Nonlending Activities

Country Assistance Strategies

A country assistance strategy (CAS) guides Bank Group activities within a borrowing member country. Starting with a country’s vision of its development goals, a CAS is prepared in consultation with the government, civil society organizations, development partners, and other stakeholders. It assesses the country’s development situation and suggests a program to meet its needs. During fiscal 2007, the Bank prepared 38 CAS products, including 10 CAS progress reports and 12 interim strategy notes, which are prepared when a country assistance strategy cannot be completed because of specific country circumstances. Of these, 19 were prepared jointly with IFC, and several were prepared collaboratively with other donors.

Strategy Development

In fiscal 2007, the World Bank produced two sector strategy papers: Healthy Development: The World Bank’s Strategy for Health, Nutrition, and Population Results, and Financial Sector Strategy for the World Bank. In addition, other strategy-related papers, including a paper on the strategy for strengthening the World Bank’s engagement with IBRD partner countries, were discussed in fiscal 2007 by the Development Committee. In February 2007, the Executive Directors approved a new policy framework for strengthening the World Bank’s rapid response to crises and emergencies, which was accompanied by a new strategy for strengthening the Bank’s institutional support and long-term engagement in fragile states. The Bank also produced a governance and anticorruption strategy that was endorsed by the Executive Directors.

Analytic and Advisory Services

Analytic and advisory activities are an integral part of the Bank’s nonlending client services. The core group of products consists of economic and sector work and technical assistance (nonlending). Economic and sector work aims to influence client-country policies and programs. Technical assistance helps client countries implement policies and programs. To strengthen outcome orientation, ensure country ownership, and work within a harmonized donor approach, analytic and advisory activities are increasingly prepared in close collaboration with client countries and other multilateral and bilateral donors.

The Bank delivered 531 economic and sector work and 430 technical assistance products in fiscal 2007.

Research

The Bank’s research group investigates a wide range of development issues. Its studies are designed to inform and influence researchers, academics, and the policy community— and to lead to better outcomes for poor people.

In fiscal 2007, the group produced new data sets on poverty, international migration, and access to finance. These data sets include new household surveys conducted as part of the Living Standards Measurement Study; an interactive tool (PovcalNet) that allows users to access data from 600 household surveys to replicate the Bank’s global $1-a-day poverty measure; and a Poverty Analysis Toolkit. Other products developed in fiscal 2007 include a database that provides estimates of international migration of skilled workers, and a cross-country data set on financial indicators that shows the extent to which enterprises and households use financial services.

In September 2006, an independent panel released the results of its review of Bank research conducted between 1998 and 2005. After examining more than 200 research projects and reports, it concluded that 61 percent of its sample was of above-average or superior quality, and it singled out the Bank’s role as collector of development data as especially valuable. The report offered two main recommendations for strengthening research at the Bank: statistical capacity needs to be reinforced, and the borderline between advocacy and research needs to be carefully respected. Further discussion by the Board stressed the importance of enhancing data collection and management capacity.

World Bank Institute

The World Bank Institute (WBI) focuses on knowledge sharing and learning. It identifies countries’ capacity development needs and provides relevant services and products, including technical assistance, thematic learning activities, cabinet-level retreats, and other programs.

In addition to providing critical knowledge and educational programs, WBI supports long-term capacity development by delivering multiyear programs, particularly in 45 focus countries specially designated for capacity development and to which 70 percent of WBI’s annual budget is dedicated. Fourteen of these countries are in Africa, where WBI plays a key role in implementing the Bank’s Africa Action Plan.

In fiscal 2007, WBI delivered some 700 learning activities and reached more than 75,000 participants, 33 percent of whom were women and 26 percent of whom were from Africa. WBI also increased its attention to organizational strengthening and reform. As part of a long-term program with the Central Bank of Bangladesh, it helped set up a policy analysis unit in the Central Bank’s research department. That unit published its first-ever financial sector review. In response to a request from the newly elected government of Liberia, WBI and the United Nations Development Programme organized two seminars on the budget process for the executive branch and the legislature. WBI has been engaged in a long-term program with the government of Sudan to meet the country’s postconflict transitional needs. This work is integrated with ongoing technical assistance funded by multidonor trust funds.

WBI has been supporting the Bank’s strategy on middle-income countries by facilitating knowledge exchanges between developing countries, leveraging the expertise of countries that are world leaders in areas such as clean energy, HIV/AIDS, conditional cash transfers, and agricultural research. It has also facilitated the exchange of knowledge among European Union (EU) accession countries. In Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Turkey, for example, WBI has been bringing leaders from EU countries together with leaders from non–EU countries to share their experiences with developing plans for the EU accession or convergence process.

WBI’s most prominent global programs are in governance and anticorruption and in knowledge for development (K4D). The K4D program assesses the preparedness of a country or region to compete in the global knowledge economy on the basis of WBI’s Knowledge Assessment Methodology (KAM). The 2007 KAM identifies sectors or specific areas where policy makers may need to focus more attention or increase investments.

© 2007 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank