An Evaluation of the World Bank's Trust Fund Portfolio

Appendix A: Methodology NoteCalculating Trust Fund Contributions as a Share of Global ODAThe OECD DAC report presents DAC member contributions as bilateral, multilateral core,and multilateral “non-core” (which member agencies individually report). Some trust fundsare included in non-core aid and the large global funds are included in multilateral core aid.To obtain a comprehensive approximation it was necessary to separate out trust funds fromboth categories. There are two limitations to the rigor of the data, however: (1) not all globalfund contributions were separated because data was only available for World Bank–administered global funds and (2) most agencies do not report the proportion of non-corethat comprises trust funds. Therefore, this evaluation made use of available agency data toapproximate the share of non-core aid that is accounted for by trust funds.Country Case Study Selection ProcessEight countries were selected with a goal of capturing regional diversity and countries atdifferent levels of development, with a sufficiently substantial trust fund presence toprovide a richness of experience to review. In addition to randomly selecting six countries,this evaluation took the opportunity to collaborate with the two ongoing CAEs of Timor-Leste and West Bank/Gaza to assess the use of trust funds and the Bank’s trust fundadministration in coordination with other donors under those circumstances.The remaining six country case studies were randomly drawn from a sampling universethat included active IBRD and IDA borrowers with populations over five million and safevisiting conditions, from across different regions, and with a substantial trust fund portfolio(defined as of minimum 15 percent of total Bank disbursements and 10 percent in the SouthAsia Region to ensure the Region’s inclusion) and diverse trust fund presence (defined as atleast two trust fund programs in each of the FIF and non-FIF categories, with an averageprogram size of greater than $2 million in each category). From this universe, the countrieswere stratified into IBRD/blend and IDA countries, and six countries were selected byrandom sample, with the number of IDA to IBRD/blend countries reflecting the greaterthan 2:1 share of IDA to IBRD/blend in the overall universe. The resulting random sampledrawn comprises four IDA countries (Benin, Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh) and twoIBRD/blend countries (Indonesia and Bolivia).Random Sample Selection ProcessA random sample of 36 trust fund programs was drawn for in-depth investigation in orderto illuminate aspects of the Bank’s performance in operating trust fund resources, as well asprogram relevance and effectiveness. Excluded from an overall universe of 227 trust fundprograms were internal administrative trust funds, secretariats, IEG trust funds, programscurrently being reviewed by IEG, and programs that had no disbursements over FY07–09.The resulting universe was stratified by size into three program groups: large (more than$100m disbursed over FY07–09), medium ($10m-$100m), and small (less than $10m). Of the36 trust fund programs randomly selected, 25 percent were from the small group, 50 percent87