Tag Archives: MKB
Health Systems Strengthening – Democratic Republic of Congo
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is one of Africa’s most rapidly growing economies. Since 2010 economic growth has exceeded the average for Sub-Saharan Africa by two percentage points, projected to reach over 10% growth in 2015. However, the DRC has some of the worst health and nutrition indicators in the world and is ranked last (#187) in the 2013 Human Development Report. As such, the DRC is not on track to achieve any of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), especially those related to Maternal and Child Health.
The higher level objective to 
which this project would contribute is to increase efficiency and effectiveness in the health system in order to improve human development outcomes. Improvements in efficiency and effectiveness, in turn, should boost confidence in these systems and may lead to an increase in overall investment in the social sectors.
Development Objective
The proposed project development objective is to improve utilization and quality of maternal and child health services in targeted areas.
The IFC
The World Bank Group, other than providing IDA & IBRD financing to bor
rowing governments, also has three other pillars. These are the IFC, MIGA and the ICSID. The activities by the MIGA were explained in an earlier post, in this article we are focusing on the International Finance Corporation ( IFC ), the private sector pillar of the WBG. For the first time in the history of the World Bank Group the IFC was the pillar with the biggest budget, financing for more than $22 billion in fiscal year 2014.
The IFC provides financial support through loans and equity financing to its clients and additionally provide advice to unlock private sector investment. For a project to be eligible for IFC support a number of criteria must be met. The project must be located in a developing country that is a member of the IFC, active in the private sector, be technically sound, have good prospects of being profitable, benefit the local economy and satisfy environmental and social standards.
Capacity Building Sanitation Plan – Vietnam
The development objective of the TA is to support the Can Tho City Peoples’ Committee and the City’s Department of Construction in implementing the poor-inclusive City Sanitation Plan by providing expertise to develop curricula, guidelines and training programs to increase implementation capacity for the Plan.
Through an assessment of current and future demand for human resources competencies in sanitation in Can Tho the TA will establish a framework and program for delivering capacity building to the city agencies responsible for the planning, coordination and implementation of sanitation services in the city’s urban, peri-urban and rural areas.
See full tender here: Capacity Building Sanitation Plan – Vietnam
Expression of Interest Deadline: 09 February 2015
The Country Partnership Framework (CPF)
In one of our factsheets posted on this blog we explain the project
cycle, this post will dive deeper into what the Country Assistance Strategy is and what it means for you. The project cycle starts with the formulation of a Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) or Country Partnership Strategy (CPS). This CAS / CPS provides a comprehensive diagnosis of the challenges of project development and identifies the areas the World Bank can have the biggest impact on poverty reduction.
In 2013 a new World Bank Group Corporate Strategy was announced. This lead to the establishment of Global Practices and Cross-Cutting Solution Areas this past July; something we also reported on earlier. After the reorganization the CAS / CPF was replaced by a new strategic country development document, now called the Country Partnership Framework (CPF). From 2015 onwards all strategic country development documents will be created according to the new CPF format.
Like the former CAS / CPS, the CPF provides the reader with borrowing countries development objectives, that it wants to achieve with the help of the World Bank. It also includes a result chain of how these objectives will contribute to the Bank’s twin goals of reducing absolute poverty and boosting shared prosperity. Additionally, the CPF focuses on specific sectors where the Bank plans to identify broader objectives.
The CPF will be based on a Systemic Country Diagnostic (SCD) document, which contains data that provides analysis and grounding for determining the opportunities and constraints in a country. The SCD together with the local government’s national development plan will be used to initiate a discussion about priority areas and where the Bank’s added value could be utilized.
The CPF is drafted by the World Bank country team residing in Washington DC, in cooperation with the regional or country office. Hereafter it must be signed off by the Regional Vice President and the Managing Director and will then be sent to the Bank’s Board of Directors for discussion and approval.
During the process of gathering data for the SCD and drafting the CPF the Bank often consults with the various stakeholders, including the private sector, civil society and possible other institutions like for example the foreign embassies. Although it is not expected that the World Bank actively engages with a lot of companies in the process of drafting a CPF, overall visions of these companies on the potential development of the borrowing countries can be taken in account.
In conclusion, the CPF is a strategic vision document which outlines the Bank’s strategy concerning activities with the borrowing countries. It will identify certain key sectors that are critical for the borrowing country’s development. As the CPF is sometimes subject to stakeholder consultations and external input, it would beneficial for a company to be involved in the process. Either way examining the CPF closely will give the company a good idea of the future direction of the WBG in the country.
Health Insurance Subsidy Process Evaluation – Kenya
The African Health Markets for Equity (AHME) is a five-year project that aims to improve health outcomes through the provision of quality private sector health care targeting the poor in Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana. In Kenya, the AHME project is supporting the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) to design, test, and scale-up the Health Insurance Subsidy Program (HISP) that will serve as a mechanism for the Government of Kenya to subsidize NHIF insurance cover for the poorest households in Kenya.
To supplement a quantitative impact evaluation of the programme, the NHIF plans to carry out a process evaluation. The aim of the process evaluation is to assess programme implementation and provide information that will help implementers determine the degree to which the HISP intervention was implemented as planned (implementation fidelity).
Trust Funds – The Basics
In 2013 The World Bank Group (WBG) disbursed about $52 billion dollars to finance projects, mainly through IBRD, IDA and the IFC. These disbursements are the ‘regular’ projects financed by the WBG. However, the WBG also has many Trust Funds (TFs), which complement regular project financing. The TFs are often established to adequately respond to economic and/or social developments. In 2013, the WBG held about $29 billion in trust funds. The activities financed by TFs can differ from basic and small consultancy projects to very large multimillion dollar construction projects. Continue reading
Do’s and Dont’s
1. Make use of the services provided by the Dutch government: World Bank liaisons
2. Elevator pitch (different from Sales Pitch, which is a don’t!)
3. Schedule a follow up (in person, by phone or by e-mail)
4. Gain knowledge on project procedures and guidelines documents/cycles
5. Research speaker(s): the World Bank is a multicultural environment.
6. Identify specific interests, purpose and deliverables for your visit
7. Ask questions
1. Make a sales pitch / sell products
2. Expect contracts and/or donations on the spot
3. Be general about intentions and interests
4. Expect quick wins; working with the World Bank takes patience and endurance
5. Cancel meetings last minute
6. Come to the meeting without knowledge of the World Bank (and its structure)
7. Distribute handouts (send an email with attachment afterwards instead)
If you have any questions or need advice to prepare for your meeting(s) please contact the World Bank Liaison officers at the Netherlands embassy here
World Bank tenders
Ever wondered where you can find World Bank project tenders?
The two sources provided by the World Bank are e-Consultant2 for all the corporate procurement tenders, and the World Bank project page for country executed projects.
Other sources that can be used to find tenders are Devex, Devbusiness and dgMarket. These are independently run websites that provide a clear overview of the available tenders of almost all the IFI’s, not necessarily only the World Bank.
The World Bank Reorganization 2: Who does what?
In an earlier blog entry we published the new organizational structure of the World Bank after the change process, explaining the new Global Practices (GPs) and Cross-Cutting Solution Areas (CCSAs). But more than the organizational structure the change process also impacted both the role of WB country offices vis-à-vis Headquarters, as well as the role of the different World Bank Units. To further illustrate the roles of the different organizational units, recall the figure below.
Netherlands for the World Bank 
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