Country Engagement

The World Bank Group’s Country Partnership Framework (CPF) aims to make our country-driven model more systematic, evidence-based, selective, and focused on the Bank’s twin goals of ending extreme poverty and increasing shared prosperity in a sustainable manner. The model seeks to maximize the impact of WBG’s support to the twin goals, by contributing over time to high-level outcomes (HLOs) consistent with a country’s development goals. HLOs are typically achieved over a time horizon that extends beyond a single Country Engagement Cycle, are set at a higher level than CPF objectives and typically result from the combined effort of multiple partners. The CPF replaces the Country Assistance Strategy (CAS). Used in conjunction with a Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD),  the CPF guides the World Bank Group's (WBG) support to a member country.

A Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) informs each new CPF. The aim of the SCD is to identify the most important challenges and opportunities a country faces in advancing towards the twin goals. This is derived from a thorough analysis, and informed by consultations with a range of stakeholders.

View the World Bank Group Directive and Guidance on Country Engagement.

STEPS IN OUR COUNTRY ENGAGEMENT 

STEP 1: What are the biggest constraints to reducing poverty and increasing shared prosperity in a sustainable way?  SCDs are built on an analysis of data and existing studies by the WBG and external partners, and aim at identifying the most critical constraints to, and opportunities for, reducing poverty and building shared prosperity sustainably. The SCD’s findings take into account the views of a broad set of stakeholders, including the private sector.

STEP 2: What are the most important contributions the World Bank Group can make? When preparing a CPF, the WBG starts from the member country’s own vision of its country development goals, which may be laid out in a poverty-focused national development strategy. In consultation with key stakeholders in the country, including private sector clients and civil society, the WBG works with the government to review and learn from the previous country engagement cycle, draws on the findings of the SCD, and utilizes the WBG’s comparative advantage to agree on a few selected HLOs that the WBG engagement seeks to contribute to, and determine related CPF Objectives, against which the program is monitored during and evaluated at the end of the CPF cycle.

STEP 3: How are we doing? Performance and Learning Reviews (PLRs) are prepared mid-way through the CPF cycle. PLRs identify and capture lessons, and determine midcourse corrections in the CPF objectives and program of interventions. They also contribute to and help build the WBG’s knowledge base, into the SCD and CPF.

STEP 4: What did we learn? Completion and Learning Reviews (CLR) identify and capture end-of-cycle learning to contribute to the WBG’s knowledge base, including on how to integrate inclusion and sustainability dimensions into WBG programs. CLR findings are an important input to the preparation of a new CPF.