mainstreaming governance in country programs -...

Insights from the Governance Partnership Facility

in Nigeria

Mainstreaming Governancein Country Programs

Lessons Learned

© 2014 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank1818 H Street NWWashington, DC 20433202-473-1000www.worldbank.orgAll rights reserved.

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Contents

PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv

ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

1. WHAT IS THE GPF? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

2. THE GPF LESSONS LEARNED SERIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

3. NIGERIA: COUNTRY BACKGROUND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

4. THE GPF IN NIGERIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

5. MAIN ACHIEVEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

5.1. Component 1: Accountability and Transparency of the Financial and Oil and Gas Sectors . . . . . . 14

5.2. Component 2: Governance of Service Delivery in Key Sectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

5.3. Component 3: Improved Public Financial Management Transparency, Accountability, Effectiveness, and Sustainability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

5.4. Component 4: Increased Engagement of Citizens in Development in the Core Niger Delta States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

5.5. Component 5: Increased Citizen Voice and Inclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

5.6. Component 6: Just-in-Time Governance Advice, Knowledge, Dissemination, Mainstreaming, and Program Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

6. LESSONS LEARNED AND MOVING FORWARD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

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Preface

Nigeria is one of Africa’s emerging economic power-houses. It is Africa’s most populous country, it is

the continent’s largest economy, it holds large natural resource reserves and democratic institutions are tak-ing root after the transition from decades of military rule in 1999. Sound macro-economic management enabled the country to weather the global financial crisis well and has facilitated annual growth rates of 6 to 8 percent over the past decade. Some notable reforms have been successfully implemented, includ-ing in the banking and telecommunications sectors. While poverty numbers still need to be refined, there are indications of improvements over the last couple of years in some parts of the country.

Nigeria is a country of opportunities and excellent, capable people who manage to initiate and implement reforms in a difficult environment. The Government has articulated its Development Agenda in the Vision 20:20 and the Transformation Agenda aiming at developing Nigeria’s human and natural resources to achieve economic growth and equitable social development for its citizens. Development Partners, including the World Bank, have aligned our Coun-try Partnership Strategies and activities with these programs coordinated under a Country Assistance Framework (CAF) aligned with the Paris Declaration and the Accra Agenda for Action.

The context for development in Nigeria is complex: Poverty, inequality, ethnic diversity, public revenues and private rents from oil, episodes of violent conflict, urbanization, population growth, unemployment, an evolving federalism, and perceptions of corruption are some of the challenges.

The complexity of the country, the confined leverage of development partners combined with the existence of pockets of excellence and capacity is what moved

DFID and the World Bank in Nigeria to partner under the GPF framework to create innovative and evidence based approaches to our work with Nigerian coun-terparts. While the World Bank is good at providing excellent technical experience, large scale funding and ongoing policy and technical dialogue, we realize that we can become better at understanding the local context. DFID, under the GPF framework, provided the funding and inspiration that made it possible for us to take on the task of understanding, learning and adapting to the realities of Nigeria.

The first phase of the partnership made it possible for us to get started with understanding, testing and learning. A lot of what we have initiated is still work in progress. An upcoming phase is intended to make it possible to implement, roll out and adjust the new approaches. It is my hope that this next phase will lead to a changed way for the World Bank to “doing business” in Nigeria that can sustain itself without external funding in the medium term.

This report, “Mainstreaming Governance in Country Programmes—Insights from the Governance Partner-ship Facility in Nigeria,” has been put together by the GPF Secretariat as part of its Learning Series and high-lights the major achievements of the GPF programme in Nigeria and the lessons learned during the cause of implementation. It also showcases how the grant has influenced the way we do business in the Bank as well as the outlooks for sustainability of the positive outcomes in the long run. We hope other countries will learn from the Nigerian experience as they strive to implement their Governance and Anti-Corruption (GAC) strategies.

Marie Francoise Marie-NellyCountry DirectorWorld Bank, Nigeria

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Abbreviations and Acronyms

CoP Community of Practice

CPS Country Partnership Strategy

DFID Department for International Development

EITI Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative

GAC Governance and Anti-corruption

IFRS International Financial Reporting Standards

IPSAS International Public Sector Accounting Standards

ISR Implementation Status and Results Report

M&E Monitoring and Evaluation

ORAF Operational Risk Assessment Framework

PEA Political Economy Analysis

PFM Public Financial Management

SEC Securities and Exchange Commission

SEEFOR State Employment and Expenditure for Results

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Acknowledgements

This publication was compiled by Elena Georgieva-Andonovska, a Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist at the Secretariat of the Governance Partnership Facility (GPF), based on inputs and a series of reports

produced by the World Bank Nigeria Country Team. Editorial support was provided by Laura Johnson. Tomoko Hirata, Senior Graphic Designer, developed the design of the cover.

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Executive Summary

What Is the GPF?The Governance Partnership Facility (GPF) was founded by the World Bank in collaboration with the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the Norwegian and Netherlands Ministries of Foreign Affairs. It was launched in December 2008 with a multi donor trust fund of about US$82 million. Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) joined in 2012 with an initial contribution of AUD$10 million. The GPF program budget of US$89 million has been allocated through four Windows to 126 projects in 37 countries. Over the past five years, the GPF has played a major role in facilitating the implementation of the Bank’s Governance and Anti-Corruption (GAC) Strategy. The GPF leverages change in how the Bank carries out its governance work and supports promis-ing activities which have yielded exciting results in many countries and different thematic areas, such as public financial management, governance in extractive industries, political economy analysis and demand for good governance, among others.

The GPF Lessons Learned SeriesAs part of its knowledge and learning activities in fiscal year 2013, the GFP Secretariat is developing a series of publications documenting the achievements and challenges of its most notable grants. The goal is to derive useful lessons and draw operational conclusions about what is working and what is not in different GPF grants. This issue of the GPF Lessons Learned Series details the achievements and lessons learned from the first phase of the GPF program in Nigeria. It contains also a summary of the Annual Review of the program conducted by DFID in late 2013, as well as findings of the independent evaluation of the overall GPF program, pertaining to Nigeria.

The GPF in NigeriaThe GPF program in Nigeria was designed to strengthen the development impact of public finances in Nigeria through initiatives that improve sector governance, increase accountability and effectiveness, and enhance

citizen voice and participation in service delivery in key sectors. The GPF complemented and enhanced the governance support provided by the World Bank’s Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) for Nigeria 2010–13 by deepening the understanding of the politi-cal economy and governance in Nigeria and piloting approaches to better tailor the Bank’s engagements in the country. To this end, a US$12.7 million grant was set up in early 2013 as part of Window 1 of the GPF. This was made possible through an allocation of US$10.8 million by United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) and additional US$1.2 million in 2014 from a previous GPF alloca-tion to Nigeria.

Main Achievements The independent evaluation of the GPF, which was completed in July 2014, included an overall evalua-tion report as well as an assessment of the 18 Win-dow 1 countries, one of which is Nigeria. In both of these reports, Nigeria is singled out as one of the most advanced countries in terms of mainstreaming governance in country programming. According to the Window 1 review, Nigeria is the country with the highest overall assessment and maximum scores for all three dimensions of governance and anti-corruption performance (assessment, program support, and change management). To a great extent, the marked improvement compared with the 2011 baseline has been attributed to the GPF program.

DFID’s annual review of the program, completed in October 2013, also gave it an overall score of A, which indicates that the realized outputs have met the expectations. All but one component have either met or exceeded the expected rate of delivery. The report concludes that the GPF has delivered on the majority of its milestones. There is evidence that it has achieved an important set of results that are beginning to have an impact.

The grant was structured around six components, which delivered results in the following areas.

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Accountability and Transparency of the Financial and Oil and Gas Sectors: The main outcome of this component is the improved predictability and timeli-ness of revenue flows. The capacity of the Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to regulate listed companies reporting under International Finan-cial Reporting Standards (IFRS) has been significantly strengthened as a result of the GPF. The enhanced capabilities of the SEC in supervising the quality of corporate financial reporting will help promote the public interest by improving the integrity of financial markets in Nigeria and giving greater protection and confidence to investors when making investment decisions. The project successfully strengthened the institutional capacity of the SEC through a substantial training program for their staff.

Improved Governance of Service Delivery in Key Sectors: The main outcome of this component is improved service delivery results in the education and social safety nets sectors. A key result has been the completion of a political economy analysis in the education sector in Nigeria, which identified major challenges and opportunities for change. A stakeholder mapping method (Net-Map) was used as a tool for policy dialogue to identify the main constraints in the flows of funding for basic educa-tion in Nigeria. Another important result has been the preparation of a procedures manual, Results-Based Budget Monitoring and Evaluation for State Houses of Assembly Appropriation Committees, in order to help improve the alignment of sector budgets with delivering development outcomes.

Improved Public Financial Management Transpar-ency, Accountability, Effectiveness, and Sustain-ability: The main outcome of this component is the improved transparency, accountability, effectiveness, and sustainability of public financial management in Nigeria. Notable achievements include: (i) the estab-lishment of a national public financial management (PFM) community of practice (CoP) with participation from 33 of the 36 Nigerian states. The CoP focuses on planning, budget, and treasury and will identify and share good practices in PFM; and (ii) the creation of a public expenditure database for 26 states to facilitate the analysis of public expenditure and budget per-formance. The grant also initiated the development of a revenue oil model that will incorporate detailed fiscal regimes for all contracts in the oil sector. This

will enable the government to accurately estimate oil revenue from existing contracts as well as the change in fiscal regime that could be brought about by the draft Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) currently discussed by the legislature.

