Improve internal coordination of SSNs. It will help to review budget systems to see if the incentives they create for managers and task team leaders constrain cooperation between Bank units. Expertise across sectors and networks needs to be shared to enhance Bank support.
Original Response: Management agreed with this recommendation. Bank management is committed to continued strengthening of the SSN community of practice and its inter-sectoral linkages
The World Bank Group is the midst of a major restructuring, which included the establishment of global practices (GPs) as well as global solution groups. These reforms aim at enhancing cooperation across the Bank. In light of this restructuring, there has been a notable increase in staff working across regional boundaries and the most recent fiscal year saw a notable increase in the cross-support. The GP management has decided to allocate 30 percent of staff member time to work in different regions or on global engagements.
The GP has also worked with other GPs on a number of joint initiatives. This includes work with HNP, Poverty, and Agriculture on the SecureNutrition Knowledge Platform, which aims to provide operational and technical knowledge on nutrition interventions. Likewise, the GP has worked with other GPs on a number of knowledge products, including financial inclusion, food subsidies and public food distribution systems, and the reform of fuel subsidies. The GP did not present evidence of collaboration on investment operations.
While the GP has worked to substantially increase connections across regions, additional work is needed to increase collaboration across different sectors.
Based on this evidence, IEG rates the progress on this recommendation as substantial.
FY 15 was marked by a wide ranging restructuring of the WBG, establishment of the Global practices, the new budget architecture and organization of knowledge work in Global Solution Groups. All these reforms have a bearing in enhancing cross-GPs cooperation, and seamless work of the practice as one global unit, overcoming regional boundaries. The last year has seen an increase in the cross-support across regions and in the new set up the management has decided to allocate 30% of staff member time of all GP on work in different regions or global engagements.
The GSG SSN presentation outlining the road map of future activities is attached.
In terms of thematic focus for cross-GP engagement on SSNs priorities have emerged in FY15 and have produced concrete results:
Nutrition sensitive SP with the HNP: The SecureNutrition Knowledge Platform (SNKP) was initiated in 2011 by a cross-sectoral team of representatives from three World Bank Group (WBG) sectors: Health, Nutrition, and Population; Agriculture; Social Proteciton and Labor and Poverty Reduction. Website - The SNKP website is publicly accessible at www.securenutritionplatform.org. The two GPs are co-organizing a global forum on nutrition sensitive SP.
Strategic partnership on addressing urban poverty and social exclusion with POV and GSURR: The sequence of global fora (Berlin, Mexico , Beijing) and work on analytical reports is truly joint, with operational follow up planned.
Joint work on financial inclusion of the poor using SSN instruments with FIN and PSD. This has lead to the development of the joint payment systems assessment tool with is now pilot tested.
Work on food subsidies with agriculture. The work is supported by RSR . IN is the first in a number of years stock taking of the Public Food distribution systems around the world, which remain one of the backbone of the Social safety nets, and will provide a platform for exchanging country experiences in food subsidies reform between Mexico, India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Egypt, and US.
Work on governance and grievances redress mechanisms with Social Development in the context of combatting error fraud and corruption.
Work on political economy of fuel subsidy reform with Energy, Transport and Governance with the new joint community of practice ESCROC and ESMAP facility to support cross-GP country level work on assisting the countries to reform their fuel subsidies while protecting the poor.
IEG recognizes the Social Protection sector board's efforts to improve coding of social protection activities to enable better monitoring and identify cross sectoral linkages. However, no evidence has been provided that the budget systems have been reviewed with respect to staff incentives or that coordination between Bank units has improved. IEG rates adoption of this recommendation as medium.
On-going review by Social Protection Sector Board of thematic coding system for new social protection lending and AAA activities, which will improve capacity to monitor portfolio and cross-sectoral linkages in operations with Social Protection components
Maintaining cross-Sector Board membership and ongoing coordination and dialogue between HDN Social Protection and Labor and PREM Poverty and Equity.
Continuing consultation and collaboration in topical and key knowledge products by Social Protection and Labor, Education, HNP, PREM poverty, ARD, SDN as topical, e.g. Social Protection and Labor staff are involved in on-going products managed by other networks including:
Fuel subsidy reform and the role of safety netswith the Energy anchor, SDN.
