Coordinate fragmented external funding with core funds at the World Bank and IFC to strategically finance the production of IEs: At the World Bank, explore options for consolidation of external funding for IEs, including pooled trust fund facilities (umbrella funds), as recommended in the 2011 evaluation of Trust Funds by IEG, to better coordinate and mobilize trust fund resources along with internal funds to support IE production within the strategic priority areas agreed by management and clients.
2. Coordination of fragmented funding In the World Bank and IFC: IEs increasingly depend on donor support through trust funds. While access to multiple sources of financing eases the budget constraint, their fragmentation adds to staff transaction costs. Reliance on trust funds is not necessarily detrimental to IE relevance, but there is less flexibility over allocation and strategic planning.
Original Response: WB: In the overall context of trust fund reform, Bank Management will explore options for consolidation of external funding for IEs and will report progress in updates to Executive Directors on the reform program.
Specific Action: Continue to make progress on identifying options, including consultations with major donors, to consolidate external financing for IEs, including the creation of a pooled (ï¾umbrellaï¾) TF for IEs.
Indicator: Periodic reports to Executive Directors on progress in the overall context of TF reform
Time Line: First report to Executive Directors in FY13.
The exclusivity of the Management update to i2i, SIEF and the Africa GIL as well as the lack of a summarizing statement indicating how the Bank as a whole has done with respect to recommendation 97 undermines assertions that the Bank has improved in coordinating efforts or funding.
Past updates indicate that some funding sources had been consolidated in the past, particularly of AADAPT and AIM, housed alongside i2i in DIME/DECIE. However, there is no indication that the 3 funding sources listed have moved closer to consolidation in FY16 (despite language in the update that implies that this is the case). Though the collaboration of the i2i model (and the similar SIEF model) is beneficial, this benefit is derived from GPs and other TFs contributing to an IE proposal that is selected by a SIEF call. That benefit would not necessarily be lost under a more funding structure further consolidating the IE hubs. Indeed, the management update provides almost no information on what was done to coordinate fragmented funding or increase Bank Budget funding for IE work in FY16.
Also troubling is the continued low levels of investment from internal funds. Based on the numbers reported in the management update, it appears that less than 10% of i2i funding, for example, comes from Bank projects. As noted in the 2011 evaluation, this level of BB funding belies a lack of commitment by the Bank in doing rigorous evaluative work using Impact Evaluations.
Based upon the progress made in previous years, IEG determines that a rating of SUBSTANTIAL is warranted. IEG notes that the current model seems to be functional.
Please note the overview comment in recommendation 96, concerning the requests for additional information from the Health Results Innovation Trust Fund and other GILs. The OPCS-led IE Working Group will not only take stock of the number of IEs, however, include systematic information on various sources of funding (TFs, BB) and other relevant regional/sectoral disaggregation.
Currently, three main funds exist to finance IEs bank-wide: the Impact Evaluation to Development Impact (i2i), the Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund (SIEF) and the Gender Innovation Lab (GIL). Although not fully consolidated, these funds are fully operational, they cover all Bank sectors, and they provide consistent, reliable support to all WB operations.
The Impact Evaluation to Development Impact (i2i) is a World Bank multi-donor programmatic trust fund program launched in March 2014 with support from the UK's Department for International Development (DFID). The i2i's mandate is to generate high-quality and operationally relevant Impact Evaluation (IE) research to transform development policy, help reduce extreme poverty, and secure shared prosperity. Its objective is to increase the use of IE in the design and implementation of public policy, strengthen country institutions for evidence-based policy making, and generate knowledge in strategic development areas. The program aims to serve as a global platform with the purpose of building donor partnerships in expanding the use of IE across the developing world.
As an alternative to centralizing resources, i2i offers a collaborative model where GPs and other TFs contribute financing through i2i calls and funds are awarded following i2i processes and standards e.g. C impact program, I, GGP etc.
For more details, please see the attached document - CODE2012-0018.WB_MAR_FY16_97
IEG acknowledges the Bank-wide consultation to set up an umbrella fund for IE, and the resulting challenges that presents of donor preferences. The consolidation of several funding unitsnotably AADAPT and AIMnow housed alongside i2i within DIME/DECIE is a positive move toward coordination of impact evaluations.
Even so, idiosyncrasy in donor preferences, as noted in the ability to earmark projects within i2i, is precisely the reason IEG made this recommendation in its 2012 report. Donor preferences and earmarking are useful for increasing the number of projects impact evaluated, but they pose a real threat to strategic selection of the portfolio of Bank IEs as a whole. To this end, IEG recommended not only the consolidation of trust funds, but also the mobilization of internal funds to support IE production within the strategic priority areas. The i2i umbrella fund has made admirable strides in mobilization of Bank Budget from the Global Practices for IE efforts.
OPCS has not provided information on the mobilization of Bank Budget for IE from the Africa Gender Innovation Lab or SIEF. Moreover, OPCS has not provided any information on trust fund or Bank Budget use from HRITF or the other regional Gender Innovation Labs. It would be useful for OPCS update information on the budget share of World Bank impact evaluations funded by trust funds versus Bank Budget.
See attached file
Additional Information from Management:
How has the World Bank mobilized internal funds to support IE production within the strategic priority areas agreed by management and clients?
I2i/DIME response:
o Within the Bank, in FY15, the i2i has fundraised additional funds for IE workshops from the global practices and cross-cutting solution areas:
? Governance workshop (FY15): $100,000 from the Governance global practice.