Increased Engagement of Citizens in the Develop-ment Process in the Core Niger Delta States: This component has illustrated how a context-savvy approach to demand-side governance can be trans-lated into very different instruments of support to enhance transparency, inclusion and accountability. In the case of the state of Edo, early political economy work recognized the opportunity to work with the recently elected Governor and his team to improve governance, based on the popularity and credibility of state leadership and their commitment to do things differently. With resources from the GPF, a joint report to assess how the new administration had delivered results through capital expenditures in roads was car-ried out. The report was prepared in a consultative manner on the ground in Edo and resulted in a high degree of trust with the new administration. It also provided an opportunity for the Bank to work as a favored advisor in a more holistic fashion. The report also spurred an interesting discussion within the Bank about how to balance good practice PFM with the desire by reformist leaders to deliver services quickly in institutionally weak contexts. The GPF provided the resources for the Bank team to engage a broader array of stakeholders, adapt to the priorities of the local context and build trust through face to face communication and joint analysis of the strengths and risks of a real case. Under this component, the Edo government has also progressed in its use of open data as a more collaborative governance tool, and an International Development Association (IDA) project and a development policy lending (DPL) operation are now being used to further support this agenda.

Increased Citizen Voice and Inclusion: The main outcome of this component is the enhanced capacity of donors, implementation partners, and counter-parts to use demand-side governance instruments to enhance transparency, inclusion, and accountability. An important result has been the establishment and mainstreaming into projects of mechanisms to enable feedback from citizens on service delivery through an information and communication technology ICT-based tool—MyVoice. The GPF has contributed to

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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the development of the first Open Data Portal in West Africa (Edo State) for an Open Government readiness assessment of Nigeria and provided assistance to the Nigerian Federal Government to join the Open Government Partnership. Finally, the component has also supported both analytical work on social exclu-sion, conflict and gender, and the mainstreaming of its recommendations into Bank operations.

Just-in-Time Governance Advice, Knowledge, Dis-semination, Mainstreaming, and Program Manage-ment: The main outcome of this component is the increased World Bank capacity for using analysis to manage governance and corruption risks in Nigeria’s projects portfolio and in partner and client strategies. A key result has been the completion of three pieces of macro-level political economy work, including a background note on the politics of Nigeria, a paper on the politics of policy reform, and a final paper on the operational implications for the Bank. The three political economy assessments have provided valu-able insights for the preparation of the new Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) and are helping Bank teams tailor better their procedures. Drawing on lessons from using filters within the Bank, the GPF team has developed and piloted a governance, conflict, and gender filter, which has been integrated in the new CPS as part of a new Governance Approach and will be used throughout the Bank portfolio in Nigeria. The filter is ensuring that new projects are incorporating governance-related considerations as a key part of the Bank’s future strategy and portfolio.

Lessons Learned and Moving ForwardLessons from the GPF-funded adjustment of the Bank’s approaches in Nigeria’s could usefully feed into the Bank’s wider reform agenda, including, for example, speeding up delivery through innovative contracting arrangements, more efficiently monitoring results, and beginning to consider value for money. Some of the main lessons that emerged from the first phase of the GPF in Nigeria include:

• The GPF was designed to provide flexible just-in-time support. The flexibility and nimbleness made it possible to leverage the relatively modest GPF funds for greater impact on IDA resources.

• The GPF program has made its most important contribution in funding innovative approaches.

• The trust fund has worked best when the respon-sibility for managing and implementing trust fund activities have been closely aligned to existing responsibilities and structures in the World Bank.

• Having fully-fledged task team leaders empow-ered, responsible, and accountable for implemen-tation and the achievement of results for separate, manageable trust funds has provided for orderly management and delivery.

• Components with fewer and simpler objectives implemented through a smaller number of con-tracts and consultancies have been easier to manage and oversee. On the other hand, more open ended and flexible—and thus more difficult to oversee—components have arguably led to more innovation.

• Client engagement for activities directly involving external beneficiaries (e.g., the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Edo state government, and civil society organizations in Rivers State) has been strong. However, the engagement has been on a task-by-task basis, not on a strategic basis, or in oversight functions. Client engagement in oversight and planning of the trust fund would have to be strengthened for relevance, trust, and alignment with client priorities.

• Presently, the environment for open data does not seem to be conducive at the federal level. It has been proposed that activities on open data should be mainstreamed into Bank operations instead of directly focusing on increasing access to data at the federal level.

These lessons have been reflected in the proposal for the next phase of the program which will have an appro-priate structure, enhanced monitoring and evaluation provisions, and strengthened management. Moving forward, the second phase of the GPF in Nigeria funded by DFID is intended to support the implementation of the Governance Approach in the new CPS for fiscal 2014–17. Phase II of the GPF will contribute to the roll-out of an ambitious internal shift in the way that the Bank does business. This in line with the Bank-wide reform program, including the push to generate more knowledge about the science of delivery.

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1. What Is the GPF?

BOX 1. THE GPF—A QUICK LOOK

• Established in 2008 as a partnership between the World Bank, the Netherland’s Foreign Ministry, the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID), Norway’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Australia’s AusAID (now known as the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade).

• The main goal is to support the implementa-tion of the Governance and Anti-Corruption Strategy.

• Supported by a multi-donor trust fund with total donor contributions amounting to US$95 million and program budget of US$89 million.

• All existing funds have been allocated to 126 projects spread across 37 countries and different thematic areas.

“The GPF is designed to help the Bank deliver on its commitment to scale up engagement in governance and anti-corruption work in developing partner countries in conjunction with comparable efforts by participating Devel-opment Partners. It aims to establish a global strategic partnership on governance among like-minded multilateral and bilateral develop-ment partners.”

—GPF Program Document

The Governance Partnership Facility (GPF) was established in 2008 to help the World Bank

deliver on its commitment to scale up engagement in governance and anti-corruption (GAC) work in developing countries. The founding Development Partners of the GPF are the Netherland’s Foreign Ministry, the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID), and Norway’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with Australia’s AusAID (now known as the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) joining the GPF in 2012.

The World Bank and Development Partners recognize that good governance is critical to successful develop-ment and poverty reduction. They are committed to implementing ambitious governance strategies that will build more capable and accountable governments that can deliver services to the poor, promote private sector-led growth, and effectively tackle corruption. They believe that by working together more system-atically in complementary ways, they can have more impact than through the current plethora of ad hoc formal and informal partnership arrangements.

Donor understanding of governance has broadened and deepened significantly over the past decade. It has gone beyond the frontiers of economic governance and the management of the economy, and beyond

analyzing and reforming public services and the public sector. As stated in the World Bank’s GAC Strategy, governance work now recognizes the importance of focusing on the “new frontiers” of governance, includ-ing a better understanding of the political economy of development and the importance of giving citizens a voice and a right to information. As the demand for better government and political accountability grows, this will create the conditions for faster growth and poverty reduction.

Despite relatively modest resources, over the past five years, the GPF has played a major role in facilitating the implementation of the Bank’s GAC Strategy. With an appropriate structure in place (see box 2) and by working strategically in partnership, the GPF leverages change in how the Bank carries out its governance

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work and supports promising activities that are start-ing to yield exciting results in many countries.

Selected GPF results in thematic areas of governance achieved in the last reporting year (April–May 2013) include the following.

Moving Forward in the Fragile States Agenda: In innovative ways, GPF grants have included the demand and supply side of governance to solve fragility-related issues. The grants managed to create a holis-tic approach that aims to encourage civil society

organizations, governments, and citizens to mitigate fragility in countries such as Sierra Leone, Haiti, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Governance in Extractives Industries: In total, 22 out of the 126 grants are explicitly targeted at addressing the unique governance challenges of countries with significant extractive industry sectors. These grants support efforts toward integrating extractive industry concerns into the Bank’s work and country dialogues. The most successful interventions appear to be those that couple supply- and demand-side strategies, allowing progress toward greater transparency and accountability to be simultaneously pursued across several fronts. As evidenced by more and more gov-ernments seeking Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) candidacy/compliance and in light of the initiative’s standard expansion, there may well be an appetite among even more Bank clients for initia-tives fostering greater transparency and accountability around extractive industries.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT)Applications and Tools: The application of ICT tools opens new avenues to improve transparency of public sector management and to strengthen accountability for service delivery. Over the past few years, the number of experiments and pilot efforts to develop mechanisms and tools to benefit from these new opportunities has increased enormously. The GPF has supported several of these innovations, and the results show promise. GPF support and encourage-ment has led to the creation of the Open Development Technology Alliance (see figure 1). Most GPF projects that applied ICT-enabled approaches were targeted at strengthening the demand side of accountability, while some aimed to improve governance and accountability in sectors such as agriculture, health, and education.

Strengthening Institutions of Accountability: GPF grants have had a substantial impact on strengthening the capacity of anti-corruption agencies/authorities and parliaments. Several instruments, such as the interactive public complaint mechanism, the Anti-

BOX 2. THE GPF STRUCTURE

• Window 1: 20 active grants; budget of US$45.4 million. Objective: Create strong incentives for leading country teams to imple-ment programs that rigorously and systemati-cally address the governance impediments to development.

