Overview of the PSIA Multi-Donor Trust Fund
Poverty and social impact analysis (PSIA) is an approach to evaluating the potential social impacts of reforms rather than a uniform product. The World Bank defines PSIA as the analysis of the social and distributional impact of policy reforms on the well-being of different stakeholder groups, with particular focus on the poor and the vulnerable.
PSIAs are backed by a large cross-section of donors whose financial support led to the establishment of the PSIA Multi-donor Trust Fund (MDTF) in 2010. Five donors—Norway, United Kingdom (DFID), Germany (GIZ), The Netherlands, and Switzerland (SDC)—have paid US$21.5 million in contributions over a period of 6 years (2010-2015) to the trust fund, its final size.
Key achievements and lessons learned
The MDTF has played an important role in raising awareness and deepening the understanding of PSIAs within the World Bank. An external mid-term evaluation showed several achievements of the MDTF, including continued innovation in topics and methods, an increasing number of PSIAs that managed to positively influence policy dialogue and design, more capacity-building and dissemination activities, and new in-country partnerships.
The mid-term evaluation also found that since 2010 the PSIA MDTF has increased the frequency of PSIAs worldwide and expanded to more sectorial areas.
Number of PSIA MDTF grants by country (as of December 31, 2014)