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The World Bank’s work in the area of governance is clearly guided by the fundamental mission of poverty reduction, whether through enhanced accountability for public resources, better delivery of public services for the poor, improved policymaking, or a more conducive climate for investment. The aim of this report is to evaluate progress to date in implementing the World Bank’s strategy for governance and public sector reform. Part I of this report synthesizes the issues and progress across the World Bank and Part II highlights specific challenges and approaches of individual regions.

Introduced in Bolivia a little over a decade ago, social funds have become a key community-led poverty reduction tool. A departure from traditional government-sponsored approaches, social funds encourage communities and local institutions to take the lead in identifying and carrying out small-scale investments, generally in social infrastructure such as schools, health clinics, and small-scale water supply and sanitation. The social fund model has proved to be a dynamic, replicable approach, easily adapted and scaled up in diverse countries around the world. In Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Asia, social funds have now absorbed close to $10 billion in foreign and domestic financing. Despite their popularity, the effectiveness of social funds as a mechanism for improving welfare has remained largely unmeasured. This study is the first systematic cross-country impact evaluation of social funds using survey data and accepted evaluation methodologies. The research, carried out in Armenia, Bolivia, Honduras, Nicaragua, Peru, and Zambia, addresses four fundamental questions: Do social funds reach poor areas and poor households? Do social funds deliver high-quality, sustainable investments? Do social funds affect living standards? How cost-efficient are social funds and the investments they finance, compared with other delivery mechanisms?The result of important new World Bank research, this book will be of interest to social policy practitioners and analysts, to academics and students of development, and to anyone interested in current thinking on poverty reduction strategies.

By integrating their poverty reduction strategies (PRSs), national budgets, and the corresponding reporting processes, low-income countries can strengthen domestic accountability and the implementation of pro-poor policies. Minding the Gaps, based on nine low-income country case studies and a review of relevant experience in four higher-income countries, offers practical insights for donors and national governments on how to strengthen the links between PRSs and budgets.PRS countries' efforts to integrate policy with budgeting processes have often had limited effect. Their policy making, planning, and budgeting are often embedded in fragmented processes and institutions. Going beyond mainly technical fixes that have been commonly used to address this fragmentation, this study frames domestic accountability in terms of ownership and incentive structures. Experience counsels the use of a simple approach that is not too ambitious. This approach should be centrally led and make use of existing systems while gradually improving them. It should build support from within and foster incentives for integration, for example by better linking PRS and budget reporting to actual decision-making processes. Also, simple budget reforms can significantly improve the budget's responsiveness to policies. Structuring a poverty reduction strategy paper in a more budget friendly manner can facilitate the interface with the budget by involving sector agencies more closely in elaborating policy priorities and establishing resource implications. It can also expand ownership and boost incentives for integration of a great number of stakeholders, thereby strengthening domestic accountability.

The need for subnational demographic, social, economic, and fiscal data in designing effective intergovernmental fiscal systems is becoming increasingly evident. In Central and Eastern European countries, the legacy of the region’s communist past are information systems rooted in the centralized economy. Such an approach becomes less acceptable as economic issues become more complex and subnational governments in these transition economies become responsible for the delivery of local services. As political imperatives support increasingly democratic forms of governance in which people’s needs must be taken into account in the design of policy options, there is a need for information systems that provide data to allow policymakers and citizens to assess the outcomes of policy choices. Subnational Data Requirements for Fiscal Decentralization summarizes the findings of needs assessment activities in five demonstration countries that are at different stages of fiscal decentralization: Bulgaria, Romania, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, and Ukraine. These assessments are part of a program on subnational statistical capacity building, launched by the World Bank Institute, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the Economic Development Center of the Soros Foundation.

Enhancing the role of private sector partners in education can lead to significant improvements in education service delivery. However, the realization of such benefits depends in great part on the design of the partnership between the public and private sectors, on the overall regulatory framework of the country, and on the governmental capacity to oversee and enforce its contracts with the private sector. Under the right terms, private sector participation in education can increase efficiency, choice, and access to education services, particularly for students who tend to fail in traditional education settings. Private-for-profit schools across the world are already serving a vast range of usersâ€\"from elite families to children in poor communities. Through balanced public-private partnerships (PPPs) in education, governments can leverage the specialized skills offered by private organizations as well as overcome operating restrictions such as salary scales and work rules that limit public sector responses. 'The Role and Impact of Public-Private Partnerships in Education' presents a conceptualization of the issues related to PPPs in education, a detailed review of rigorous evaluations, and guidleines on how to create successful PPPs. The book shows how this approach can facilitate service delivery, lead to additional financing, expand equitable access, and improve learning outcomes. The book also discusses the best way to set up these arrangements in practice. This information will be of particular interest to policymakers, teachers, researchers, and development practitioners.

