The Middle East and North Africa Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MENA MDTF) provides donor funding to support countries in the region that are currently undergoing historic transition and reform. Aligned with the World Bank's regional strategy (2015) and enlarged strategy (2019), the Fund aims to help reduce poverty and enhance shared prosperity by promoting economic and social inclusion for peace and stability in the MENA region, emphasizing peace and stability as a perquisite for development.
The cross-cutting themes of gender, regional integration and a competitive private sector are also fundamental principles of the Bank's regional strategy and are supported by the MDTF. The MDTF supports technical assistance for project preparation, analytical studies, capacity building and knowledge sharing. In addition to working closely with country counterparts, the MENA MDTF strongly boosts coordination with other donors to leverage synergies and avoid duplication of effort and resources.
The Middle East and North Africa Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MENA MDTF) was established in 2012 to support the transition underway at the time in many countries in the MENA region. The 1st Cycle, which ran from 2012-2017 provided over US$12 million in grants to 35 activities at both country and regional level. The 2nd Cycle, now underway, is scheduled to run from 2018-2021 with a current envelope of US$9.1 million supporting 34 activities. Despite being a relatively small trust fund, it has nonetheless played a catalytic role in helping to deliver innovative practices, programs, initiating reforms and pushing the boundaries on new approaches to development in the region.
The MENA MDTF is financed by the governments of Finland, Norway and the UK. It supports technical assistance for project preparation, analytical studies, capacity building and knowledge sharing in areas where there is a clear and urgent need on the ground. The MENA MDTF is aligned with the World Bank Group’s MENA strategy, and therefore the activities funded demonstrate clear linkages to relevant current and future Bank-funded operations and programs.
Aligned with the World Bank’s strategy for the MENA region, the MENA MDTF has directly supported the Strategy’s four pillars:
It has also supported the enlarged Strategy in effect since 2019, with new activities supporting Human Capital, Digital Economy and Private Sector Engagement.
The future operations supported by the MENA MDTF will be aligned with the priorities of the 2019 enlarged MENA Regional strategy.
Since its inception in 2012, the MENA MDTF continues to be critical and relevant. Many MENA countries continue to experience fragility and in some cases conflict, with spillovers affecting neighboring countries. Valuable human capital is being eroded. New economic opportunities are being undermined. And countless lives and livelihoods are being negatively impacted.
The World Bank Group’s approach in the MENA region focuses on addressing the underlying root causes for conflict and violence in the region. We have scaled-up grants for interventions that aimed at improving good governance and accountability, job creation (particularly for youth and women), and those providing more space for private sector engagement.
The latest Annual Report, released in December 2019, covers the period of the Middle East & North Africa Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MENA MDTF) implementation from July 1, 2018 to June 30, 2019. The First Cycle, which ran from 2012 to 2017, came to a final close. The new Second Cycle, expected to run from 2018 to 2021, is now fully underway, with established funding of US$8 million from Donors, of which US$7.67 million has been allocated to 28 activities and US$5.1 million has been disbursed. The Annual Program Council Meeting (PCM) held in Helsinki in October 2018 saw a full endorsement for the newly established Second Cycle of the MDTF.
Donors had the opportunity to hear directly from Team Leaders on the impact that MDTF-funded activities were having on the ground, illustrating its use as a mechanism providing for innovative, creative approaches to supporting development on a demand-basis. This period also marked the completion of the Mid Term Review (MTR) Evaluation, carried out by Universalia. The approach for the Mid Term Review was agreed to at the PCM and the full evaluation report was completed in May 2019. This Annual Report contains the findings and recommendations of the evaluation, all of which are being incorporated moving forward.
In the words of the evaluation report, “… the MDTF enables the generation and transfer of knowledge. It has the capacity to leverage its own financial resources and expertise to help meet global financing needs and is one of few financial mechanisms available which provides seed funding for upstream strategic analysis, technical assistance, capacity building, and the knowledge sharing work required to design, implement, and replicate transformational initiatives.”
2018 to 2019 also marked a period of robust results. For every US$1 million of funding from Donors, the MDTF is expected to deliver 5 analytical reports (40 in total); 5 Technical Assistance activities (40 in total); and 5 Knowledge and Sharing events (40 in total). In addition, it is expected that the established US$8 million in funding will support activities which influence policy at least by 50 percent to the extent that Governments may have, for example, proceeded to implement reforms or scale-up an initiative to the policy level successfully; leverage funding in the amount of US$4 billion, and increase the capacity of at least 8,000 people.
As of June 2019, the MDTF has either met or is fully on track to meet these targets: 40 Analytical Reports have been produced (target met); 36 Technical Assistance activities have been carried out; and 63 knowledge and sharing events have taken place (target met). In addition, its activities have influenced policy to a degree of 70 percent, and US$5.01 billion in funding has been leveraged, including for the World Bank portfolio of projects, as well as for other Donor-financed projects; and almost 6,000 people have benefitted directly from capacity building activities.
Taking on board lessons learned from the MTR, the MDTF is now more closely engaged with Donors, holding Quarterly Meetings, monthly check-ins and issuing frequent reporting of financial summaries and results through the issuance of quarterly newsletters. As recommended in the MTR, the MDTF Team will focus on drawing strong narratives on outcome results for the activities, which has been one of the greater challenges for the MDTF given the small amount of grants and attribution considerations.
The 2019 to 2020 period is likely to see increased commitments from Donors and the expansion of successful activities from country pilots to region-wide initiatives.
Read the full report and learn the results here.
MENA MDTF MTR Evaluation Report May 2019
WBG MENA MDTF ANNUAL REPORT 2018
