An Evaluation of the World Bank's Trust Fund Portfolio

CHAPTER 4MANAGEMENT AND ACCOUNTABILITYBox 4.3 How VPU Managements Monitor Trust Fund ImplementationLatin America and the Caribbean: “Trust Funds are reviewed each month at theRegional Management business meeting.”Europe and Central Asia: “Europe and Central Asia assembled portfolio reportson TFs at the time of the Annual Meetings and some country units assemblethis data regularly. In general, we will need to develop an efficient method ofgetting accurate data, as the institutional databases are unwieldy.”East Asia: “The focus of our future efforts would be to ensure that activitiesfunded by trust funds…should be monitored along with the rest of theportfolio. As in IBRD/IDA projects, the focus on results should run through thevarious stages of the project cycle and not just at the proposal stageSustainable Development Network: “The quarterly MOU [Memorandum ofUnderstanding] meetings (between the Vice-President and Directors) that areheld to assess progress and identify issues include trust funds.”Sources: FY10 updates from Regions.4.36 Oversight issues affect BETFs as well as RETFs. QAG’sreview of AAA found that management oversight is the single mostimportant factor in explaining differences in AAA quality, andmanagement oversight is “appreciably lower” when tasks arefinanced by trust funds rather than by Bank budget. 24 In Bangladesh,for instance, a staff member observed: “The smaller funds, especiallythose managed by the networks, seem to the ‘off the radar screen’ ofthe country management unit once they are approved.”4.37 Further perspective on the quality of oversight is provided bysector managers’ replies to the question: “Is the quality assurance oftrust-funded activities routinely exercised within your unit with thesame degree of rigor as Bank-financed activities?” About half the 38 25respondents see the quality assurance as being equal. These managersnoted that where trust funds are matched with or used together withBank budget, or when they are very large, they are subject to the sameprocedures and level of rigor. The other half of the managers sawquality assurance as inferior (15 respondents said quality assurance is“sometimes” and 3 said it is “rarely or never” equal). These managersattributed the inferiority to five causes:Oversightissues affecttrust fundsexecuted by theBank and by therecipient.About half ofthose surveyedsaid thatoversightquality wasinferior to otherBank-financedactivities.The Bank’s rules do not require the same level of qualityassurance—”the supervision process is much more lax thanfor formal AAA with Bank budget resources.”Insufficient supervision budget or too many small activities tosupervise properly.Attitudes of task team leaders who “don’t have the same senseof accountability as for Bank budget.”Attitudes of donors—”Donors don’t value supervision.”61