Many countries are using digital transformation to increase their productivity and organizational performance. In Saudi Arabia, digital transformation is a crucial part of their Saudi Vision 2030 plan, but it is still in its early stages. To understand the factors that affect the adoption of digital transformation. The study used a qualitative interview to identify the critical success factors and challenges in adopting digital transformation at the Ministry of Education of Saudi Arabia. The main results of the study show, first, the seven main success factors include technology, employee engagement, vendor partnerships, budget, top management support, culture, and strategy. Second, the main seven challenges include organizational and strategic stakes, resistance to change, governance, data, cost, and IT infrastructure. The study developed a framework that shows the main success factors and challenges that affect adopting digital transformation in the Ministry of Education. These findings can benefit many individuals and groups, such as academics, business people, and the public, and can apply this research in other contexts. This research aimed to determine the primary factors contributing to the success of digital transformation in the Ministry of Education and the challenges that arise when implementing it, specifically within the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Education.

This volume provides an analytical framework and operational approaches needed for the implementation of results-based accountability. The volume makes a major contribution to the literature on public management and evaluation. Major subject areas covered in this book include: performance based accountability, e-government, legal and institutional framework to hold government to account; fighting corruption; external accountability and the role of supreme audit institutions on detecting fraud and corruption.

The lack of capacity for governance of Ministries of Health (MoHs) is frequently advanced as an explanation for health systems failures in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). But do we understand what governance capacities MoHs should have? Existing frameworks have not fully captured the dynamic and contextually determined role of MoHs, and there are few frameworks that specifically define capacities for governance. We propose a multidimensional framework of capacities for governance by MoHs that encompasses both the \"hard\" ( de jure , explicit and functional) and \"soft\" ( de facto , tacit, and relational) dimensions of governance, and reflects the diversification of their mandates in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Four case studies illustrate different aspects of the framework. We hope that the framework will have multiple potential benefits including benchmarking MoH governance capacities, identifying and helping analyze capacity gaps, and guiding strategies to strengthen capacity.

This study aims to analyse the factors affecting asset misappropriation from the Fraud Triangle Theory perspective: pressure, opportunity, and rationalisation. Pressure, the first facet, is dissected into financial and non-financial strains, including the taxing burden of work. To represent opportunity and rationalisation, proxies are utilized-weak internal control mirrors opportunity, while poor organizational culture encapsulates rationalisation. Employees who were chosen as samples are employees with a position or authority to carry out certain tasks. A questionnaire was distributed to 400 respondents, and only 206 questionnaires were returned and processed for analyses in this study. The results of this study indicate that organisational culture significantly influences asset misappropriation incidences in Malaysian public organisations. However, financial pressure, work pressure, and internal control factors do not significantly affect the misappropriation of assets. This study underscores the importance of mitigating asset misappropriation by focusing on curbing employees' negative rationalization. Strengthening internal control measures and ensuring equitable task assignments emerge as crucial strategies. The outcomes contribute to the limited discourse on asset misappropriation, especially in the context of government agencies in emerging markets. As organizations strive to foster a secure environment, addressing cultural aspects and refining internal controls emerge as pivotal avenues for minimizing asset misappropriation risks.

The private health sector was officially recognized in the Republic of Congo over 20 years ago June 6, 1988, establishing the conditions for the independent practice of medicine and the medical-related and pharmaceutical professions. The Congolese government recently expressed its commitment to working with the private health sector in order to strengthen the health system, improve the health of the population and preserve the basic human right to a healthy life through the National Health Care Policy, which it adopted in 2003, the 2007-2011 National Health Development Plan and the 2010 Health Care Services Development Program. Throughout these various documents there is an acknowledgement that the lack of coordination with the private health sector is a weakness of the health system. Nevertheless, the scarcity of information about the private sector in policy and planning documents suggests that the government's engagement with the private health sector is limited. There is no official government policy on the private health sector, or strategies or working plans to encourage cooperation between the public and private sectors. The objective of this assessment was to better determine the role, position, and importance of the private sector within the health system, in order to identify the limitations to its development as well as ways it can be integrated into the efforts to meet the objectives of the Plan national de developpement sanitaire (PNDS) [National Health Development Plan]. The World Bank Group contracted with the Results for Development Institute (R4D, United States) and Health Research for Action (HERA, Belgium) as well as with a team of local consultants, to conduct a 'study of the private health sector in the Republic of Congo.' This study was conducted in close collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Population (MSP), which arranged and oversaw a steering committee consisting of actors from the public and private sectors to facilitate and guide the study. The goal of the study and the workshops was a concrete plan of action for the health sector that could be used by the Congolese government, the private sector in the Republic of Congo, and international development partners. Certain aspects of the action plan should be included in the work programs of the Programme de developpement des services de sante (PDSS) [Health System Development Project] for the years 2011-2013.