Climate change adaptation and safety netswith SDN.
Nutrition and SP/scaling up nutritionwith HNP, ARD and PREM.
Food price monitoringwith PREM poverty
Labor market work on informalitywith PREM poverty and FPD.
The sector has reviewed projects to identify social safety nets and to properly classify them. This represents an important first step to understand what the sector is doing and where it is active.
The Social Protection and Labor Sector Board has worked jointly with a number of other sector boards. However there has been little focus on social safety nets directly and much of the coordination on safety nets has been ad hoc and not systematically thought out.
There is no evidence of active measures toaddress theincentives to work across sectors or to provide cross support. Pending efforts to effectively address incentives and cross-support, themeasures taken appear modest. It remains to be seen what impact the structural and incentive changes being introduced in the Bank under the President's initiative will have.
Completed review by Social Protection Sector Board of thematic coding system for new social protection lending and AAA activities. The quality and ease to monitor portfolio and cross-sectoral linkages in operations with Social Protection components are greatly enhanced
Maintaining cross-Sector Board membership and ongoing coordination and dialogue between HDN Social Protection and Labor and PREM Poverty and Equity.
Continuing consultation and collaboration in topical and key knowledge products by Social Protection and Labor, Education, HNP, PREM poverty, ARD, SDN
There is continued cooperation with PREM around labor market, skills and informality, where JOBS knowledge platform pays a key role.
Management actively supported d the launch and operation of the Africa, ECA and MENA COPs. Membership of the COPs consists of high level administrators/ technicians from client countries. The COPs focus on sharing good practices and operational challenges and solutions to first and second generation design and implementation issues such as improving the administrative systems to improve coverage, targeting, but also efficiency and cohesion amongst programs. The leaders and regional operational staff of the COPs come together periodically and attend each other's events. The Anchor has been facilitating the interaction between the COPs and the capture and dissemination of good practices in the regions.
There is an on-going cooperation on the new WDR on risk.
The establishment of the Global Practice providers a new coordination mechanism that allows greater cooperation among different regional units. This is expected to lead to an increasing number of staff working across regions, building on the general positive experience from the Global Expert Team in Social Safety Nets. It should facilitate the incorporation ofGP technical staff into the preparation and implementation of operations. The results of the new organization have yet to be assessed.
The Social Protection and Labor Global Practice have cooperated in a number of multi-sectoral initiatives related to social safety nets. The Global Practice has been working to improve disaster risk management, in cooperation with the former Sustainable Development Network. This led to the development and dissemination of the toolkit and synthesis note Building Resilience to Disaster and Climate Change through Social Protection.
Likewise, the Global Practice has been working on the Fossil Fuel Subsidy Initiative, with a number of other sectors. This initiative aims to better target universal subsidies and use the resources to increase spending on social safety nets. The Global Practice has also worked with specialists from other sector to incorporate social safety nets in the food security agenda.
The GP has also been incorporating social safety networks into existing tools and data sources through ADePT, which is a multi-sectoral analytical software. Social Safety Nets have also been incorporated into ASPIRE, which is a tool developed by the Social Protection Global Practices, with inputs from other units.
The launch of global practices ismeant to develop new coordination mechanisms and platforms for inter-practice cooperation. In countries, the role of Program leaders who integrate different practices into a coherent country program is a model that will ensure closer coordination where it matters most- for the client. At the global level increased coordination takes several forms:
(i) Launch of the new cross-practice platform (thematic group) on skills;
(ii) Active engagement of SSN practice members into the Fossil Fuel subsidy initiative and community of practice spanning specialists on energy, fiscal policy, poverty, communication, transport, climate change;
(iii) New work on the role of SP in disaster risk management has greatly benefited from close collaboration with social development network on all stages of the work.
(iv) The data platform on social protection (ASPIRE) relies on integrated data platform sand data sharing with poverty practice.
(v) Delivery of WBG inputs for food security agenda under G20 has relied on close cooperation between Social safety nets and Health, nutrition and population specialists.