What to expect from Jim Kim's 'global practices' plan

A centerpiece of World Bank President Jim Kim’s reform strategy is the creation of “global practices.” Until now, information about them has been sparse, but a staff update sent during the lead-up to an employee town hall on Sept. 30 obtained by Devex provides more details on Kim’s highly anticipated reform plan. The global practices system is meant to be implemented by July 1, 2014, but World Bank Group leaders have plenty to accomplish — and to clarify — before then if they think the new system can be up and running at that time. The “to-do” list begins with appointing a new vice president and recruiting a new class of global practice directors. Kim’s team — including Chief Operating Officer Sri Mulyani, who has led the effort to design global practices and will oversee its operations — has already sketched in broad strokes the 14 technical areas and five cross-cutting issues that will frame the bank’s expertise and service delivery for years to come. That is — assuming the World Bank’s development committee approves the strategic reform package at the annual meetings this week. 14 global practices, five cross-cutting areas The 14 global practices would focus on agriculture, education, energy and extractive industries, the environment and natural resources, finance and markets, governance, macroeconomics and fiscal management, poverty, social protection and labor, trade and competitiveness, transport and ICT, water, as well as health, nutrition and population, and urban, rural and social development. Climate change, gender, jobs, public-private partnerships, as well as fragility, conflict and violence are expected to be the five cross-cutting areas. Eight of the 14 global practices would be integrated across the five branches of the World Bank Group. According to the staff update, a “governance mechanism” would oversee the cross-cutting solution areas and their coordination across the WBG. Kim wants to foster better coordination between the bank’s various service delivery and lending tools. That kind of joint planning — especially between the bank, the International Finance Corp. and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Association — has not happened easily in the past. The new system aims for varying degrees of project “jointness,” ranging across a spectrum from “information sharing” to “joint management” and “joint budgets.” Some of the obstacles to collaboration between the different agencies are cultural; another challenge might be to avoid a turf battle over some of the similar services the various institutions currently provide to clients, including the World Bank and IFC’s technical support services. These services — and the people who deliver them — are currently “siloed” into separate programming tracks. But these might have to be either combined or partially eliminated if the institutions are going to collaborate more on several cross-cutting or joint program areas. How those joint efforts would affect staffing within a better coordinated “One World Bank Group” structure remains to be seen. Implementation plan Beginning in January 2014, bank leaders want to begin “mapping” staff to global practices and create a sequenced implementation plan for rolling them out. Those decisions would take place at the same time Kim and his team figure out how to integrate a $400 million budget cut over the next three years first reported by Reuters. While the board of governors dubbed 2014 a transitional year and maintained funding for current programs, the planning for 2015-2017 is sure to provide an opportunity — and immense challenge — for setting the longer-term strategic priorities under a drastically slimmed-down budget. Bank leaders argue the tight budget meshes with the institution’s push to focus on fewer, bigger projects so that it can contribute to eradicating extreme poverty by 2030. Still, if Kim’s staff update on global practices is any indication, the World Bank Group is in line for a major shakeup. The bank needs to cut costs and remain competitive at a time when new development actors and institutions are proliferating, which means the changes will require funding to be reallocated and belts to be tightened if global practices are going to be given room to have the “transformational” effect Kim envisions. Follow Devex on Twitter and Facebook, and stay tuned for our LIVE coverage of the World Bank annual meetings and more more World Bank news, projects and jobs. Read more: - 5 things to watch out for at the World Bank annual meetings - For the World Bank, it’s time to take risks