? Transport ; ICT (FY15): $150,000 from the Transport ; ICT GP.
? Trade ; Competitiveness (FY15): $200,000 from the Trade ; Competitiveness global practice.
o In addition, the Bank's Governance and Transport ; ICT global practices and the Fragility, Conflict ; Violence cross-cutting group have made contributions in terms of staff hired to work on the i2i programs in these respective thematic areas. These contributions are estimated at around $960,000 for over four years. Finally, I2i leverages co-financing: the i2i support to IEs for implementation activities is conditional on IE teams demonstrating co-financing for data collection and the rest of IE costs, mostly from Global Practices and regional units.
o Beyond financial support, a clear evidence of coordination and consolidation is Call for Proposals being issued as a unified and collaborative process. In FY15 this was the case of the Trade ; Competitiveness call: the C Impact program chose to join i2i and select and support its next round of IEs under the existing protocol.
How has the World Bank consolidated the many IE trust funds existing at the time of the 2011 IEG evaluation?
The establishment of the i2i umbrella fund usefully provided a damper to future fragmentation of funding by 1) indicating a broad (but still incomplete) base of 5 thematic areas in which it will operateï¾Shared Prosperity, Governance, Climate Change, Gender, and Fragile ; Conflict Situations, and 2) precluding the formation of other trust funds for impact evaluations unless a prospective fund could demonstrate that ï¾its objectives could not be met by the i2iï¾ (i2i Concept Note, paragraph 43).
IEG notes, however, that the recommendation to coordinate (and augment) IE funding with core funds at the World Bank has demonstrated little progress.
IEG recognizes that the existing legal covenants prevent folding other impact evaluation hubs (e.g. SIEF, HRITF, GAFSP) into the i2i umbrella fund. Still, management should provide evidence of funding coordination across the constellation of IE funders at the Bank, as the i2i concept note states that such coordination "will be required." How is this to be accomplished? What is the record on these efforts?
Currently, there are only 2 funding windows currently open: Fragile and Conflict Situations and Agriculture and Rural Development (the latter of which does not appear to be consistent with the list of themes on the i2i home page).
The i2i UF was launched in FY14. It adopts a bottom-up approach to put government agencies in the driverï¾s seat on the road from problem to solution while offering an open platform for getting expert advice and support; technical and financial support to teams throughout the policy cycle from IE design to implementation, analysis, dissemination, and policy action; country capacity with trainings, workshops and midterm learning-by-doing collaborations; and generating knowledge and building theory on the policy mechanisms that define policy success. i2i supports high research quality and policy relevance to ensure that the answers provided are actionable. It uses IE as a formative tool to generate evidence throughout the lifecycle of the IE.
To date the following activities have been completed: The Administrative Agreement was signed between the WB and DFID and first payment received from the donor in March/April 2014. The FCS program was launched through a DIME workshop on Fragile and conflict situations, in Lisbon, Portugal in March 24-27, 2014. The funding window for Fragile and conflict situations opened in April awarded preparation grants to 13 new IEs in the following areas: (i) jobs and productive opportunities for youth at risk; (ii) urban crime and violence; (iii) sexual and gender-based violence; and (iv) public sector governance. The IE workshop on Agriculture and Rural Development was conducted in Kigali, Rwanda on June 16-20, 2014. The funding window for Agriculture and Rural Development currently under review targets new IEs in the following areas: (i) Rural finance, (ii) Commercialization, (iii) Resilience, (iv) Information, (v) Rural infrastructure. A funding window for ongoing IEs is also under review. Preparations are currently ongoing for the launch of the environment and energy IE programs. The launching workshop will take place in October 2014.
The DIME/DECIE UF, if implemented as drafted in the Concept Note, will likely become a central hub for impact evaluation at the Bank. While IEG is supportive of these efforts to establish an umbrella fund on impact evaluation and is particularly supportive of the establishment of a selection strategy for the UF that incorporates the major stakeholders within the Bank, IEG notes that to date the fund has not yet been established and looks forward to the actual implementation of the umbrella fund.
IEG expresses concern over perceived challenges remaining in the coordination between this new fund and the constellation of existing trust funds at the World Bank that finance impact evaluation work. Rather than work towards consolidation as per Managementï¾s response, the UF concept note indicates that ï¾No existing TFs supporting IE work will be consolidated with the UF.ï¾ Furthermore, while the UF concept note acknowledges the need for coordination in IE selection and integration and more strategic use of grant resources, it does not offer much on how this coordination and integration is to be achieved; it is not clear how establishing an additional fund will work to ï¾coordinate fragmented external fundingï¾ as recommended by IEG.
Moreover, it is not entirely clear whether or how the Bank will use this trust fund to mobilize internal resources to support IE production as per IEG's recommendations.
Finally, while it seems clear that DIME has been engaged in moving this recommendation forward, commitment from the rest of the Bank is less clear. IEG encourages Management as a whole to work to consolidate, coordinate andexternal funding and to use that funding to leverage internal funding for IEs.
DIME submitted the Concept Note for the Umbrella Fund on Impact Evaluation to Bank-wide Review on April 30 2013. The meeting, co-chaired by DEC VP and CFP VP, endorsed the establishment of the IE UF. The IE UF will be established in FY14. The objective of the UF is to increase the use of IE in the design and implementation of public policy; strengthen the community of IE researchers and the technical support provided to task teams doing IE; and leverage the use of IE knowledge across thematic communities of practice, sharing findings and solutions to improve the speed and effectiveness of policy implementation.