1. ACTION 2015: Transforming institutions to empower men and women
CGIAR Annual Meeting October 2004
Steen Lau Jørgensen
Social Development
World Bank

2. ACTION 2015 Accountability Cohesion Transparency Inclusion Opportunity
Now

3. An example from Mchinji, Malawi…
In 2002 an illiterate woman took part in a CARE program to train communities how to monitor health services using a community score card: keeping track of drug supplies, and assessing the quality of service by staff.
She got very good at it…
How many drugs were supplied to the center?
How were given to patients?
How many were available?
How were staff treating patients?
Health staff know that they will be evaluated every six months
Ministry takes note of the evaluations
Change in performance is dramatic
Drugs delivery was a huge problem throughout Malawi
Complete turnaround in performance of this health center within 6 months when the score card exercise was repeated

4. An example from Mchinji, Malawi…
The CARE program was expanded throughout Malawi
When the program was being introduced to other sectors through the Malawi Social Action Fund this illiterate woman was asked to present it
Clear
Articulate
Powerful

5. ACTION 2015: Three key principles
Inclusion: People at the center of development Involved an illiterate woman in Mchinji
Cohesion: Strengthening community fabric
The village in Mchinji worked together to solve problem
Accountability: Exercising voice to authorities
An illiterate woman gave voice to community

6. What is ACTION 2015? One woman  A village  A District
 A National Program
In recent times, we have seen things that cause us to question our basic humanity.   Bloody wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and large parts of Africa.  Unspeakable genocide and killing in Darfur.  Despicable acts of terror in Bali and Madrid.  Growing violence between Israel and Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank.  In Beslan, we have seen children taken hostage and shot in the back. In Baghdad, innocent men are brutally beheaded on television.   
In reaction, we have become preoccupied with security.  It is absolutely right that, together, we fight terror. We must.  The danger, however, is that in our preoccupation with immediate threats, we lose sight of the longer-term and equally urgent causes of our insecure world: poverty, frustration, and lack of hope.
 Why not the World?

7. Meeting the Millennium Development Goals
Meeting these goals will take more resources, more knowledge and better institutions
Social Development is about transforming institutions
E.g. the rush to privatize agriculture marketing, the lack of supply response to price changes in agriculture
Literature is full of “Institutions matter”
It’s not surprising that a great deal of empirical research directly correlates poverty reduction with agricultural productivity.
Peter Timmer, a well-known economist at Stanford, did some research on 35 low-income countries and noted that a 10 percent increase in crop yield led to a 6–10 % reduction in the number of people living on a dollar a day.
In Africa, the correlation was that a 10 % increase in crop yield led to about a 9 % decrease in the percentage of those living on a dollar a day.

8. What is Action 2015
Empowering men and women through transforming social institutions to make them more
Inclusive
Cohesive
Accountable

9. Assets and Capabilities for Poverty Reduction
Institutions:
Well-being
Poverty reduction
Social
Financial
Inclusive
Cohesive
Accountable
Physical
Human
Natural

10. Why ACTION 2015? Better growth Better projects Better quality of life
Global consensus that “social development” matters
Social Development Summit Copenhagen 1995
Millennium Declaration 2000
Johannesburg 2002

11. Better Growth Inclusion means all contribute
Contrast discrimination
Cohesion increases investment
Contrast conflict
Accountability correlates with growth in following decade

12. Accountable Institutions and Developing Country Growth
( )
125
100 75 50 25
Economic Growth ( )
-25
-50
-75
-100
100
200
300
400
500
600
Accountability 1984

13. Number of SD Overlapping Themes Institutional Development
Better Projects
Ratings for Projects Addressing One or More Social Development (SD) Themes,
Number of SD Overlapping Themes
Outcome
Sustain-ability
Institutional Development
impact
Share of Rated Portfolio
(%)
Entire Portfolio 68 50 34
100
At least 1 72 53 37 26
At least 2 81 62 45 8
At least 3 84 63 47 5
At least 4 90 64 49
1.5
Source: OED, 2003.

14. Better Quality of Life Inclusion
Contrast exclusion of e.g. Afro-descendants
Social Capital (one aspect of cohesion) matters
Accountability – important to service delivery
Intrinsic value – people define poverty as powerlessness

15. How does the World Bank support ACTION 2015?
Many parts of the Bank contribute:
Social sectors (“Human Development”): health, education, social protection
Public Sector Management, poverty analysis, agriculture and rural development
All these areas have existing strategies
What is missing?
Bottom up understanding and transformation of institutions

