An Evaluation of the World Bank's Trust Fund Portfolio

CHAPTER 3THE RELEVANCE AND EFFECTIVENESS OF TRUST FUND SUPPORT FOR DEVELOPMENTBox 3.10 Recipients’ Balance Sheet on Trust FundsRecipient officials say they have derived benefits from the use of trust funds whentrust funds:• Provided coordinated grant financing• Supplied funds when they can’t borrow from the MDBs or when bilateraldonors are reluctant to “go it alone”• Reduced transaction costs and piecemeal funding by pooling bilateral aid• Were accompanied by the World Bank’s convening power and technicalexpertise• Were a more flexible resource to tap for just-in-time assistance than Bankproject or program funding.Recipients also state that trust funds—especially global funds that operate inmultiple countries—have tended to create obstacles to their own program planningand implementation that they do not typically encounter with aid provided throughthe Bank. They have found trust funds to be particularly obstructive when they:• Require redundant plans and reports• Impose eligibility criteria—such as outcome targets or implementationmodalities—ill-suited to country conditions• Provide funds unpredictably—in some cases obliging recipients to front-loadimplementation or scale back plans• Do not coordinate fund activities well with related operations• Entail implementation arrangements determined by the trust fund, notcountry systems• Are not transparent.On balance, recipients consider trust funds as second best to direct budget or sectorprogram support and preferable to small and piecemeal project support. And theysee the use of trust funds as needing to be more consistent with aid effectivenesspractices of country ownership and country-led aid coordination.Source: Interviews with recipient officials conducted for this evaluation.Recipient Views of Their Experiences with Trust Funds3.58 From the perspective of recipients, the shortfalls in the goodaid practice of trust funds limit the overall value added of these fundsas vehicles for the delivery of aid. The benefits and costs as seen byrecipients are summarized in box 3.10.Summary3.59 While there is no clear evidence that trust funds havemobilized additional resources at the global level, they add value as adistinct aid vehicle by providing coordinated financing and grantresources for particular countries and targeted issues. The valueadded of these gap-filling functions is especially evident in trust fund47