An Evaluation of the World Bank's Trust Fund Portfolio

CHAPTER 1THE ROLE OF TRUST FUNDS IN THE GLOBAL AID ARCHITECTUREthe mandate of the Bank? What have they contributed tocountries’ development efforts, and how consistent is their usewith principles of aid effectiveness?How effective are the processes within the Bank for themanagement and accountability of the trust funds itadministers?What impact —in terms of benefits and costs— have trustfunds had on the overall business of the World Bank?1.8 This assessment is based on the findings from six evaluationexercises: 7 Eight country studies, which included interviews with some120 government officials and in-country donorrepresentatives, in addition to many Bank staff 8 Review of a stratified random sample of 36 trust-fundedprograms, including programs of varying size Structured interviews with 40 randomly selected sectormanagers in the Bank’s Regions and networks Structured interviews with 55 officials of 8 donors 9 Review of other relevant Independent Evaluation Group (IEG)evaluations, Quality Assurance Group (QAG) reviews, andother external independent evaluations of specific trustfundedglobal and regional partnership programs Interviews with a large number of Bank managers and staffresponsible for the management and coordination of trustfunds.A majorconstraint toevaluating theBank’sengagementwith trust fundsis the lack ofcomprehensiveand consistentdata.1.9 A major constraint in the conduct of this evaluation is the lack ofcomprehensive and consistent data on the Bank’s trust fund portfolioand the uses of trust fund contributions. While improvements weremade in the Bank’s internal trust fund data over the course of thisevaluation, weaknesses still exist. This is a matter discussed in chapter4, as part of this evaluation’s assessment of the Bank’s overallperformance in the accountability of the use of trust funds. The rest ofthe current chapter addresses the question of why trust funds areused and what issues are raised by their increasing use over theperiod of the review.DONOR, RECIPIENT, AND BANK MOTIVES AND INTERESTS1.10 While donors, recipients, and trustee institutions have someoverlapping interests in the use of trust funds, their interests diverge notably onmatters of how trust fund allocation decisions are made and how the use oftheir resources are governed and managed.4