Comprehensive Development Framework Probed: OED Findings and Recommendations

World Bank President James Wolfensohn introduced the Comprehensive Development Framework (CDF)
in the belief that the way aid is delivered, not just its content, has an important influence on its effectiveness, and that poverty reduction is the fundamental goal of international aid. A recent multistakeholder evaluation of the CDF managed by the Bank’s "watchdog," the Operations Evaluation Department (OED), tracked its progress and crafted recommendations based mainly on case studies that included Romania and Vietnam.

In the mid-1990s, the aid community began a candid self-assessment prompted by growing concerns about how aid was used and managed. After some 15 years of structural adjustment, too few results were positive and sustainable, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Criticism was mounting, especially among NGOs, that aid-supported adjustment programs were at best ignoring the poor, and at worst further impoverishing them. Other critics noted the strain on developing countries as they tried to meet the separate requirements of the many aid organizations working within their borders. The clear conclusion was that the full potential of international aid was not being realized and that remedial action was needed.

As donors and recipients began exploring paths to improvement, World Bank President James Wolfensohn proposed the CDF in January 1999 as a new way for the Bank to do business. The framework was based on the assumption that all development actors (governments, multilaterals, bilaterals, civil society, and the private sector) play a part in poverty reduction and in equitable, sustainable development. None of the four individual elements of the CDF was new. The CDF innovation was to weave them together in a common, balanced framework for poverty reduction and to vigorously promote that framework as an organizing principle to inform World Bank work and to coordinate with other aid agencies and developing country governments.

The Four CDF Pillars

The following are the four basic pillars of the CDF:

• Long-term, holistic development. Development strategies should be comprehensive and holistic. They should no longer focus only on short-term macroeconomic issues, but should also embrace social and structural issues.

• Results orientation. Development performance should not be measured by inputs and outputs, but by results on the ground. What really matters is the impact on people and their needs.

• Country ownership. Development goals and strategies should be "owned" by the country, based on broad citizen participation in shaping them.

• Country-led partnership. Recipient countries should lead aid management and coordination through stakeholder partnerships and aid should not be dominated by donor preferences.

Principles and Implementation

After analyzing the implementation of these four principles in international aid operations, OED came to the following conclusions (see the box also):

• A long-term development framework has operational meaning only when it is translated into affordable priorities through a disciplined budget process. Consequently, recipient countries should strengthen the links between medium-term frameworks, such as the poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs) and budgets. [Editor’s note: PRSPs describe a country’s macroeconomic, structural, and social policies and programs to promote growth and reduce poverty, as well as associated external financing needs.] Donors should support such linkages and provide reliable financing with transparent, multiyear indicators based on clear country performance criteria.

• A results orientation is important for improved effectiveness and for public accountability. The weak capacity of central and regional public agencies, combined with competing budget priorities, inadequate incentives, and fragile accountability structures, makes implementing a government-wide results orientation difficult. Indeed, the OED found that implementation of this principle was the most challenging of the four. Recipient countries should train public servants to open up information channels and educate the public, strengthen systems for internal and external accountability, and present development strategies through the media and in languages and forms that the general public will understand. As for the donors, development programs should have measurable objectives linked to concrete outcomes for which all stakeholders hold themselves accountable.

• In many countries ownership remains confined to the executive branch of the government. Consultation with sectoral and regional authorities, elected officials and legislators, and marginalized groups is selective, sporadic, or not timely. Recipient countries should consult with a wider range of interest groups; the private sector; and those who lack an organized voice, including women and the poorest and most marginalized citizens. To enhance country ownership, the World Bank should clarify its role in reviewing PRSPs, as some countries believe that Board review constitutes approval, and therefore inhibits country ownership.

• The transaction costs of delivering aid remain high and donors continue to engage in unproductive competition. Recipient countries should place the responsibility for aid coordination at a high level of government and give this function sufficient resources, authority, and political support to manage the aid process. Many donors will not move to greater country leadership in the presence of corruption or economic mismanagement. Recipient countries should implement and enforce procurement and other accountability rules that will engender donor confidence. Donors should avoid micromanaging the country aid process and provide the capacity building and resources countries need to assume aid management, such as creating independent, country-level aid review panels.

This article and the box are excerpted from the Summer 2003 issue of Précis, an OED publication, available at http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/oed/oeddoclib.nsf/DocPgNmViewForJavaSearch/precis233cdf/$file/Precis233_CDF.pdf . The OED study, titled "Toward Country-Led Development: A Multi-Partner Evaluation of the Comprehensive Development Framework," is available at http://www.worldbank.org/evaluation/cdf/cdf_evaluation.pdf.