• Window 2: 51 active grants; budget of US$26 million. Objective: Support cutting-edge governance activities in sectors and thematic areas; spread best practice examples of governance in sectors and thematic areas across client countries; develop approaches to governance in sectors and thematic areas that can be used Bank-wide and by other development partners.

• Window 3: 29 active grants; budget of US$11.8 million. Objective: Stimulate stra-tegic shared learning from implementation of innovative governance activities; promote innovation in measuring results and impact of governance activities.

• Window 4: 26 active grants; budget of US$5.6 million. Objective: Strengthen open-ness and accountability of institutions in the executive branch of government with a focus on public financial management.


1. WHAT IS THE GPF?

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Corruption Initiative Assessment, and the National Observatory of Corruption Risks, have been devel-oped and continue to be used by the anti-corruption agencies that host them. Eleven projects supporting access to/right to information, totaling US$2.1 mil-lion, have helped create 10 legal frameworks (laws, bills, and task forces) for this key transparency measure in countries across South Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Accountability in Public Financial Management (PFM): Donor efforts to address governance issues in client countries rely heavily on PFM reform. This approach is founded in the fact that efficient PFM creates effectiveness in government expenditures and accountability for public resources. In the past year, GPF-funded grants have supported client countries and the Bank in strengthening PFM systems. Results show evidence of improved PFM systems involving policy makers and non-state actors alike. GPF activi-ties in Afghanistan, Cameroon, Mongolia, Nigeria, and Tajikistan are examples of how different stake-holders from both within and outside the Bank can come together to form strategic alliances for large and small PFM projects.

FIGURE 1. Open Development Technology Alliance Website Home Page

Political Economy Analysis (PEA): For many years, development partners have recognized that the inter-action between political and economic incentives shapes the reform process—it affects what policies are adopted and how they impact poverty reduction and shared growth. At the World Bank, PEA gained significant momentum after the adoption of the first GAC Strategy in 2008. As a result of the GPF, between 2009 and 2013, World Bank teams conducted more than 200 political economy studies. In addition, there was greater interaction between staff from the World Bank and other donor agencies working to mainstream a political economy perspective into their operations.

Voice, Accountability, and Demand for Good Governance: The GPF has funded 42 projects with a demand-side component at a combined value of US$16.2 million. This has led to greater accountability through access-to-information bills, better allocation of public resources through tools such as the Budget Transparency Initiative (see figure 2) and Citizens’ Visible Audits, and the development of websites and social media platforms like iamtax.org for direct citizen engagement.



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FIGURE 2. Budget Transparency Initiative Website Home Page


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2. The GPF Lessons Learned Series

As part of its knowledge and learning activities in fiscal 2013, the GFP Secretariat is developing a

series of publications documenting the achievements and challenges of its most notable grants. This effort is in line with the monitoring and evaluation plan of the GPF Secretariat. One of the additional activities included in the plan—“Evaluations and Reviews of Individual GPF Projects”—foresees that the Secretariat (or independent consultants) will assess specific results of and lessons learned from individual proj-ects as well as their prospects for sustainability and potential for scaling up.

The goal of these case studies and evaluations is to derive useful lessons and draw operational conclu-sions about what is working and what is not among the GPF grants. In addition, the case studies may also contribute to the Bank-wide effort to develop the “science of delivery,” which systematizes evidence-based multidisciplinary approaches in program design and implementation to better achieve development outcomes. The approach is aimed at addressing service-delivery failure by better understanding local implementation problems.

This issue of the GPF Lessons Learned Series1 details the achievements of the GPF program in Nigeria—

1 So far, the GPF Secretariat has published a number of issues of the Les-sons Learned Series that present lessons from GPF Window 1 programs, including those in Mongolia, Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia, Albania, and Cameroon.

“Improving Economic Governance in Nigeria.” The program was funded through Window 12 of the GPF, which supports leading country teams to implement programs that rigorously and systematically address the governance impediments to development in given countries. The GPF program in Nigeria was designed to strengthen the development impact of public finances in Nigeria through initiatives that improve sector governance, increase accountability and effective-ness, and enhance citizen voice and participation in service delivery in key sectors. The first phase of the program was activated in April 2013 and will close around October 2014. The second phase will start immediately after the end of the first one and will last until 2017, coinciding with the end of the new World Bank Country Partnership Strategy for Nigeria. This publication captures the main achievements and lessons learned from the first phase of the program. It also contains a summary of the annual review con-ducted by DFID in late 2013. Since Nigeria was also one of the countries assessed in the context of the independent evaluation of the overall GPF program, a summary of the findings of the evaluation pertaining to Nigeria is also included.

2 For an overview of the different GPF Windows, please refer to page 2 of this report.


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3. Nigeria: Country Background

With its strong fundamentals, including consistent and strong growth since 1999, Nigeria qualifies

as one of Africa’s potential economic powerhouses. Nigeria is the most populous country of the continent (171 million people in 2012) and the second largest economy after South Africa. Ranking 13th in the world, Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil producer and also holds the second highest proven reserves in the continent after Libya. Since 1999, after decades of military rule, the country has successfully engaged on the path of democracy, and has enjoyed consistent and strong growth.

The key challenge facing Nigeria today is how to leverage its oil resources to promote sustained inclu-sive growth, and to reduce poverty, inequality, and unemployment. Nigeria is highly dependent on oil, which makes the country vulnerable to commodity price volatility. Nigeria needs to diversify its economy

to achieve sustainable inclusive growth and accelerate the creation of jobs. Nigeria has been growing at 6 to 8 percent annually over the past decade but will need to achieve even higher growth rates to make a dent in poverty. This will require continued effective macroeconomic management, socio-political stability, the provision of key infrastructure, structural reforms to reduce impediments to diversified growth, and more effective efforts to achieve social inclusion.

In addition, widespread governance challenges remain a binding constraint to Nigeria’s development, despite the significant gains in the past few years. Nigeria shares the complicated political economy of other resource-rich countries, and the size, ethnic diversity, cycles of violent conflict, and evolving democratic institutions make development a challenging affair. Nonetheless, the authorities are continuing with efforts to strengthen governance. Great strides are being

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NIGERIA

This map was produced by the Map Design Unit of The World Bank. The boundaries, colors, denominations and any other informationshown on this map do not imply, on the part of The World BankGroup, any judgment on the legal status of any territory, or anyendorsement or acceptance of such boundaries.

0 50 100 150

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IBRD 33458

SEPTEMBER 2004

N IGERIASELECTED CITIES AND TOWNS

STATE CAPITALS

NATIONAL CAPITAL

RIVERS

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RAILROADS

STATE BOUNDARIES

INTERNATIONAL BOUNDARIES



8

made in introducing a treasury single account, an integrated financial management system, increasing transparency of revenue allocations, and improving access to information about the budget. Reforms have also been announced and initiated in customs, tax administration, and pension administration. Inter-national Public Sector Accounting Standards have been introduced at all levels of government under the federal government leadership. While this is work in progress, the reform marks an important milestone, given the strong federal impetus on state-level gov-ernance reforms in this area. At the state level, the picture varies from state to state, with some states making headway in public financial management and citizen consultation.3

World Bank Group Engagement in NigeriaIn support of the government’s own objectives, as expressed in its Vision 20:2020 strategy4 the new World Bank Group’s Country Strategy Program (CPS) for Nigeria for the period 2014–17 is structured around three strategic clusters: (i) promoting diversified growth and job creation by reforming the power sec-tor, enhancing agricultural productivity, and increas-ing access to finance; (ii) improving the quality and efficiency of social service delivery at the state level to promote social inclusion; and (iii) strengthening governance and public sector management, with gender equity and conflict sensitivity as essential elements of governance.

The main principle of engagement that will guide the Bank’s work within this strategy is that it seeks to

3 World Bank. 2014. Nigeria—Country Partnership Strategy for the Period FY2014–FY2017. Washington, DC: World Bank Group.4 Vision 20:2020 and its medium-term implementation strategy focus on promoting sustainable growth and welfare improvements. Specifically, the Vision 20:2020 aims to: (i) optimize the country’s human and natural resource potential to achieve rapid economic growth, and (ii) translate that growth into equitable social development for all citizens.

strike the right balance between actions to strengthen the enabling environment and direct interventions, recognizing that all activities need to be assessed from a governance perspective. This is expected to lead to more selectivity, a more candid recognition of risks, better identification of reform potential, and performance-based approaches rather than funding inputs to leverage changes in systems and incentives. The strategy will also seek to enhance the role that citizens can and should play in shaping the reform agenda.5 These principles of the Bank’s engagement in Nigeria were informed by the new Governance Approach for the Country Office, which was piloted through the GPF (see section 6 for more information on the approach).

The strong focus of the CPS on governance is building on the previous CPS for the period 2010–13, in which overall governance was central. The 2010–13 CPS focused on three themes to transform and diversify Nigeria’s economy: (i) improving governance; (ii) maintaining non-oil growth; and (iii) promoting human development, identified by the government and reaf-firmed in the stakeholder consultations. Governance was both a core and cross-cutting theme and was addressed in five areas: (i) transparency and account-ability, (ii) participation, (iii) sector governance, (iv) capacity development, and (v) judicial reform and democratic governance.6 The GPF in Nigeria was designed in close alignment with the strategy and in collaboration with the CPS partners, particularly, DFID. The GPF complemented and enhanced the governance support provided by the CPS partners through the delivery of results within six components (see section 4).

