided to include partnerships without shared governance in the Bank-wide database, IEG would ask that those partnership programs with shared governance should be readily identifiable, and extractable from the database. This involves each program answering a simple question: Is the consultative group, program council, or steering committee, etc. that has been established to oversee the program a collaborative or a consultative body Do the members of the body have shared responsibility for programmatic oversight and shared accountability for results (collaborative), or does one partner, i.e. the Bank in the case of in-house programs, simply listen to what the other partners have to say while continuing to make the major governance and management decisions and to accept accountability for results (consultative). Authority and accountability should be aligned. Each partnership should have to declare on which side of this collaborative-consultative fence it stands, so that the Bank can avoid the continuation of situations in which it has little or no authority but most of the accountability.
IEG also hope that processes will finally be put in place to ensure that TTLs provide both CFP and IEG with electronic copies of recently completed evaluations within one month of their completion, and that copies of these evaluations will be easily accessible on the Bank's intranet. IEG has recently shared its own database of recently completed evaluations of GRPPs with CFP as a foundation on which to build this system.
These are some of the things that IEG will be looking for when the new Partnership Program Management Framework is presented for Bank-wide review and to the Board.
This report, which is an assessment of the Bank's engagement in a subset of partnership programs of global and regional scope, was issued in spring 2011. The Management Response expresses appreciation for IEG's work in this area, and indicates that most of the recommendations are partially to substantially agreed. Some of IEG's recommendations contain sub-recommendations, some of which Management plans to fully adopt and some not. Hence, the actions to be taken under these recommendations in the coming years may respond more to the spirit than the letter.
Overall, Management agrees with IEG's message that stronger oversight over partnership programs is warranted, including upfront selectivity and ongoing management of both individual programs and wider portfolios. To achieve this, Management is currently preparing a Partnership Program Management Framework paper, to be discussed by the Board in H2FY12. However, Management's view of these programs is also hat they are closely related to their funding instruments and other Bank operational work. Hence, systems, databases, business process, and strategy development needs to be linked to the ongoing work on Trust Fund Reform and on the Bank's operational and strategic agendas, as opposed to freestanding approaches.
The population of GRPPs identified by IEG includes both internally and externally managed programs, and they are supported by Trust Funds, Financial Intermediary Funds, and the Bank's Development Grant Facility. Intensive work has been carried out on all three types of funding instruments in recent years. The DGF Reform process has resulted in a more dynamic portfolio in line with DGF's intended catalytic role, with exits of longstanding recipients. IEG has recommended revisiting the DGF criteria (the one recommendation to which Management fully agreed), and Management will raise this topic with the DGF Council. The next phase of DGF reform is focusing on better results frameworks for programs receiving DGF grants. A FIF Framework paper is currently under preparation by Management, and FIFs provide the largest volume of funding to the GRPP portfolio. Finally, the Board is regularly briefed on the Trust Fund Reform process, which is also increasingly focused on mainstreaming trust funds into Bank operations and on efforts to improve results and reporting.
The forthcoming new Partnership Program Management Framework will build on this work by creating guidelines for program-level aspects of GRPPs and other similar programs. These guidelines will cover selectivity criteria, the applicability of Bank policies and procedures, managing partnership structures (including secretariats), providing appropriate Terms of Reference for Bank staff involved in governing bodies, and promoting global-country linkages. While much of this work pertains to internal Bank procedures, external partners are also being consulted to prepare this Framework
IEG agrees with many features of the proposed framework, including among others (a) combining the PP and FIF Management frameworks into one framework, since most FIFs are supporting Partnership Programs and (b) turning the Framework into a Management Directive. However, IEG notes that much follow-up work needs to be done, as indicated in Chapter 4, "Next Steps", of the draft Framework. The references in the Framework Paper to independent evaluation of PPs are few, even though this is an important aspect of the life-cycle of PPs. Operationalizing the existing requirements for independent evaluation of PPs in BP8.45 and BP14.40 should be included among the next steps in Chapter 4 of the Framework Paper. The proposed Management Directive, related procedures, and corresponding guidelines should also effectively address the issue ofhosting the management units (secretariats) of PPs in the Bank. This should include, among other things, (a) distinguishing FIF-supported programs from other trust-funded programs located in the Bank, (b) distinguishing governance partners from implementing partners, (c) distinguishing programmatic oversight from fiduciary oversight, and (d) providing guidance on the dual loyalty issue. As the Legal Department's comments on the draft PP and FIF Framework stated, "Acting as the legal entity for certain purposes (e.g., TF agreements, staff hires, procurement) does not 'provide the PP with legal standing' in that the PP remains an informal partnership. Providing a legal signature does not have to mean accountability, since we also have situations where we sign in an agency capacity under language that clearly excludes any accountability."
During FY13, the forthcoming Partnership Program Management Framework was merged with the forthcoming FIF Framework (also proposed by IEG in its evaluation of trust funds). The Management Framework for Partnership Programs and Financial Intermediary Funds will be circulated to the Board in June 2013 and will be discussed by the Board in early July 2013. This paper presents principles for the Bank's engagement in Partnership Programs, including those supported by FIFs. With regard to strategy for global and regional Partnership Programs, the ongoing World Bank Group Strategy preparation includes proposals for improving selectivity. The implementation of the Management Framework paper will be informed by the adoption of the World Bank Group Strategy in the fall of 2013.
While IEG appreciates theManagement Framework for World Bank Partnership Programs and FIFs, it also recognizes that several aspects still need to be operationalized and that no formal policy exists for hosting Secretariats/management units of Partnership Programs, resulting sometimes in tension and confusion.
Refering the response to MAR Recommendation 66, a Management Framework for World Bank Partnership Programs and FIFs was presented to the Board on July 9, 2013 and significant progress was made during FY13 and FY14 in implementing the Framework in the context of the wider WBG change process. The Management Framework outlines guidelines and best practices that provide direction for governing bodies and secretariats. The internal process for establishing new Partnership Programs is now being revamped under the new ADM framework, engaging GPs, Regions, and CMUs as relevant.