The Matrix System at Work - Independent Evaluation Group - World ...

CHAPTER 2
THE STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT OF SECTOR AND COUNTRY PRIORITIES
Box 2.1. Sector Strategy Papers at What Cost?
Actual Bank expenditure on the development of SSPs from FY02 to FY10 33 is $118 million
according to the Bank’s records; a period in which it approved 11 sector and two corporate
strategies, yielding an average of $9 million expended per strategy developed. Of the 13
SSPs, nine were from SDN sectors*—of which four were from the former Environmental
and Socially Sustainable Development Network (ESSD), two were from the Infrastructure
Network (INF), two were from FPD, one was from HDN, and one was from PREM. 34 Even if
one excludes expenditures for sector strategy development from regional VPUs ($60.5
million) and corporate VPUs ($7.3 million), $50 million was expended by network anchors—
of which $6.6 million is trust funded—either through direct costs allocated to the sector
strategy development product line ($39 million) or through indirect costs ($11 million).
Considering only the $50 million expended by network anchors and the 13 new SSPs
developed during FY02-10, this equates to $3.8 million in total costs to network anchors per
SSP developed. There appears to be a wide range of expenses subsumed under sector
strategy development with no evidence of monitoring of associated expenditures or
corporate governance to ensure efficiency of resource use.
Source: World Bank database and OPCS.
* In 2006, the ESSD and INF networks were merged into SDN.
2.57 The combination of high cost and lengthy preparation of SSPs, and the
need to complement them with additional regional strategies, gives rise to
questions about the effectiveness of SSPs as vehicles for setting strategic
priorities and calls for a need to redefine their scope more realistically. Regional
staff and managers (in CMUs and SMUs) consider the cost of preparing and
frequently revising sector strategies too high and see it as a big tax on country
programs and operations. Country unit and sector unit staffs also agree that the cost
of SSPs substantially exceeds their benefits. There is a need for more rigorous
oversight of resource use for SSPs, clearer terms of reference specifying their
purpose and audience, and better integration of corporate and sector priorities
within country programs.
FEEDBACK FROM CLIENTS
2.58 Surveys of country clients confirm that responsiveness has improved, but
considerable gaps remain between the Bank’s country programs and country needs.
A 2008 multinational survey of opinion leaders reveals that across all Regions, threefourths
of respondents strongly agree that to address poverty more effectively, the
World Bank Group needs to work in a different and more innovative way, with
leaders from the Africa, East Asia and the Pacific, and South Asia Regions more
insistent on the need for change. Results from surveys of leaders in client countries
in 2009 and 2010 also critique responsiveness (Table 2.8). In the latest poll, one-third
feel the Bank imposes technocratic solutions without regard to political realities and
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