Advancing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) at the World Bank

Prior to endorsing the MDGs, Bank staff held widespread skepticism about utilizing the MDGs as operational guidance; some saw the MDGs as an artificial, “one-size-fits-all” political mandate, while others had credible concerns about their achievability, associated reputational risks, and potential to dilute the Bank’s traditional emphasis on macroeconomics and infrastructure. In 2001-2002, GivingWorks played a catalytic role in helping to clarify, position, and embed the MDGs into the operations of the Bank. Our engagement began by facilitating a senior staff working group, which, building on a robust analytical foundation, achieved consensus on the MDGs within two months. Subsequently, we devised a holistic analytical tool to pinpoint systemic bottlenecks to achieving the MDGs. This methodology has been productively employed by several country teams. Given that the MDGs are largely viewed as most salient to the lowest income countries, we designed an adaptable MDG Plus framework for Middle Income Countries. GivingWorks helped implement this framework with the Government of Thailand by designing and conducting a hands-on workshop with senior officials from seven key ministries. Working with counterparts in Bangkok, we helped frame the analysis, advised on the selection of priorities and indicators, revised drafts, and ensured the report represented the best global thinking. At the ceremony launching the report, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan commended Thailand “for setting ambitious MDG-Plus targets well beyond those agreed internationally.”

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Managing for Results at the World Bank

As a global organization, the Bank faced difficulties designing a results management tool that could reliably track and integrate results across countries and generate meaningful, decision-relevant data at multiple levels. GivingWorks was engaged to work closely with the Bank’s East Asia and Pacific (EAP) regional leadership and country teams to develop and test a new integrated results management tool. The tool was designed to capture the “missing middle” between the granular output metrics and the high-level development outcome metrics by tracking intermediate progress on priority outcomes from the Bank’s Country Assistance Strategies. The tool also enabled aggregation of results at the country, regional and global levels. The tool was piloted by several country teams during FY ‘07 and is currently in use to inform resource allocation discussions and mid-year reviews.