DC-based Civil Society Roundtable Discussion on Draft Social Development Strategy, September 16, 2004

African Development Foundation
1400 Eye Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20005

Prepared by Mojgan Sami, Operations Analyst, World Bank

Number of participants: 17 total (CSO=12, WB=5)

CSOs Represented: African Development Foundation, InterAction, New Rules for Global Finance Coalition, Save the Children, World Vision, Bread for the World, National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of the United States, World Learning for International Development

The discussion began with Mr. Dick Day of the host organization - African Development Foundation (ADF) - welcoming the participants to the discussion. The welcome was followed by an introduction of all participants and a 4-minute introductory video on Social Development at the World Bank.

Mr. Steen Lau Jorgensen then gave a presentation on the draft social development strategy after the video and then a discussion followed with participants. A summary of the feedback is included here:

• Concerns over methodology were raised noting that the draft strategy is beginning with micro approaches but has made the number one priority "policy lending." This leap from micro to macro is difficult – important, but difficult.
• The World Bank can take the lead in ex-ante analysis in macro policy, but refuses to take it. The World Bank should address the internal institutional power dynamics to ensure that they are not being hypocritical. What the Bank is proposing to do in a village should first be done "in-house" institutionally with the Bank's power structure.
• How will this be funded? There were few participants who raised concerns that this was going to add to a country's debt burden and that rather than loans, this should be done with grants.
• Why are parliaments never mentioned?
• How does policy dialogue between Bank and governments ensure "inclusion" at the grassroots? There are examples of places where an NGO was the bridge between grass roots and policy dialogues that the Bank needs to consider.
• Why is social development done by so many different parts of the Bank? Save the Children works with Human Development, but how do we work with Social Development? How does Social Development integrate with Human Development?
• Has the World Bank done advocacy on Capital Hill? The Bank needs to engage with U.S. constituents. The Bank has never been good at interacting with the U.S. government, why can other international organizations (such as IFAD) have such strong constituencies in U.S. Congress, but not the Bank's Social Development Department? The Social Development Department is "preaching to the choir" in this discussion. Civil Society believes in your principles, the Bank doesn't need to convince NGOs about the need to pay attention to the social dimensions of development.
• How can the World Bank ensure consistency with aid policy? For example, the IMF budget gaps are a barrier to the Global Fund on HIV/AIDS. When resources flooded into African countries, the IMF asked that health ministries balance their budgets. How will countries deal with the IMF conditionalities?
• What does your accountability research show you in public service delivery?
• Why does "inclusion" stop at national NGOs? There is a role for international NGOs that the Bank needs to understand and engage. In many ways, they are easier to engage as they already have local institutional presence and expertise.
• How do you scale up from micro to have policy impact? That's where the Bank can do more to provide feedback that government can than feed into policy.
• Mainstreaming social development is important, but not sufficient for sustaining resources for it. For example, after gender was mainstreamed, funds stopped flowing in to gender programs. You need to ensure that you are mainstreaming, but have separate activities as well.

Mr. Jorgensen spoke to the points that were raised during the dialogue and after the discussion, which was moderated by Mr. Jeff Thindwa of the World Bank, there were three follow-up items that were discussed: namely, following up with DC-based CSOs on monthly meetings with the Social Development Department to share knowledge and best practice, the role of U.S. advocacy and the social development strategy, and receiving detailed feedback notes from each of the organizations present on the strategy. A few NGOs mentioned that they would be sending separate comments. These comments will be attached below when they are received.

• Comments sent by the Representatives of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of the U.S. on the Strategy (Word)