An Evaluation of the World Bank's Trust Fund Portfolio

APPENDIX B: TRUST FUND USE IN THE EIGHT CASE STUDY COUNTRIEScountry level; rather, all of the trust fund support is from global funds used to primarily to:cofinance an IDA Health System Performance Project; fund stand-alone projects inenvironment/natural resource management, education, and food security; and supporteconomic and sector work and technical assistance in agriculture, health, and theenvironment. Donors have indicated that their main reasons for not establishing countryspecifictrusts are strong local presence in the country with capacity to manage their ownaid allocations and a desire to interact directly with the government on its policies andstrategies. Overall, trust funds brought resources to Benin’s development assistance envelopin an amount equivalent to 16 percent of the IDA portfolio.BoliviaBank lending activity in Bolivia has been modest, especially in recent years, with a currentloan portfolio of 12 active projects, and total IDA disbursements for FY02–09 amounting to$576 million, of which $129 occurred in FY06–09. Bank-related trust fund activity in Boliviasince 2002 has also been modest (consisting of 12 grants under various Bank programs andglobal partnerships valued at $7.4 million, and one small free-standing grant of $32,000).Total disbursements for FY02–09 amounted to $124.3, including HIPC relief. Almost half ofthose disbursements came from three FIFs – the GAVI Fund, the Global Fund, and the GEF.Most of the IBRD/IDA trust fund support in recent years has come from global partnershipprograms, notably the Global Partnership for Output-based Aid, ESMAP, and the GlobalFacility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery. In addition, a number of earlier free-standingtrust funds that continued disbursing during FY02–09 consist of carry-overs from theprevious era of greater Bank engagement and are linked to the structural and institutionalreforms in vogue at the time. With the exception of new Carbon Finance and Solar HomeSystems grants, all other IBRD/IDA trust funds finance technical assistance and advisoryservices, many of them linked to Bank projects in the social sectors. It is hard to make ageneral case that Bank-administered trust funds play much of a role in Bolivia today, or thatthey have done so for some time, given the small amount of the grants involved and theeven smaller sums that have been disbursed.EthiopiaEthiopia is one of IDA’s 5 biggest borrowers, with a portfolio of more than 30 operationsand total net commitments of $4.3 billion at end-FY10. The Ethiopia country managementunit currently monitors some 75 World Bank-administered trust funds with a total grantamount of $770 million. This includes both country-specific trust funds and grants fromglobal and regional trust-funded programs, such as the GEF and the EFA/FTI. Ethiopia hasalso received some $1.3 billion from the Global Fund. Three large multi-donor trust fundscofinance Bank lending operations in the social sectors, notably in support of the Protectionof Basic Services program, the Productive Safety Nets program, and an educational program(GEQUIP), which is receives EFA/FTI support. Donors created these country-specificMDTFs as replacements for direct budget support in order to continue funding publicservices and food security programs under political conditions that led to reservations aboutdisbursing funds directly to the government. Other trust funds are used to support the90