By Anna Yukhananov
WASHINGTON, September 16 (Reuters) - the World Bank, facing a tight budget and greater competition for development funds, aims to become more selective in their lending, focusing on fragile States, sub-Saharan Africa, Asia South and other areas where it can have greater impact, according to a draft of strategy gathered by Europa Press.
The role of 42 pages, submitted to the Executive Board of the Bank last week, is the first major strategic revision under Jim World Bank President Yong Kim.
It offers the first concrete details of how the Bank plans to meet their goals of eliminating extreme poverty by the year 2030 and increase revenues of the 40 per cent poorer population in each country.
However, the strategy document is still vague about exact Bank programs are cut or reinforce and how to change your budget to reflect new priorities and loss of income.
When asked for comment, spokesman David Theis World Bank refused to elaborate further on the plan.
Founded after World War II to help rebuild Europe, the World Bank later focused on lending money to developing countries in order to improve the lives of the poor.
The global lender is praised for its scope in all over the world, strict rules and long-term approach. But has also been criticized for avoiding risks, delaying the approval of projects, does not respond to enough to what countries want and focusing more on pushing money towards outside the door instead of program outcomes.
Kim, who came to the helm of the multilateral institution for the development a little more than one year, it has launched a major reorganization to change all that, driving an emphasis on flexibility, a measurable impact and testing, or what he calls "the science of delivery".
The draft of the strategy recognizes the World Bank has become less important for the growth of many middle-income countries, that can rely more on private funds and bilateral loans from emerging markets like China.
The World Bank also admits to having a limited funds to address the needs of developing countries, where new infrastructure projects alone will require $1.5 trillion in funding a year.
On the other hand, the World Bank wants to repositioned as a "solutions", offering not only financing but also his knowledge of how to solve common development challenges.
"Role of the Group of the World Bank in knowledge, call and global has increased in relation to its role in the provision of funding", said the newspaper.
Keep the media relevant Bank focusing on areas where other donors are reluctant to go, as the fragile and countries affected by conflict, by the year 2015 to half of the world's poorest people.
The World Bank also said it plans to use its global presence and projects to share data and to promote better policies in areas such as climate change.
To help countries address needs and better coordinate development policies, the Bank also plans to work more closely with other development partners such as the United Nations, and philanthropic organizations.
And you want to promote more partnerships public - private to basic services such as health, education and housing - to the dismay of some non-profit organizations that argue that such programs has mixed records to help the poor.
BUDGET CUTS
As part of the new strategy, the World Bank also plans to make some cuts to its budget. They operate in fragile States, collection of data to measure the progress of countries and to ensure a global presence have strained administrative funds of the Bank.
And also less stable or medium-income countries lending means less income, since the Bank has made loans with interest money.
"Maintain a minimum scale of operation is important if the World Bank group influence the political agenda and support clients in the delivery of effective development solutions," said the newspaper.
"Although the World Bank Group is not facing immediate financial concerns, financial capacity will have to be strengthened", added the newspaper.
The Bank said that it will have to be selective in what it does and make cuts to certain programs, without specifying any more. It is also considering relying more on fees for advisory services and money from trust funds, or funds dedicated to the Governments for specific projects.
Trust funds already account for one of every $10 that the Bank disburses the Governments, according to the newspaper.
The new budget will be implemented for the next fiscal year, which begins in July, 2014, and can be one of the most thorny for the Bank resolve as it decides which programs and departments must shrink.
Changing the internal culture of the Bank also may represent a threat to the success of the new strategy, according to several external analysts who reviewed the document.
Part of this new approach means to integrate the work of the Bank with the activities of the private sector lending arm, the International Finance Corporation and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, which ensures investments in difficult environments.
The three agencies of working with different customers and may have different approaches to specific projects, create conflicts of interest.
The details of how it will change its internal organization to align with the Bank's new strategy will be presented later in an "implementation document".
For now, the draft strategy will be to the Governments of the members of the World Bank for approval, before being formally presented during the annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund at the beginning of October. (Presentation of reports by Anna Yukhananov; Edited by Andrea Ricci)