5 World Bank. 2014. Nigeria—Country Partnership Strategy for the Period FY2014–FY2017. Washington, DC: World Bank Group.6 Judicial reform and democratic governance were the sole focus of DFID and United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which were among the donor partners included in the strategy, together with the African Development Bank (AfDB).


9

4. The GPF in Nigeria

Political economy and governance challenges are rec-ognized as binding constraints to achieving devel-

opment outcomes in Nigeria. Patronage, corruption, weak institutions, a fragmented population, national resource revenue dependency, and violent conflicts in many parts of the country challenge approaches to development based on best practice that does not take into account the local context and peculiarities of Nigeria and its different regions. It was against this background that in late 2012, the GPF Secretariat, the United Kingdom’s Department of International Development (DFID), and the World Bank decided to deepen the understanding of the political economy and governance in Nigeria and pilot approaches to better tailor the Bank’s engagements in the country. To this end, a US$12.7 million grant was set up in early 2013 as part of Window 1 of the GPF. This was made possible through an allocation of US$10.8 million by DFID to the global GPF. In addition, US$1.2 million was allocated in 2014 to the engagement from a previ-ous GPF allocation to Nigeria.7

The GPF program in Nigeria was planned as a pro-grammatic two-phased engagement supported by DFID. The first phase, which is the focus of this publication, intended to fund analytical as well as advisory activities and to identify counterparts and implementation partnerships for the second phase. The second phase, which is discussed more in sec-tion 5 Moving Forward, will be a bilateral trust fund between DFID Nigeria and the World Bank.

7 The GPF in Nigeria began in 2012 with an allocation of US$2 million, which focused on: (i) revenue and other statistics in the oil sector, (ii) gov-ernance of service delivery in health and water, and (ii) monitoring capacity for budget and appropriations committees of selected state assemblies. An additional GPF Window 2 grant aimed at “promoting good governance in the Niger Delta” (US$750,000) supported supply- and demand-side account-ability mechanisms aimed at reducing fragility in that conflict-affected area. All of these activities continued under the program expanded in 2013 with the additional funding provided by DFID.

The GPF of Phase 1 activities combined political economy analysis, advisory services, and counterpart engagement. Over the lifetime of the grant, increasing support has been focused at the state level, where the transformational potential is largest. The program has adopted a venture capital approach, working on the basis that a range of interventions will be implemented to tackle a problem and that, even if only a few of the outputs are fully achieved, a sufficient return will have been made on the original investment.

The grant was structured around six major compo-nents, the results of which are presented in more detail in the next section:

Accountability and Transparency of the Financial and Oil and Gas Sectors (Component 1): This com-ponent was intended to address a key underlying transparency and accountability constraint affecting all sectors in the Nigerian economy, namely the accurate and timely provision of information by public and private parties as required by their respective laws of incorporation.

Improved Governance of Service Delivery in Key Sectors (Component 2): This component aimed at strengthening the links between good governance and service delivery outcomes in the health, educa-tion, water, energy, and sectors, which are germane to government efforts at managing public resources and minimizing corruption.

Improved Public Financial Management Transpar-ency, Accountability, Effectiveness, and Sustain-ability (Component 3): This component aimed at accelerating reforms that enhance transparency, accountability, effectiveness, and sustainability of public financial management by providing advisory services to states and the federal government and



10

by facilitating peer-to-peer learning between pub-lic financial management professionals and state governors.

Increased Engagement of Citizens in the Develop-ment Process in the Core Niger Delta States (Com-ponent 4): This component supported a focused engagement on governance issues in the conflict-affected area of the Niger Delta where the World Bank has been engaged for a number of years. The support was aimed at transparency, participation, and accountability efforts related to two large Bank-supported projects in the Niger Delta region.

Increased Citizen Voice and Inclusion (Compo-nent 5): The component supported voice, inclusion, and social accountability in Nigeria through mecha-nisms aimed at building social capital; promoting social cohesion, inclusion, and mobilization; and facilitating citizen engagement with reform processes and decision making.

Just-in-Time Governance Advice, Knowledge, Dis-semination, Mainstreaming, and Program Manage-ment (Component 6): This component addressed the need to mainstream good governance and political economy considerations into Bank operations and client engagement.


11

5. Main Achievements

The GPF program in Nigeria is helping to address the key governance impediments to development

effectiveness by focusing on improving expenditure management, strengthening social accountability, and increasing transparency in revenue mobiliza-tion. Initiatives under the GPF are addressing both demand- and supply-side issues of governance impediments. The program combines political econ-omy analysis, advisory services, and counterpart engagement at the state level, where the transfor-mational potential is largest.

This section provides an overview of the main achieve-ments of each component of the GPF in Nigeria. Sum-maries of two assessments of the program—one by independent consultants tasked by the GPF Secretariat with evaluating the overall GPF program and one by the United Kingdom’s Department of International Development (DFID) are also included.

Independent Evaluation of the GPFThe independent evaluation of the GPF, which was completed in July 2014, included an overall evaluation report as well as an assessment of the 18 Window 18

8 The 18 Window 1 countries are: Afghanistan, Albania, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Haiti, Kenya, Liberia, Mongolia, Nepal, Nigeria, Philippines, Sierra Leone, Tajikistan, Uganda, and Zambia.

countries, one of which is Nigeria. In both of these reports, Nigeria is singled out as one of the most advanced countries in terms of mainstreaming gov-ernance in country programming. The Window 1 review assessed progress in governance and anti-corruption (GAC) implementation compared with 2011, when a baseline review was conducted. Both reviews scored three elements of GAC performance9

in each Window 1 country: GAC assessment, GAC programming, and change process and manage-ment. According to the 2014 review, Nigeria is the country with the highest overall assessment, with the maximum score of five on all three dimensions and a marked improvement compared with 2011 (see table below). The GPF program in Nigeria is thought to have had a significant influence on these improve-ments. A summary of Nigeria’s assessment on the three elements of GAC performance is presented in box 3.

9 Scoring for the 2014 review followed the same protocol as that of the first review conducted in 2011. A five-point scale was used, with a score of three considered neutral, representing adequate analytics and a basi-cally constructive response to GAC issues but no significant innovation or special focus on GAC team building beyond the minimal effort associated with qualification for a Window 1 grant. Lower scores reflected limited attention to GAC in analytics, strategy, programmatic response, or inter-nal Bank organization and processes. Higher scores represented notably strong performance and innovation in these areas.

TABLE 1. Window 1 Review Country Scores

Country

GAC AssessmentProgram Support

for GAC Change Management Overall Assessment

2011 2014 2011 2014 2011 2014 2011 2014

Nigeria 2.0 5.0 4.0 5.0 3.0 5.0 3.0 5.0



12

2013 DFID Annual ReviewAn annual review of the grant was mandated by DFID and completed in October 2013. It gave an overall score of A to the program, which indicates that the realized outputs have met the expectations. Figure 3 on the following page shows that all components but one have either met or exceeded the expected rate of delivery which was the basis of formulating the overall rating of A. It should be noted, however, that

these ratings reflect only progress till October 2013 and provide a snapshot of achievements until that time. A lot of the work is still ongoing and a final assessment will only be possible after completion of the grant in mid-2015. Still, the report concludes that the GPF has delivered on the majority of its milestones. There is evidence that it has achieved an important set of results, which are beginning to have an impact (see box 4). According to the review, the GPF is able to flexibly respond to emerging priorities

BOX 3. GPF 2014 WINDOW 1 REVIEW: SUMMARY ASSESSMENT FOR NIGERIA

Governance and Anti-Corruption (GAC)

Since the last Window 1 review, GAC analysis gained a significantly increased profile and has placed a greater importance on how the country team evaluates projects and identifies priorities. Detailed public economy analyses (PEAs) have been done for several sectors and are informing project design. Creative new PEA approaches are being tried. The new strategy is not yet finalized, however, so the advances indicated are not yet secured.

Program Support for GAC

With strong backing from country office leadership, project teams are increasingly doing PEA and taking an expanded approach to GAC in programs and projects. The new Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) includes an extensive approach to governance encompassing core activities in public financial man-agement (PFM) procurement, and statistical capacity, but also a number of cross-cutting approaches such as PFM capacity building and demand-side account-ability in sector activities, state-to-state performance comparisons to guide state-level investments, and a focus on improving legislative oversight of bud-get processes at the national and state levels. The strategy includes a governance, gender, and conflict filter; enhanced political economy analysis to inform understanding of opportunities for and limits to reform; and increased outreach and consultation to inform Bank operations.

Change Process

Expanded GPF funding has facilitated an aggressive program of analysis and programming in a range of governance areas, as indicated above, as well as the

comprehensive approach to governance proposed in the new strategy. The original Window 1 grant helped start this process, and the team has tried to learn from experience through portfolio reviews (e.g., the review of demand-side portfolio). Strong leadership from the country director is support-ing a forward-leaning approach to GAC issues. A phased approach is being used, with pilot efforts on social accountability, for example, tested before project-wide application. An expansive reorganiza-tion of Bank processes is proposed under the new strategy, including the use of a governance, conflict, and gender filter for all new projects; analytical and advisory activities (already in use); and adjusting incentives for cross-sectoral and GAC work through performance awards and provision of time to staff for this purpose.

