Tackling rural poverty, together

An evaluation of the Development Potential of Regional Programs and an Overview of the Main Trends in ODA Flows

Two interesting and insightful new reports prepared by the World Bank staff are now available in our library:

1. The Development Potential of Regional Programs — An Evaluation of World Bank Support of Multicountry Operations
2. Aid Architecture: An Overview of the Main Trends in Official Development Assistance Flows

1. The Development Potential of Regional Programs - An Evaluation of World Bank Support of Multicountry Operations

The World Bank's Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) evaluation entitled "The Development Potential of Regional Programs", finds that cross-border development programs can deliver strong results, such as providing reliable energy, managing shared water resources, enhancing environmental protection and combating the spread of communicable diseases. Existing programs have done well, but overall support for regional cooperation remains limited and the programs have often lacked sufficient planning to make them sustainable. During the past decade, only about 3 percent of all international development aid went to regional programs.

Key components that need to be in place to make regional programs more successful:

• Each participating country needs to be committed to the regional effort.
• Regional programs also need to have a clear division of responsibilities between the national and regional institutions.
• Governance arrangements need to give the participating countries a voice.

 Read the full evaluation...

2. Aid Architecture: An Overview of the Main Trends in Official Development Assistance Flows

This background report was prepared by the World Bank Group's International Development Association (IDA) for the April 15, 2007, Development Committee Meeting of IMF and World Bank.

ODA has grown steadily over the last decade, and is expected to continue to rise as donors have committed to significantly scale-up aid to achieve the MDGs. To make effective use of such scaled-up ODA at the country level, a number of implementation challenges would need to be addressed by donor and recipients. The most upfront challenges include:

• Achieving complementarity across national, regional and global development priorities and programs; and
• Strengthening recipient countries’ ability to make effective use of potentially scaled-up fast-disbursing ODA, such as budget support.

A platform for achieving complementarity across national, regional and global development priorities and programs can be found in the principles and targets of the Paris Declaration. In addition, country-level effectiveness of a potential scaling-up in programmatic ODA – added to the increased fiscal space brought about by recent debt relief initiatives – can be enhanced if country systems are strengthened.

Read the full report...