Francis Ayieko
29 April 2008
Nairobi — The World Bank is expanding its menu of products and services in order to offer better services to middle- income countries (MICs) in Africa.
To this end, the bank working to reduce the non-financial costs of doing business with MICs in Africa.
The bank's managing director, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said it has set up a working group, the Africa MIC Action Plan, to come up with innovative new ways of serving MICs.
Dr Okonjo-Iweala was speaking recently at a high-level consultation in Washington, DC, on the sidelines of the first quarter Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
This was a follow-up to two earlier consultations, held in Tunis, Tunisia, in March 2006 and in Cairo, Egypt in March this year.
Obiageli Ezekwesili, the bank's vice-president for the African region said, "The key objective of the Africa MIC Action Plan is to provide better, faster and cheaper services; and to move rapidly from development lending to a development partnership in MICs."
The Africa MIC Action Plan proposes a three-year pilot project anchored in part on two pilot projects to combat the HIV and Aids pandemic in Botswana and Swaziland.
Recognising that MICs value the Bank as a provider of cutting-edge knowledge services as well as financing, it is focusing on four key areas: improving client responsiveness; expanding the range and utilisation of financial products; enhancing the bank's knowledge services; and strengthening synergies between different parts of the Bank Group.
According to Juan Jose Daboub, World Bank managing director responsible for operations in 74 countries, important progress has been made on this agenda. Mr Daboub said that, as a result of recent reforms, the World Bank Group has drastically cut back on the costs and time needed to prepare projects; extended lending to MICs in local currency; and provided lending to sub-sovereign entities.
"We are seeking innovation in the way we traditionally do business," said Daniela Gressani, the World Bank vice-president for Middle East and North Africa, pointing to the ongoing pilot projects for the use of country systems in procurement in Morocco and for environmental safeguards in Egypt and Tunisia.
Since the Tunis consultation, the bank has improved the way it works, notably the reduction in loan pricing; improvements in the response time and the speed of loan processing; and made efforts to increase the use of country systems and to delegate more authority to field-based staff.
The meeting lauded the bank for the successful implementation of reforms since the Tunis consultation, notably the reduction in loan pricing; improvements in the response time and the speed of loan processing; and efforts to increase the use of country systems and to delegate more authority to field-based staff.
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