GPF Contribution and Impact

The GPF has had a significant impact, but the Nige-ria model is unique given the scale of resources mobilized from another donor. The major impact of the original grant was to get the process of experimenting going. Successes in the health sector, and with some initial efforts to improve oversight of the oil sector, were catalysts for several task teams to seek additional funds from the United Kingdom’s Department for International Develop-ment (DFID), which was interested in promoting Bank engagement on governance issues. This led to the significant additional funding noted above. Interviews indicated that the kind of overarching PEA done to inform the CPS would not have been possible using project funds, and the cost of PEAs for individual sectors far outstrip the usual project preparation budget allocation.


5. MAIN ACHIEVEMENTS

13

BOX 4. CONCLUSIONS OF THE 2013 DFID ANNUAL REVIEW

The key highlights of results so far (October 2013) include:

• Strengthening the role of the Nigeria Securities and Exchange Commission to enforce interna-tionally accepted standards.

• Political economy analysis of education reform with evidence that this is now in use for both design and delivery of Bank projects.

• Introduction of results based monitoring and evaluation of public finance and service delivery in the education sector in two states.

• Demand-driven public financial management advisory support to the state of Ogun.

• Support to civil society in the state of Edo to provide oversight on public spending and to back forums, including media in the state of Rivers to promote discussions between public officials and citizens.

• Launch by Edo state government of an open government portal along with the enabling of an in-depth, third-party analysis of capi-tal spending on key budget areas in the state.

• Three political economy assessments and devel-opment of a governance, conflict, and gender filter, which World Bank teams are using during the design of interventions.

There is a need to think about how the Bank will sustain the gains beyond the support of the United Kingdom’s Department for International Develop-ment (DFID). There are encouraging signs that many GPF results have now been incorporated into the Country Partnership Strategy. The World Bank Nigeria is also thinking about improving its own operational long-term effectiveness. However, there is a risk that the World Bank Nigeria is not able to put enough of its own resources into “GPF-type” initiatives. DFID and the World Bank need to think through a “gradual exit strategy,” which will ensure the Bank takes “ownership.” This will need to include a joint influencing strategy at headquarters level.

The review also concluded that there is a need to streamline the logframes of GPF components, includ-ing incorporating stronger linkages between them. There should also be consideration on whether some components can be merged, for example 4 and 5. It will also be important to ensure that the GPF theory of change and logframes allow for flexibility so that the program can respond to opportunities. However, to effectively do this, the Bank should invest in completing a monitoring and evaluation strategy for the program so that there is a robust system to capture and report results. This will ensure that the full value of the GPF is not undermined.

Output 1 Output 2 Output 3 Output 4 Output 5 Output 6

Indicator 1 A B B A A++ A++

Indicator 2 B A+ A B A+ A

Indicator 3 A B B A++ A+ A++

Indicator 4 C A+ A+ A

Score A A B A A+ A++

FIGURE 3. GPF 2013 Logframe Output Milestone Achievements

Outputs substantially exceeded expectation A++

Outputs moderately exceeded expectation A+

Outputs met expectation A

Outputs moderately did not meet expectation B

Outputs substantially did not meet expectation C

No milestone defined



14

in a way that more conventional World Bank projects cannot. In this way, alongside delivering specific results of its own, the GPF modality can be used to complement and strengthen the results delivered by other World Bank projects and potentially those of its development partners.

5.1 Component 1: Accountability and Transparency of the Financial and Oil and Gas Sectors

Background

All sectors in the Nigerian economy experience a lack of accurate and timely provision of informa-tion by public and private parties, as required by their respective laws of incorporation. Reporting is infrequent and often inaccurate and not timely, if done at all.

This GPF component did not intend, however, to deal with all reasons for the lack of transparency and accountability. Rather, it identified a key underly-ing technical constraint, namely accurate reporting based on internationally recognized standards and formats. This affects all industries, starting with the oil industry and expanding to the financial sectors. However, the original reports on the Observance of Standards and Codes (ROSC) Accounting and Audit-ing (A&A) for Nigeria from 2004 had noted that the Nigerian accounting standards did not cover many issues covered by IFRS and that there were gaps in monitoring compliance with financial reporting requirements. The subsequent ROSC A&A in 2011 identified the need for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to be ready for the implementa-tion of IFRS in Nigeria with effect from 2013 when they became obligatory. As a result, the work under this component focused on the requirements of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria Act 2011, which mandates the implementation of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in the oil, gas, and financial sectors.

Outcome

The main outcome of this component is the improved predictability and timeliness of revenue flows. The capacity of the Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to regulate listed companies report-ing under IFRS has been significantly strengthened as a result of the GPF. In particular, training support and the upgrading of the SEC regulatory framework to comply with IFRS is contributing to strengthened supervision and regulation by SEC in two important areas: (i) improved regulatory reporting and disclosure in regulated institutions and (ii) strengthening com-munication and coordination between the SEC and the other regulators. For example, training given to staff is helping the Financial Standards and Corporate Governance Department to do its work better and roll out reforms more quickly. On the oil side, the GPF is helping to support the Federal Inland Revenue Service with current reforms to assess and forecast financial flows. Support provided to the Integrated Tax Administration System will contribute to making it more able and improve the flow of information. The GPF is working with the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative to set up a platform to improve communication between the government and citizens.

Outputs

Four outputs contributed to the achievement of this outcome:

(i) Improved oversight of financial reporting in the oil and gas and financial sectors.

(ii) Improved alignment of data collection and finan-cial reporting templates with IFRS standards.

(iii) Enhanced capacity of regulatory insinuations to conduct oversight for publicly listed companies in the oil industry and financial sectors.

(iv) Improved enabling environment for engage-ment between citizens and government on governance issues related to the petroleum sector.

Selected achievements are presented in box 5.



15

BOX 5. SELECTED OUTPUT-LEVEL ACHIEVEMENTS OF COMPONENT 1

• Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) staff trained in consolidating financial reports under the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and the Financial Standards and Corporate Governance Department are now reviewing all submissions and ensuring that they are compliant with IFRS format/stan-dards. About 70 percent of reports reviewed from compliant companies have been asked to provide further information (i.e., clarification or further disclosure) following from internal reviews.

• 58 staff from the Securities and Exchange Commission and other agencies, including the Central Bank of Nigeria, the National Insurance Commission, and the National Stock Exchange, were trained in providing oversight for IFRS compliance.

5.2 Component 2: Governance of Service Delivery in Key Sectors

Background

The quality and quantity of service delivery in key sectors in Nigeria falls short of citizens’ expectations as well as professional quality criteria. There has been a realization that in order to enhance the impact of governance reforms, there is a need to find a new bal-ance between supply- and demand-side approaches to governance. As a departure from previous governance in sectors initiatives in Nigeria, this component of the GPF has been designed to test the use of both supply- and demand-side governance interventions for address-ing Nigeria’s public service delivery issues.

Additionally, recent analytical work and technical assistance engagements have identified significant

capacity gaps for sector governance at various tiers of government. The dependence on obsolete regulatory frameworks and the failure to align sector reforms with cross-cutting reforms (such as decentraliza-tion) has resulted in delegation of responsibilities to subnational tiers of government without matching resources. The GPF has been designed to support sector-level diagnostics and results-based manage-ment tools in order to: (i) identify key constraints to efficient service delivery in various sectors and (ii) test and scale up the use of performance management approaches that create a platform for benchmarking and comparing performance in delivering public services for citizens.

Outcome

The main outcome of this component is the improved service-delivery results in the education and social safety net sectors. A key result under this outcome has been the completion of a PEA in the education sector in Nigeria. A stakeholder mapping method (Net-Map) was used as tool for policy dialogue and to identify the main constraints in the flows of funding for basic education in Nigeria. As a follow up and part of raising awareness on this, the recent Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) educa-tion summit re-emphasized the need to migrate from education spending to education investment and linking resources to improvement of education/learning outcomes. In addition to this work, a PEA of social safety nets in Nigeria has been completed, covering selected federal agencies and the states of Cross River, Oyo, Kwara, and Bauchi. Both of these analyses have been used to inform the preparation of the 2014–17 World Bank Country Partnership Strategy (CPS).

Another important result under this component has been the preparation of a procedures manual on Results-Based Budget Monitoring and Evaluation for State Houses of Assembly Appropriation Committees in order to help improve the extent to which sector budgets are aligned to and are delivering development outcomes. This manual has been introduced alongside extensive training (figures 4–5) to the State Houses



16

FIGURE 4. Oguntimehin of the Ekiti State Ministry of Budget, Planning, and Economic Development and other Directors of the Ministry Interacting with Consultants during Sessions on Results-Based Monitoring and Evaluation

FIGURE 5. Consultants in a Group Photograph with Directors in Ekiti State Ministry of Budget, Planning, and Economic Development after the Consultations

of Assembly in the states of Ekiti, Edo, and Niger. Complementing this work, and in order to provide the necessary sector performance data, service-delivery indicator surveys are being conducted in the states of Anambra, Ekiti, Bauchi, and Niger.

Outputs


(i) Increased availability of information on educa-tion expenditures.

(ii) Increased availability of information on political economy issues in the social sector.

(iii) Enhanced judicial reforms in Nigeria.

(iv) Enhanced linkages between public financial management (PFM) and education sector ser-vice delivery.



• An education sector political economy report has been completed and disseminated to relevant stakeholders. A social sector politi-cal economy report has been completed and the preparation of dissemination summaries and activities is underway.

