Resources

www.worldbank.org/socialfunds

Social funds are multi-sectoral programs that provide financing (usually grants) for small-scale public investments targeted at meeting the needs of the poor and vulnerable communities, and at contributing to social capital and development at the local level.  They serve as innovators and demonstrators of new methods of decentralized participatory decision-making, management, and accountability that may be adopted for broader application by public sector organizations... more.

This web site is structured around five main areas:

1. Overview – includes some basic facts and history about the social funds, their relationship to broader development strategies and documents framing key issues and challenges experienced by social fund managers and teams, including policy and impact evaluation documents.
2. Focus Areas – this is a dynamic section used to highlight current priority areas of the Bank's work or future priorities.
3. Design & Implementation – topic areas organized alphabetically are listed here to help guide project teams with various design and implementation issues encountered along the project cycle.
4. Themes – cross-cutting themes that are not exclusive to a particular area of the project cycle, such as vulnerability and conflict, are grouped in this section.
5. Regions & Countries – this section provides a brief introductory page per region describing some of the particularities of the region and general social funds portfolio trends, as well as links into social fund literature, case studies, and other relevant documentation specific to that region.