Interactive: What can we tell from the World Bank pipeline data?

Over the past months, the Devex team has been monitoring and analyzing the World Bank’s Monthly Operational Summary, or MOS reports. These documents offer insight into the bank’s early project cycle, and hint at its future funding priorities — allowing Devex to highlight changes and trends over time. Since our first analysis in March, we have continued to monitor the World Bank pipeline each month, capturing information in our Funding Activity Feed — Devex’s tool to help development professionals monitor early-stage funding commitments and happenings. Here, we walk through the notable changes and trends we’ve seen in the World Bank’s pipeline data during that time. Members can also do their own analysis using our interactive visualization of the data, which you can now filter month by month. Let’s dig in. How to plan using World Bank project status updates A project’s progression is tracked in the World Bank pipeline through various status updates. Business developers can watch as projects enter and exit the World Bank’s MOS to understand its short and long-term funding priorities, and to prepare accordingly. We can see that the total number of projects and funding has been startlingly consistent month-to-month:Approximately 1,000 projects, worth approximately $100 billion dollars. This indicates that the bank’s pipeline replenishes itself steadily, pushing out old projects and adding new ones at a constant rate. The proportion of projects in the early stages of the World Bank’s project cycle also remained fairly consistent over the months. Business development teams interested in long-term opportunity planning will likely look at the new and revised projects to understand the bank’s future funding objectives. They should keep in mind that a project spends an average of 13 months in the pipeline before a final financing agreement is signed and biddable opportunities begin appearing — so any new project in the pipeline is unlikely to generate opportunities for at least a year. Since Devex’s last MOS analysis in June, 152 new projects have been added to the pipeline, accounting for $17.7 billion in World Bank funding. 447 projects — nearly half the current pipeline — have been revised, accounting for $42.9 billion. This means that, each month, about 4 percent of the pipeline is new, while 10 percent to 20 percent is new or revised, containing new information for business development professionals to take into account when planning. A similar percentage (4 percent) of the previous month’s pipeline also exits the MOS each month, usually because financing agreements are signed, so procurement and implementation may begin. For example, in the June MOS, the Livestock Sector Development Project (P159476) in Burkina Faso was listed as “In Planning” with an indicative budget of $60 million, as can be seen in the Devex Funding Activity Feed. In July, the World Bank announced the approval of the project with the same budget, plus $18 million of locally-sourced funds, now included on Devex as a program. It is likely that in the July MOS, this project status will have changed to “Approval Completed,” or will have exited the pipeline completely as the World Bank and the Burkinabé government prepare for procurement. Projects in the “Approval Completed” stage are those likely to begin procurement soon, and are of shorter-term interest to business development teams. Over the past four months, the proportion of World Bank pipeline projects in this stage of development has increased slightly. In our World Bank pipeline visualization, members can filter by project stage, sector and geography to find projects that will be relevant for short-term and long-term planning. Geographical and sectoral priorities Looking at the most recent MOS from June 2017, India is far and away the most highly prioritized country in the pipeline, with 44 projects and over $9 billion in funding. According to the MOS document, nearly all of those are still in the “In Planning” stage, with just 4 projects — worth a combined $715 million — so far approved. However, Devex has confirmed that at least two further projects have been approved since the release of the June MOS: The Assam State Public Finance Institutional Reforms project, and Andhra Pradesh 24x7 Power for All project. Both already have signed financing agreements between the World Bank and local government institutions. Bangladesh, on the other hand — the second priority country in the June MOS — has 18 of its 37 projects in the final “Approval Completed” stage. Many of these projects focus on education, including a $400 million project on Primary Education and a $265 million project on Secondary Education, both entirely World Bank-funded. Together, these two countries signal the importance of South Asia to the World Bank in the future. Indonesia and China take the third and fourth positions in the most-funded countries list, with Ethiopia following in fifth, though with considerably fewer projects. Other priority countries include Nigeria, Pakistan, and Argentina. The World Bank pipeline is more diverse sectorally. Its high priority sectors include transport & ICT ($15 billion, 115 projects); water ($11.8 billion, 100 projects); and the social, urban, rural, and resilience global practice ($11.6 billion, 142 projects). Within these sectors, several large projects have already been approved: A $978 million “Center West Regional Development Corridor”, a road project in Kazakhstan; a $720 million rural access roads project in Nigeria; a $450 million housing program in Indonesia; and a $445 million WASH project in Ethiopia. Projects of interest in the pipeline All the projects listed in the World Bank MOS documents are available to view in Devex’s Funding Activity Feed. However, we want to bring to your attention to a handful of high-value projects that are either on the verge of exiting the World Bank pipeline, or have recently entered it. Approved Projects of Interest Several of the projects with the highest World Bank funding contributions, as opposed to total funding contributions, in the pipeline already have World Bank approval. Projects at this stage in the cycle are only awaiting the approval of the beneficiary government for procurement to begin — representing the part of the pipeline that will become opportunities soonest. The previously mentioned projects in Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Indonesia, and Ethiopia take the top four places on this list. Tied in fifth place are the primary education project in Bangladesh; a natural gas project in Turkey; and a social development project in Myanmar which is connected to a smaller, supplementary social development project, counted separately. New Projects of Interest At the other end of the spectrum are the new projects in the pipeline: These will take the longest to become opportunities, but give us the longest-term indication of the World Bank’s funding priorities. The largest new projects include a social-agricultural project in Ethiopia; a social project in war-torn Yemen; a secondary education project in Malawi; and water security projects in Mexico and China. The analysis above gives an overview of the value that the World Bank’s pipeline data can bring to development professionals. We encourage you to use our interactive visualization to perform your own, bespoke analysis for your organization. Devex will continue to monitor this and other sources of early-stage funding pipeline data in our Funding Activity Feed. Stay tuned for more! Do you have questions about our methodology or a specific opportunity? Reach out to our experts at analysts@devex.com for more information. Check out more practical business and development advice online, and subscribe to Money Matters to receive the latest contract award and shortlist announcements, and procurement and fundraising news.