• A generic manual for community-based tar-geting and a single register of poor and vulnerable households has been devel-oped in order to improve the effectiveness of the delivery system of social safety net interventions.

• The manual, “Result-based Monitoring and Evaluation of Public Finance in Key Social Sectors” was extended to another set of states—Delta, Kogi, and Ondo.



17

5.3 Component 3: Improved Public Financial Management Transparency, Accountability, Effectiveness, and Sustainability

Background

Nigeria has made progress in PFM since the return to democratic government in 1999. The introduction of the oil price fiscal rule in 2004 and the procure-ment and fiscal responsibility legislation in 2007, together with the establishment of the Economic and Fiscal Crimes Commission, have all provided a sound foundation for financial management in the country. Despite this progress, Nigeria still faces technical capacity and governance challenges at both the state and federal levels that hamper efforts to implement reform in all phases of the PFM cycle. Currently, PFM reform is uneven between different states, and corruption remains a major challenge. Finally, the weak PFM systems impede the ability of both state and federal governments to optimize resource allocation for public service delivery and public investment management.

In order to address the challenges in PFM, the GPF was designed to support knowledge-sharing and capacity-development activities with a view to build-ing federal and local government capacity to address shortcomings in PFM. This was to be achieved by establishing a peer-to-peer PFM learning network, anchored by the Nigerian State Governors’ Forum benchmarking PFM performance across states, and providing PFM advisory services, among other efforts.

Outcome

The main outcome of this component is the improved transparency, accountability, effectiveness, and sus-tainability of public financial management in Nige-ria. Challenges with staffing in the early stages of implementation and weakened opportunities for reform have affected the results of this component. Nonetheless, a number of important results have been produced. For example, a notable achievement is the establishment of a national PFM community of practice (CoP)—PEMNET—with participation from 33 of the 36 Nigerian states. The CoP focuses on planning, budget, and the treasury and will identify and share good practices in PFM. It has

developed a webpage (http://pemnet.wikispaces.com) which provides a forum for sharing knowl-edge and for communicating. In addition, learning plans for six priority PFM issues to be delivered through the CoP have been prepared. A first learning event on state-level development strategy, revenue forecasting, and budget circular was carried out in July 23–24 2014.

To facilitate the benchmarking and monitoring of PFM reform in states, a public expenditure data-base for 26 states covering the 2008–13 period was created to complement the existing database for 10 states developed by DFID’s State Partnership for Accountability, Responsiveness and Capability (SPARC) program.

Another important result of this component is that three states (Ogun, Nasarawa, and Adamawa) are aligning their chart of accounts and reporting tem-plates with national chart of accounts that are based on the International Public Sector Accountability Standards (IPSAS).

Finally, an oil and gas revenue model was developed in collaboration with the Technical Department, Oil and Gas unit at the Federal Ministry of Finance and with the Federal Budget Office. The model will



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incorporate detailed fiscal regimes for all oil contracts and will enable the government to accurately estimate revenue and analyze revenue impacts of any changes in fiscal regime as well as oil output.

Outputs


(i) PFM peer-to-peer learning implemented in participating Nigerian States as subcomponent of the State Peer Review Mechanism.

(ii) PFM advisory services that support states to implement good practice PFM.

(iii) Advisory services to improve Federal Ministry of Finance’s capacity for linking oil outputs with medium-term revenue and expenditure projections.

(iv) Strengthened procurement oversight of the National Assembly House of Representatives Committee.



• Support has been provided for strengthening legislative scrutiny of public procurement at the federal level, including: (i) building the capacity of the Committee and Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), (ii) providing advice on the introduction of a public pro-curement performance monitoring system, and (iii) providing advice on the establish-ment of a framework for public procurement hearings.

• The states of Osun and Ogun have also been supported to produce state-specific draft public procurement laws.

• Support to the Federal Budget Bureau and Oil and Gas Department in the Ministry of Finance to develop an oil macroeconomic model. The model will enable the government to improve the oil revenue forecasting expected from various concession contracts, joint venture, and production-sharing contracts.

5.4 Component 4: Increased Engagement of Citizens in Development in the Core Niger Delta States

Background

The governance challenges of Nigeria evolve around the themes of patronage, ethnic cleavages, rents from oil derived revenues, and an unfinished fed-eral structure. Social accountability—both through elections at different levels of government and in the relationship between service providers and users—is weak. The public financial systems are of varying quality between sectors at the federal level and between states. The result is limited regard to citizen and service users in macrofiscal management, allocation of resources, and in the implementation of policies. Service delivery and the development impact of policies and donor-funded projects suffer as a result.

This component of the GPF supported a focused engagement on governance issues in the conflict-affected area of the Niger Delta where the World Bank has been engaged for a number of years. The support was geared toward transparency, participa-tion, and accountability efforts related to two large Bank-funded projects in the Niger Delta region, including the states of Edo, Rivers, Delta, and Balyesa—the State Employment and Expenditure for Results (SEEFOR) and Nigeria Edo State Devel-opment Policy Operation. Both of these operations presented opportunities for positively impacting accountability in the Niger Delta. The grant financed activities that were crucial to the success of these projects but that could not have been appropriately financed without the GPF.

The activities focused on three core aspects of state action: (i) the legal and regulatory frameworks created for managing and accounting for public resources; (ii) the manner in which public resources are planned, budgeted, and executed; and (iii) the systems created to report and scrutinize the results achieved. In each area the component promoted mechanisms for pro-ductive engagement between citizens and the state, with specific attention to inclusion and participation of vulnerable groups.



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Outcome

The main outcome of this component is the increased engagement of citizens in the core Niger Delta states. An important result is that support to officials in the state of Edo led to a unique method for analyzing capital spending performance—“fiscal ethnography.” This work has helped build confidence in relations between citizens and the state. Citizens now have access to and are using feedback mechanisms on selected capital works and service-delivery issues. For example: (i) the community mapping and stake-holder survey on public works in Edo provided an avenue for communities to voice their views on the government’s development project and processes in Benin city; and (ii) the community and stakeholder survey on teacher absenteeism gave families, students, teachers, and other stakeholders a vehicle to express their views on the government’s approach to educa-tion reform and the issues of teacher absenteeism.

In the state of Rivers, the focus has been on linking civil society organizations with public radio to promote citizen engagement. The intent was to create incentives for state officials to be more forthcoming on access to data and performance records in education. A news agency, a specialist budget and financial manage-ment advocacy group, and an election monitoring civil society group have received funding. There are now good prospects for further integration of social accountability in significant Bank programs, such as SEEFOR and the Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project (NEWMAP).

Outputs


(i) Improved enabling environment for public consultation and engagement.

(ii) Improved ability of citizens to access informa-tion and provide feedback to government on PFM and service delivery.

(iii) Improved capacity of civil society actors to hold government accountable for the use of public resources and delivery of basic services.

(iv) Enhanced technical exchange on key governance issues in regional forums.



In order to improve the extent to which govern-ment and government officials are able to share governance lessons, a number of initiatives were supported, including:

• A South-South workshop on urban crime, violence, and urban development, which led to developing the community-based mapping approach used in Benin city.

• A four-state learning event on social account-ability and social safeguards on the State Employment and Expenditure for Results project.

• Development and socialization of the first state-based Open Government Initiative with agriculture used as a pilot sector for applied open data work with a map for investors.

• Development of guidelines for third-party monitoring and implementation of grievance redress mechanisms for institutional public financial management and service delivery systems in two Niger Delta States.

Lessons Learned

Most of the activities under this component were piloted for the first time and will be continued in the second phase in the GPF in Nigeria. The World Bank team has identified a number of key lessons, which have informed the design of the second phase.

• Using PEA up front in state engagement is key to successful tailoring and sequencing of instru-ments. In the case of Edo, this led to an adap-tion of preconceived ideas about roadmaps for PFM reform as well as approaches to social accountability.

• There is a need to use analysis and dialogue to build a strong level of trust with state leadership.

• Capacity to closely supervise state-level work and to adapt to evolving circumstances is important, together with combining an understanding of the local context with international best practices and technical skills.



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• It is important that the Bank is able to provide multisectoral responses in support of select state priorities.

• There is a need to roll out evidence-based pilots incrementally, learning and generating knowledge along the way.

5.5 Component 5: Increased Citizen Voice and Inclusion

Background

Efforts to improve the systems of governance within government and key industries need to be comple-mented and strengthened by social accountability measures that create opportunities to increase the voice of citizens and responsiveness of public officials to citizens. These efforts are arguably even more crucial in a context such as Nigeria, where trust in govern-ment is very low and where ongoing growth failed to impact the lives of the vast majority of Nigerians.

The lack of transparency in the oil industry—as the main driver of growth—and secrecy of government engage-ments with this and other industries have translated into “information deficits” throughout state-society rela-tions. Thus, citizens have no effective way of assessing the revenue, budgets, and spending performance of public authorities. Further, the over-centralization of power within the executive has weakened the checks and balances, and thus created a “monitoring deficit.”

On the other hand, many Nigerians suggest that a heightening of political awareness and engagement, coupled with the passage of new laws on freedom of information, fiscal transparency, and electoral processes present new opportunities. They point to positive shifts that have occurred in some states, such as Lagos, and the momentum established in states like Edo and elsewhere. These are signs that it is possible to impact the relations between the state and citizens and thus provide a rationale for social accountability interventions to support this momentum.

