World Bank to focus on six major areas under $20bn CPF

An undated image of World Bank Headquarters in Washington DC. — AFP/File

ISLAMABAD: With the commitment of $20 billion for ten years under Country Partnership Framework (CPF) for the first time in the country’s history, the World Bank (WB) has decided to focus on six major areas and placement of scorecard for monitoring and evaluation mechanism for increased lending.

After striking a 37- month Extended Fund Facility (EFF) loan of $7 billion from the IMF, the World Bank’s lending will be the largest commitment for a ten-year period. Earlier, the WB used to provide CPF for a three to five years period.

The WB’s CPF for ten years will focus on six major areas, including reducing child stunting, reduced learning poverty, increased resilience to climate change, clean energy and better air quality, more public resources for inclusive development and increased productive private investment.

The WB’s CPF envisages targets including jacking up tax revenues to GDP ratios from 8.8 percent to above 15 percent with increased revenue collection, enabling of 10 Gigawatt (GW) of renewable energy capacity, 12 million students supported with better education with focus on foundational learning of primary and secondary education, 30 million people with strengthened food and nutrition security, 75 million for extending support to combat climate resilience related to super floods and climate related disasters, 50 million people receiving quality health, nutrition and population services, 30 million women using modern contraceptives, 60 million people provided with water, sanitation and hygiene facilities.

The World Bank’s Board of Directors is scheduled to meet on Tuesday (tomorrow) in Washington, DC, for approving Pakistan’s CPF for next ten years with a commitment of $20 billion. It is expected that out of $20 billion lending from the WB, there will be ¾ in the shape of concessional IDA lending while the remaining portion will be provided in the shape of IBRD. The IFC funding will be over and above from this commitment.

It has not yet been ascertained how much resource envelope will be allocated for budgetary support or DPLs out of total committed lending from the World Bank.

Top official sources confirmed to The News on Sunday that the WB envisaged scorecard targets on six focused country outcomes, all of which enjoy strong support across the political spectrum. Ten decade-targets under these outcomes draw largely from the new WBG Corporate Scorecard and align with the WBG’s globe & and regional priorities. These areas were selected based on: (i) key diagnostics—prioritizing areas where Pakistan lags the most; (ii) the government’s own priorities and strategies such as the Planning Commission’s 5E Framework to Turn Around Pakistan and various sectoral strategies including provincial programs and priorities, as well as civil society, academia, and private sector inputs received through wide consultations conducted over the year across the country; and (iii) the WBG’s track record and comparative advantages, informed by local and global knowledge.

The World Bank will focus on supporting scaling down child stunting including health, nutrition, and family planning particularly for adolescent girls, mothers, and newborns; as well as a water, sanitation, and hygiene agenda. The second priority area will be focused on reducing learning poverty through improved enrollment and attendance in quality primary and secondary schools that provide strong foundational learning, especially for girls. The increased resilience to climate change—particularly to floods and other climate disasters and addressing the water-agriculture-climate nexus to improve food and nutrition security. Cleaner energy and better air quality—via a sustainable transition to lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions intensity and cheaper energy and reducing sources of air pollution in key sectors. More public resources for inclusive development—by raising tax revenues and rationalizing expenditures, to eventually increase progressive and efficient social and development spending. Increased productive private investment—to raise productivity, trade balance, and job creation.

The CPF proposes a long-term strategic approach with five- and 10-year targets. A mid-term review in FY30 will allow to course-correct and decide whether to extend the CPF period to 10 years. Implementation will be supported by two-year rolling business planning with the government, which will define the project pipeline and knowledge investments in support of reaching the 10-year targets. These will be updated on a yearly basis.

With 10-year targets driving strategic programming, the data and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) agenda will be core to this CPF, including via setting up a Pakistan Data and M&E Lab, with a special focus on impact evaluation of key operations, particularly regarding gender outcomes. The business planning process will incorporate global knowledge to support analytics, implementation and just-in-time advisory.

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