16. How does the World Bank support ACTION 2015?
Areas of activity within ACTION 2015:
Social Analysis
Participation and Civic Engagement
Community Driven Development
Conflict Prevention and Reconstruction
Social Safeguards
Social analysis
What social norms about girls education are relevant for achieving universal primary education?
What is the likely social impact of land reform in Cambodia or Zambia?
How is a country evolving on principles, tracking progress on inclusion, cohesion, accountability
Participation and Civil Engagement
Uganda, support public debates of policy changes proposed through dialogue with WB
Albania, support legal changes in enabling environment for civil society
Peru support publication of the Budget
Philippines work on accountability and NGO enabling environment
Community Driven Development
Indonesia & Philippines, provide resources to communities that take initiatives to develop local development plans
CDD in 60+ countries with a volume of Bank support between 1 and 2 billion USD annually
Conflict Prevention and Reconstruction
Help rebuild infrastructure, economies and societies in Afghanistan, Congo, Somalia
Conflict analysis (Somalia, Nigeria) to study drivers of conflict and recommend policy changes
Social Safeguards
Protect interests of indigenous peoples& involuntarily resettled persons, ensuring they benefit in appropriate ways from development interventions
Traditionally main entry point for SD staff, now about 20% of work
Staffing:
Recognized as sector group within the Bank since 1997
140 staff (out of 10,000 total), 60 with anthropology or sociology background, but very diverse
About 25 staff in central unit
Rest in regional units headed by sector managers and under an ESSD Director ( few in research & WBI)
Half of social development staff are in country offices, reporting to Regional managers

17. Strategic Objective: Accelerate the trajectory
Heading in the right direction
Portfolio that includes SD increased (to about half in recent years) from less than a third of lending in last 30 years.
Quality of attention to SD issues in other projects improved (85% of good quality up from 75 four years ago)
However, Millennium Development Goals challenge us to go further:
Strengthen policy dialogue and lending
Improve project effectiveness – by mainstreaming and free-standing portfolio
Build on foundation of capacity building, advocacy and research
Increase Attention to SD in the Bank's Policy Dialogue and Policy-based Lending
Strengthen multi-stakeholder participation in development and monitoring of macro strategy documents (e.g. Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, Medium Term Expenditure Framework, Bank Country Assistance Strategy)
Improve the social development content of policy analysis, working from positive experiences with Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA) and social capital studies.
Improve content of policy-based lending
E.g., budget transparency conditionality, enabling community groups to manage public funds, improving transparency of bidding process
Improve the effectiveness of Bank-supported investment projects: A more systematic approach to social development and stronger follow-through:
Improve multi-stakeholder participation – to include better sustainability and monitoring by building into local planning processes;
Improve social analysis including efficiency improvements by relying on sector-wide and country-wide work, e.g. country social analysis and
Improve mainstreaming of SD concerns into Bank-financed projects and project components and nurture SD portfolio that is currently at about 8% of Bank lending.
Improve capacity building, advocacy and research
Align research priorities better with operational needs by supporting research that:
explores further the link between the social dimensions of development and economic growth,
refines indicators for social development, and
better evaluates the impacts of social development projects.
Sustain advocacy based on better aligned research and clarify the aspects of social development the Bank will address directly.
Strengthen capacity building

18. #1
Strategic Priority 1 – More Macro: Improve strategies, policy dialogue and policy lending by incorporating social development into macro-level processes, analysis and content.
Strategic Priority 2 – Better Projects: Improve development effectiveness of investment lending through more comprehensive and efficient integration of social development into project-level process, analysis and content.
Strategic Priority 3 – Better Grounding: Improve research, capacity building and partnerships to solidify the grounding for better operations.

19. #2
Strategic Priority 2 – Better Projects: Improve development effectiveness of investment lending through more comprehensive and efficient integration of social development into project-level process, analysis and content.
Strategic Priority 3 – Better Grounding: Improve research, capacity building and partnerships to solidify the grounding for better operations.

20. #3
Strategic Priority 3 – Better Grounding: Improve research, capacity building and partnerships to solidify the grounding for better operations.

21. New Business Model More upstream, integrated More comprehensive
Less project by project
More comprehensive
E.g. participation
More partnership oriented

22. Links with Agriculture and the CGIAR
Technology adaptation gap
Role of local institutions
Knowledge transfer
Marketing
New role for institutions:
Neither state, nor markets nor communities are the solution

23. Partnerships? Research partnerships Capacity Building in country
Role of rural institutions for poverty reduction?
Capacity Building in country
Training of staff
“Macro” social development course
Staff exchanges

24. Next steps External Consultations (wrapping up)
Dissemination after World Bank Board endorsement
Implementation in partnership with others

25. “I will not wait…”
In a letter from Birmingham jail, Martin Luther King Jr.wrote:
“How long are my people supposed to wait?… Human progress…takes the hard work of dedicated people like you and me, working together to advance human civilization… I will not wait…”