Against this backdrop, this component of the GPF was designed to strengthen voice, inclusion, and social

accountability in Nigeria through initiatives aimed at building social capital, promoting social cohesion, and facilitating citizens engagement with reform processes. This grant was used to develop and pilot mechanisms and to enhance transparency, citizen participation, inclusion of vulnerable populations (including women and youth), and the relation between art and develop-ment. Activities were undertaken on the basis that they can be scaled up to other geographic areas and sectors and can be mainstreamed into existing Bank projects in Nigeria.

Outcome

The intended outcome of this component is the enhanced capacity of donors, implementation part-ners, and counterparts to use demand-side governance instruments to enhance transparency, inclusion, and accountability. An important result under this outcome is the establishment of mechanisms to enable feedback from citizens on budget implementation and service delivery. This was achieved by supporting three dif-ferent civil society groups undertaking procurement and budget watch activities at national and state levels and through the development and launch of an information and communication technology based tool, MyVoice, to enhance beneficiary feedback (fig-ure 6). MyVoice is an SMS-based mechanism to collect citizen feedback on health and agriculture services, which is being mainstreamed into the Nigerian State Health Program Investment Credit. A briefing note on lessons learned during the process of developing MyVoice has been published and is available on the Bank’s website (figure 7).

In the area of enabling environment for engage-ment, the component has supported transparency efforts such as open government initiatives at both the federal and state level, including contributions to the Open Government Readiness Assessment and development of the Open Government Master Plan. This was done in the context of assisting the Nigerian federal government as they pursue membership to the Open Government Partnership. At the state level, an open data portal was launched in September 2013 after working with the Edo state government to design an open data policy framework (figure 8). At the same time, this component has opened entry



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FIGURE 6. Snapshot of MyVoice Website: https://myvoicenigeria.com

FIGURE 7. Cover of Briefing Note on Lessons from MyVoice



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FIGURE 8. Edo State’s Open Data Portal: http://www.data.edostate.gov.ng

points to use base maps of four communities in Benin City (produced as part of the project “Map-ping for Urban Upgrading in Benin City”). The maps will serve as inputs to the selection of geographic areas of intervention under the public works com-ponent of the SEEFOR project, other World Bank operations in Edo State, and for use by the Edo State Government.

On social inclusion, the component has supported the development of four gender policy dialogues across three states. This resulted in conduction action researches on the participation of women in agriculture. The results of this research has been mainstreamed into the Fadama III project,10 inform-ing the design of additional financing for both Fadama and the commercial agriculture program.

10 The Fadama III project aims to support the provision of economic and productive goods and activities in rural areas in the 36 states of the federation plus the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The project is to focus on increasing the incomes of the users of rural and water resources on a sustainable basis. By increasing the incomes of the rural poor, the project will help reduce rural poverty, increase food security, and contribute to the achievement of a key Millennium Development Goal (MDG).

This component has also supported a number of art events aiming to use art as a vehicle for identity formation and development. Additional activities included operational support on social safeguards policy implementation and training to project teams and government officials, especially in issues such as vulnerability assessments, analysis of demand side barriers to services, citizen participation in Bank projects, and social impact assessments.

Outputs

Four outputs contributed to the achievement of this outcome.

(i) Increased number of governments adopting open government initiatives.

(ii) Enhanced integration of voice, inclusion, social cohesion, and transparency mechanisms into World Bank-supported government projects and programs.

(iii) Capacity of non-state actors to actively engage in the reform process.

(iv) Just-in-time advice to government and Bank project teams on demand-side strategies.



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• Support for strengthening the engagement of non-state actors in government reform processes has included: (i) preparation of a “How to Note” on activities implemented and lessons learned related to this area and (ii) strengthening the engagement of civil society organizations in specific sectors such as extractive industries.

• Support for strengthening the monitoring of budget and procurement processes by specialist nongovernmental organizations has included: (i) establishing a national pro-curement watch platform (including proto-cols and use of national procurement portal) and (ii) working with the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative around civil society organization engagement in the area of extractive industries in order to identify priority areas for engagement and enhance the civil society organization consultation processes.

• Demand-driven advisory service engagements have been provided in the areas of: (i) social accountability for project preparation and implementation to five Bank projects, (ii) a way to get new water customers accustomed to paying water bills by providing payment options according to their capabilities and giving incentives according to their interests, (iii) participation and engagement of citizens in political processes in the state of Edo, and (iv) analyzing the use of health services as part of the implementation of the performance-based financing program in selected areas within the states of Adamawa, Nasarawa, and Ondo.

• Conflict and social inclusion analyses at the federal, sub-regional, STATE and project lev-els, and mainstreaming of mitigation efforts through Bank projects.

• Production of numerous “how to notes,” doc-umenting experiences and lessons learned.

5.6 Component 6: Just-in-Time Governance Advice, Knowledge, Dissemination, Mainstreaming, and Program Management

Background

The 2010–13 Country Partnership Strategy for Nige-ria identified capacity development in the public sector as one of the key governance focus areas. As a result, this component of the GPF was aimed at utilizing various instruments and forms of engage-ment to enlist buy-in for governance reform at the country level, by using governance filters and public economy analysis (PEA) for prioritizing engagement, and at the local level through partnerships with state and non-state actors for collaborative learning and capacity building. In addition, there was a need for just-in-time advisory services, knowledge sharing, and program management in order to identify and create linkages between the supply and demand-side governance interventions carried out in the other five GPF components in Nigeria.

These considerations resulted in the creation of com-ponent 6 of the GPF, which addressed the need to mainstream good governance and PEA into the Bank’s business, which is at the heart of the GPF program in Nigeria. The activities supported within this component sought to integrate lessons learned into procedures and to ensure gender and conflict sensitivity. Therefore, this was an overarching output for the GPF program, closely overlapping with the other components.

Outcome

The main intended outcome of this component is the increased capacity of the World Bank to use analysis to manage governance and corruption risks in Nigeria’s project portfolio and in partner and client strategies. A key result has been the initiation of a reform process, at the level of the World Bank country team, informed by three pieces of macro-level political economy work and a series of discussions about their implications for the way the Bank does business in Nigeria. The three pieces include a background note on the politics of Nigeria, a paper on the politics of policy reform,



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and a final paper on the operational implications for the Bank. The three PEAs also provided valuable insights for the preparation of the new CPS and in defining new working principles for the Bank country team. These principles are very much in line with the general principles of the Bank’s reform process and the Nigeria country team is thus well placed to pursue it thanks to the GPF engagement.

In addition to informing the CPS and defining new working principles, new instruments have also been developed. A Governance, Conflict, and Gender Filter (see box 11) is now being used to screen all new lend-ing and knowledge work to ensure that the potential for impact is increased through due diligence in these three areas. The Filter builds on the experience of earlier filters piloted in other areas of the Bank and draws on the analytical work done through the GPF for Nigeria. The Filter was piloted across all new lending and analytic and advisory activities work as of January 1, 2014. Comments based on the filter have already been provided to five lending projects and one technical assistance project. As a follow-up to the roll out and the pilot stage, just-in-time support is being provided to three additional project teams. For example, the design of a new project on irriga-tion which was recently approved by the Board, has benefitted from additional PEA work.

Work under this component has also spurred a discus-sion about how to more proactively generate knowledge about what works and what does not, as part of the business model in Nigeria. An additional instrument related to the Filter—the Program for Adaptive Learn-ing (PAL)—through a partnership with the Kennedy School at Harvard is providing support to task teams to put in place data generation, feedback, and lesson learning processes throughout the project cycle with a view to adapting and learning to improve impact.

Outputs

Three outputs contributed to the achievement of this outcome.

(i) Country team reform process informed by macro-level PEA for Nigeria.

(ii) Coordination and program administration, including monitoring and evaluation of trust fund activities.

(iii) Just-in-time advisory services to support project teams and counterparts on integrating gover-nance considerations in projects, strategies, and policy.



• Support provided to projects in applying PEA recommendations in project design and implementation, including:

• ongoing governance review and input to almost all new World Bank operations;

• substantial design support for projects in irrigation, social safety nets, and health;

• Public economy analysis (PEA) completed for the irrigation project, making signifi-cant impact to the design of that operation prior to negotiation; and

• PEA for the commercial agriculture project initiated.

• Initiatives focused on ensuring effective imple-mentation of the GPF have included:

• completion of a United Kingdom’s Depart-ment of International Development annual GPF review, including preparation of a GPF annual report and collation of rel-evant evidence;

• a GPF monitoring and evaluation strategy prepared; and

• completion of two GPF management committee meetings, revision of GPF logframes, and preparation of an annual GPF grant monitoring report.



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BOX 11. GOVERNANCE, CONFLICT, AND GENDER FILTER

The governance, conflict, and gender filter is an integral part of the new programmatic approach to governance to be rolled out during the Country Part-nership Strategy period (see box 12). The design of the conflict and social filter builds upon both lessons learned from the successful implementation of conflict filters elsewhere, as well as the lessons learned by the Bank’s social team during the implementation of component 5 of the GPF. The design of the gender filter builds on the Gender in Fadama Research Proj-ect (2012) and the Nigeria Gender Portfolio Review (2012), and their recommendations for the better inclusion of gender in the Bank’s projects in Nigeria.

