CDF Principles The Comprehensive Development Framework is an approach by which countries can achieve more effective poverty reduction. It emphasizes the interdependence of all elements of development - social, structural, human, governance, environmental, economic, and financial. It encompasses a set of principles to guide development and poverty reduction, including the provision of external assistance. The four CDF principles are: The CDF is essentially a process: it is not a blueprint to be applied to all countries in a uniform manner. It is a new way of doing business, a tool to achieve greater development effectiveness in a world challenged by poverty and distress. In the short run, the CDF establishes mechanisms to bring people together and build consensus, forges stronger partnerships that allow for strategic selectivity, reduces wasteful competition, and emphasizes the achievement of concrete results. It will help donors become more selective in what they do. In the long run, the CDF enhances development effectiveness and contributes toward the central goal of poverty reduction and reaching agreed targets such as the Millenium Development Goals. For more information on the operational applications of the CDF, please see the 2004 CDF staff guide. CDF and the International Development Agenda The CDF principles are embedded deeply in the international development agenda. For example, implementing the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness is tantamount to implementing the CDF, in that the Paris Declaration underscores a clear resolve to work towards similar goals: stronger country ownership of development policies, alignment of external partners' assistance, harmonization of procedures, managing for results and mutual accountability. The CDF is also consistent with the 2005 World Summit Outcome, which calls for the adoption, by 2006, and implementation of comprehensive national development strategies to achieve the internationally agreed development goals and objectives, including the Millenium Development Goals. The CDF principles have been underpinning the Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) process since its inception, and were formally endorsed as the basis for all of the Bank's work, starting in January 2001 through the Bank's Strategic Framework Paper and later through Strategic Directions Papers. In some Low-Income Countries Under Stress (LICUS), Transitional Results Matrices (TRMs) help launch a PRS approach, also informed by the CDF principles. The 2005 CDF Progress Report shows that many countries that have been following the PRS process the longest have achieved relatively more clarity on their long-term development objectives and strategies to achieve them. For more information on the implementation of the CDF see the 2005 progress report (162K pdf). Challenges - Harmonization, at both the institutional and country level, of operational strategies, policies and procedures, is the most important priority for action by external partners. While the World Bank and other MDBs, and the OECD/DAC, have working groups to look at these issues, much remains to be done.
- The limits to country capacity are proving critically important for the whole range of government activity, including strategy formulation and implementation, building partnership and poverty diagnostics. This also includes monitoring progress on development results—with the Millennium Development Goals providing a frame of reference—and for which setting realistic targets for progress and developing effective monitoring mechanisms is proving a considerable challenge.
- Strengthening participatory processes, making them a regular, institutionalized feature, is proving crucial to building country ownership of national strategies. This includes much better engagement with the poor or marginalized groups and with the private sector; a difficult task in all these cases for many countries. It is important that such participation should be conducted under country leadership in a way that promotes the more effective functioning of existing, sometimes fragile, democratic institutions.
- The application of CDF has profound implications for how the World Bank and other development organizations work, their instruments, processes, internal culture, and the behavior of all staff.
History In his Annual Meetings speech, The Challenge of Inclusion, in Hong Kong in the fall of 1997, the Bank's President, James D. Wolfensohn, outlined a vision of the Bank as an institution committed to forging closer partnerships with other actors to enhance development effectiveness. Following up on that vision, in the summer of 1998, the Bank carried out a series of consultations, including four round-tables, in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa, on a discussion paper titled Partnerships for Development: Proposed Actions for the World Bank (337K PDF). Participants included representatives from governments, bilateral donor agencies, multilateral financial institutions, academia, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and other civil society organizations as well as the private sector. This series of meetings resulted in a follow-up paper entitled Partnership for Development: From Vision to Action (150K PDF). Returning to the theme of closer partnerships for development, Mr. Wolfensohn, in his 1998 Annual Meetings Speech The Other Crisis, suggested the need for a more integrated approach to development based on a framework articulated and "owned" by the country itself. That vision, known as the Comprehensive Development Framework, builds on these ideas: The CDF principles were widely and explicitly accepted by the international community as a basis for achieving greater poverty reduction and sustainable development. A network of CDF focal points within multilateral, bilateral and UN agencies have been meeting regularly on various aspects of implementation. Additional background on the CDF: Towards a New Paradigm for Development: Strategies, Policies, and Processes (119K pdf)
Joseph Stiglitz, Chief Economist, The World Bank, October 19, 1998 Participation and Development: Perspectives from the Comprehensive Development Paradigm (114K pdf)
Joseph Stiglitz, Chief Economist, The World Bank, February 27, 1999 Coalitions for Change: 1999 Annual Meetings Address
James D. Wolfensohn, President, The World Bank Group, September 28, 1999 Building an Equitable World: 2000 Annual Meetings Address
James D. Wolfensohn, President, The World Bank Group, September 26, 2000
|
RSS