An Evaluation of the World Bank's Trust Fund Portfolio

CHAPTER 3THE RELEVANCE AND EFFECTIVENESS OF TRUST FUND SUPPORT FOR DEVELOPMENTMDGs, the provision of development-related global public goods, orspecial country circumstances. Most trust-funded programs are alignedwith the applicable Bank sector or corporate strategy. The AfricaCatalytic Growth Fund, for instance, was set up to operationalize part ofthe African Action Plan, and the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor(CGAP) is consistent with the Financial Sector Strategy. Eight of the 36programs sampled, however, diverged from the relevant sectorstrategies. 5 The Polio Buy-Down program, which exclusively supportsvaccine provision, is not fully consistent with the Bank’s more holisticapproach to health and social services. The Critical EcosystemPartnership Fund, in its first phase, diverged from the Bank’sEnvironment Strategy insofar as it focused on environmental gainswithout tracking and reporting the livelihoods of its grant recipients, buthas widened its focus in its second phase.Trust funds arenot wellintegrated intocountryassistancestrategies.3.12 The country assistance strategy (CAS) is an important instrumentfor ensuring that Bank Group support is relevant for and aligned withcountry priorities and programs. It lays out the country’s maindevelopment challenges and the Bank Group’s role in relation to otherdonors, and it is a key vehicle for agreeing with the borrower authoritieson priorities. Trust-funded activities are not systematically incorporatedinto CASs, so this instrument is not being employed effectively to shapethe use of or engagement with trust funds at the country level, nor indiscussion with the clients. Indonesia was the only case study countrywhere the CAS gave proper treatment to trust funds (box 3.1).3.13 In contrast, the CASs for four other country case studies—Bangladesh, Benin, Ethiopia, and Rwanda—assert that the Bank will usetrust funds to help achieve the CAS’s strategic objectives, but do not statehow each trust fund will be deployed in support of the objectives. Thetrust funds that cofinance (or fully finance) IDA operations are usuallymentioned, but the “programmatic” network-managed funds and thelarge global funds are mentioned only in passing, despite theirsubstantial size.Box 3.1 The Indonesia Country Partnership Strategy Lists Trust Funds Along withAll Other Resources to be Deployed in Achieving the Strategy’s GoalsThe major trust funds are fully integrated into the country strategy. Thepartnership strategy presents objectives, activities, and intended results for eachof the engagement areas, and lists all available resources (lending, nonlendingassistance, and trust funds) that will be deployed to achieve those goals. Thesame approach is followed in periodic Engagement Strategy Notes produced bycountry unit and sector unit staff, which summarize recent progress towardengagement area goals; the status of lending, analytic and advisory activities(AAA), and trust-funded programs; and issues for management attention.Source: Indonesia country case study.28