The filter will support task teams in better identifying problems and assumptions in approaches, understand-ing local contexts, learning lessons from the past, measuring reform potential, ensuring that fiduciary and corruption risks are addressed, and setting in place tracking mechanisms that will make it easier to engage a broader range of actors, learn throughout the project cycle, recognize risks and implementation challenges, and react accordingly with increased flexibility.

Specifically on facilitating social accountability and the demand for good governance, the filter is intended to ensure that operations: (i) are designed to promote and facilitate citizens engagement in the reform process; (ii) support beneficiary assessments and feedback and promote third-party monitoring; and (iii) allow for iterative improvements in design and implementation based on (i) and (ii).

In the area of conflict, the filter is intended to ensure that operations: (i) are designed to mitigate conflicts in locations where operations are implemented, (ii) clearly identify the risks of augmenting conflicts and include mitigating features, and (iii) in design-ing supervision arrangements, take into account the potential impact of violent conflict for staff safety, fiduciary risks, and the ability to facilitate implementation.

In the area of gender, the filter will seek to support analysis and consultation on gender-related issues as part of project preparation and implementation. Specifically, the aim is to ensure that projects, where relevant, support specific actions to reduce potential

differentiated impact of the project activities, address the distinct needs of women and girls or men and boys, or narrow the gender gaps.

The governance filter ultimately seeks to improve the capacity of the Bank to deliver results and will be implemented through an interdisciplinary committee. The committee will include financial management, procurement and monitoring, and evaluation col-leagues in addition to the Country Management Unit and a governance expert. The roll-out of the filter will require a number of changes to the incen-tives, resources, and accountability mechanisms for the country team as well as additional attention to tailoring and adapting to evolving local contexts at the project level.

The filter will be implemented in a phased manner:

• As a first step, all new projects under preparation will be supported with a filter at an early stage pre-project concept note (PCN) stage. These projects will also be monitored through the filter during Implementation Status Reports (ISRs). The filter will be rolled out more comprehensively across the project and Economic Sector Work (ESW) cycle after the pilot is concluded.

• The filter will be open ended but will ask teams to submit a template prior to the PCN review, addressing: (i) the fiduciary arrangements for the project, including institutional arrangements, funding flows and procurement capacity; (ii) con-flict, gender, institutional, and governance lessons from previous operations; (iii) additional analysis of three areas: the political economy and reform environment, delivery incentives and accountabil-ity lines for different levels of counterparts, and possibilities for transparency and engagement of demand-side actors.

• This information will help task teams to prepare the Operational Risk Assessment Framework (ORAF) and decide whether risks are sufficiently identified and mitigated.

• Governance indicators to be monitored through-out project implementation will also be proposed.

• Teams that undertake additional analytical work will prepare governance annexes summarizing the findings.


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6. Lessons Learned and Moving Forward

Improving the Bank’s effectiveness on governance has a bearing on the overall Bank strategy and

operational effectiveness. This is dependent on the Bank’s reform globally, which is ongoing under the leadership of President Jim Yong Kim. Lessons from the GPF-funded adjustment of the Bank’s approaches in Nigeria’s could usefully feed into the Bank’s wider reform agenda, including, for example, speeding up delivery through innovative contracting arrangement, monitoring results more efficiently, and how to start considering value for money. A selection of the les-sons that emerged from the first phase of the GPF in Nigeria includes the following:

• The GPF was designed to provide flexible just-in-time support. The flexibility and nimbleness made it possible to leverage the relatively modest GPF funds for greater impact on IDA resources.

• The GPF program has perhaps made its most important contribution in funding innovative approaches. This has been the case in the Niger Delta engagement as well as in regard to the mainstreaming of governance and policy economy considerations into new operations.

• The trust fund has worked best when the respon-sibility for managing and implementing trust fund activities have been closely aligned to existing responsibilities and structures in the World Bank. Thus, having a task team leader for a fully Bank-funded operation be in charge of activities funded by the trust fund and related to those operations provides a better point of departure for making a positive impact on operations than splitting the responsibilities. Notably, this has been the case for the trust-funded activities on education, safety nets, and private sector transparency funded under the first phase of the engagement.

• On a related point, having fully-fledged task team leaders empowered, responsible, and accountable

for implementation and achieving results for separate, manageable trust funds has provided for orderly management and delivery.

• Components with fewer and simpler objectives, implemented through a smaller number of con-tracts and consultancies, have been easier to manage and oversee. These components have also been easier to transition from one task team leader to another, when staff alternate. On the other hand, more open ended and flexible—and thus less easy to oversee—trust funds have argu-ably led to more innovation.

• Client engagement for activities directly involving external beneficiaries (e.g., the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Edo state government, civil society organizations in the state of Rivers) has been strong. However, the engagement has been on a task-by-task basis, not on a strategic basis or in oversight functions. Client engagement in oversight and planning of the trust fund would have to be strengthened for relevance, trust, and alignment with client priorities. Engagement with internal clients such as the Country Management Unit, sectors and World Bank staff in the Nigeria country office has been strong.

• Presently, the environment for open data does not seem to be conducive at the federal level, and activities on open data are proposed to be mainstreamed into Bank operations instead of focusing directly on increasing access to data at the federal level.

These lessons have been reflected in the proposal for the next phase of the engagement in a number of ways. First, it is proposed that the next phase should fund approaches to innovation with flexible implementation schedules and logframe arrangements. This would allow for adaptation and redesign as projects reveal



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both new opportunities and unforeseen roadblocks. Second, the issue of sustainability is being addressed through the focus on innovative approaches to project design and capacity building, with the idea that over the life of this trust fund, these activities and their strong documentation and results dissemination will result in a change in the way the World Bank does business in Nigeria and also after the closure of the trust fund. Thirdly, a monitoring and evaluation strategy has been designed that is aligned with both the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) and World Bank approaches to monitoring and evaluation. The strategy will enable comprehensive monitoring in a flexible and easy-to-use way, including revisions to trust-fund logframes in response to lessons learned and emerging priorities.

In addition, the management of the future trust fund between the Bank and DFID will be strengthened by various activities, such as the drafting of work and procurement plans for each component in the next phase of the engagement and the drafting of a project implementation manual. The oversight of the future

program will be strengthened by the proposal to have a representative from the Nigerian Ministry of Planning join the proposed management committee alongside one civil society organization representative and one representative from academia. The Ministry of Plan-ning is proposed to be included in the management committee because of the recommended focus on state level engagement.

Moving forward, the second phase of the GPF in Nigeria supported by DFID is intended to support the implementation of the Governance Approach in the new Country Partnership Strategy for fiscal 2014–17 (box 12). DFID has made a pledge of GPB 10 million (approximately USD$17 million) for the second phase of the engagement, with the possibility of adding additional resources in light of performance and disbursement after the second year. This con-tinuation of the GPF in Nigeria will support the roll out of an ambitious internal shift in the way that the Bank does business and is in line with the Bank-wide reform program, including the push to generate more knowledge about the science of delivery.


6. LESSONS LEARNED AND MOVING FORWARD

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BOX 12. A NEW GOVERNANCE APPROACH FOR THE NIGERIA COUNTRY OFFICE

The new Governance Approach for the Nigeria Country Office was designed under the first phase of the engagement based on the analyses pre-sented above. The objective of the approach is to improve the development effectiveness of World Bank operations in Nigeria and help the Bank take steps to improve the enabling environment for good governance in the country. The approach outlines a number of new business principles for the World Bank Engagement in Nigeria, including the following.

• “We will move away from best practice to best fit. We will focus on function—that is, what works and why—rather than templates and generalized approaches copied from other operations and countries.

• We will supplement our focus on rules, legisla-tion, manuals, and formal institutional designs with a focus on implementing these rules and institutional designs, etc.

• We will continue to base operations on a solid understanding of technical challenges, but we will also strive to understand local contexts and feasible reform processes as opposed to filling technical gaps or deficiencies in our clients’ cur-rent approaches.

• There will be a presumption in favor of flexibility and adaptation in designing and implementing Bank interventions.

• Our approach will be based on problem solving and unpacking assumptions behind hypotheses.

• While recognizing the importance of leadership for reform, we will expand the range of stakehold-ers included in the design and implementation of our engagements, with a view to creating broader support and sustainability for reforms.

• Ownership of approaches will be tested through-out the delivery cycle and, where it does not exist, exit strategies will be employed.

• Information—baselines, evidence, and feedback—will be a central feature of our work as we test and tailor approaches.

• In so doing, we will be looking to scale up our support to local pockets of efficacy where the likelihood of sustainable reforms is greatest.”

The approach is reflected in the World Bank Coun-try Partnership Strategy (CPS) for fiscal 2014–17 discussed by the World Bank Board in April 2014. Governance is included as a cross-cutting strategic cluster in the strategy and the governance approach is annexed to the strategy.

The implementation of the governance approach in the CPS has three main emphases: (i) mainstreaming the approach into World Bank engagements, where relevant, through the application of a governance, conflict, and gender filter throughout the project cycles, change management initiatives, changes to the work programming for staff, and provision of skills and career incentives; (ii) strengthening and piloting of an integrated approach to state-level engagements in light of the move of the lending portfolio from the federal level to the state level; and (iii) improving the overall enabling environment for governance in Nigeria.

The proposed second phase of the engagement initiated under the GPF Sub-Window is intended to support the implementation of the governance approach in the new CPS, focusing on these three areas.


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