Appendix F
Focus Groups Discussions: The Key Findings
1. This annex summarizes the key findings from three hour-long focus group discussions held with seven Sustainable Development Network (SDN), one Operations Policy and Country Services (OPCS), seven Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network (PREM), and six Human Development Network (HDN) anchor and regional senior staff members on July 19, August 23, and September 7, 2011. The main purpose of the discussions was (i) to get in-depth feedback on the effectiveness of the matrix, (ii) to better understand cross-regional and cross-sectoral differences in the working of the matrix, and (iii) to test findings from the staff survey and manager interviews as well as conclusions derived from budget, staff, and portfolio analyses against focus group participants’ views.
Participants either responded to the staff survey and volunteered for focus groups or were otherwise identified as likely to contribute significantly to the deliberations.
2. Staff were asked to describe and provide their opinions on the adequacy of knowledge production, cross-regional and cross-sectoral knowledge transfers, regional and Bank-wide incentives and accountability mechanisms for quality, as well as the interplay between sector and country strategies. SDN staff were also asked to elaborate on the benefits and costs of the SDN merger. Facilitators probed for additional information where necessary.
KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION AND DISSEMINATION
“Knowledge is country-driven and country-retained. Many of us work on specific countries or geographic focus. We don’t even know what is happening in our unit let alone in other Regions.”
“For the most part I am able to use knowledge [produced] both in my unit and [in units]
outside the VPU [VicePresidential Unit], but mostly through personal contacts.”
“There are formal instruments that are helpful for (…) specific activities. One is the Global Expert Team [GET].”
“I have used GETs. If you ask a question to the thematic group, you get an answer pretty quickly. So the formal mechanisms are there. The real handicap is the technology, the search engine, which they have been working on but has been abysmal until now, as well as the coding of products.”
“People are not putting things in the correct repositories. That makes it very difficult to do a search and find something.”
“Nobody has the time to read a 60-page paper or 600-page book.”
“In terms of producing knowledge (…) [the anchor] is sort of caught in the same dynamic, not asking the right questions. I am just not convinced that it helps me in my day-to-day work.”
“I think there is a lot of generation and sharing of knowledge in the network. [Yet], what is generated or shared often reflects personal interest, not what is in demand in the country offices.”
“When you are sitting in a field office, it is extremely difficult to stop and write up what you have done. I don’t see the average task manager being able to add that to his or her work program.”
“The purpose of the network was to disseminate global knowledge. Now they are utilized for corporate priorities and donor priorities. The mandate they were supposed to have is not the mandate they actually have. They cannot generate knowledge without input from the Regions. The Regions have become suppliers of knowledge to the anchor; it should be the opposite.”
3. As the selected quotes above suggest, focus group participants described knowledge sharing across Regions and sectors as weak and heavily dependent on informal networks, and formal systems for knowledge sharing as useful but inadequate. Technology-driven media, although much improved, still miss the mark. Staff find GETs particularly useful but wish the teams had greater capacity to respond to requests. Thematic groups (and communities of practice) have also generally been described as proactive and effective when led by a motivated core in spite of the budget constraints they face.
4. The reliance on informal channels for cross-regional and cross-sectoral knowledge transfers makes the need for face-to-face contacts and networking opportunities for both headquarter- and country office-based staff all the more necessary. Fora of communication staff mentioned included sector and training weeks. Participants understand that such events are costly but wish effort was made to organize them more frequently. As one put it, “there is value in getting people
together, but there is also a cost, which has to be taken into account to determine in which way and how often to bring people together.” Given the importance of informal networks, staff argued that anchors should do their best to facilitate their development.
5. Focus group participants expressed concern with the relative isolation of country office-based staff and locally recruited staff in particular. Most strongly believe that
“if you are based in a country office, you are on your own.”
6. All agreed that only a small fraction of the knowledge produced is actually relevant to and used in project design. Some suggested the sheer amount of
information to process was to blame; others argued that knowledge produced tends to be supply-driven, rather than demand-driven, and rarely originates directly from the field. There was broad consensus that knowledge production in the field is underfunded and that the need to rely on trust funds leads to a non-strategic whole as well as major inefficiencies.
STRATEGY
7. According to the focus groups participants, Bank-wide strategies play a limited to nonexistent role in analytical and advisory activities (AAA) and lending
operations. One noted that he was unaware of the existence of his sector’s strategy for years, yet prepared projects nonetheless. Another argued that since strategy papers reflect emerging Bank knowledge at the time they are drafted, their
prescriptions simply cannot find their way into country programs either explicitly or implicitly.
INCENTIVES AND ACCOUNTABILITY FOR QUALITY
8. Regarding lending operations, participants argued that more should be done at the concept note stage to address technical issues instead of focusing on the quality of documents and the neatness of procedures. Technical issues should in any case be addressed before the operational committee (OC) or decision meeting stage since
“once things are at the OC stage, (…) very little can be done.”
9. Quality assurance for large economic and sector work (ESW) was described as strong and “rigorous at the concept note stage and at delivery.” There are, however, no formal quality assurance systems for just-in-time notes and non-lending technical assistance (with the possible exception of those in place in Europe and Central Asia).
Quality therefore varies widely: some products’ quality rivals that of large ESW reports; others are produced in under a week, largely copying and pasting text from other sources.
10. Senior staff insisted strengthening peer review processes should be the basis for improvements to quality assurance for small ESW reports and non-lending technical assistance. As is, peer reviewers are often selected by team leaders and they do not expect their suggestions (and criticisms in particular) to be taken on board.
11. Also, according to focus group participants, concentration of budget decisions with the country director sometimes conflicts with strategic selection and quality of
work. Activities can be initiated in an effort to increase lending volumes and in the name of client responsiveness even if the Bank is not well-suited to the task or it creates excessive risks. Delivery is expected to come sooner than later and quality suffers from the self-imposed time constraints. Business development and longer- view/strategic AAA, which can underpin future operations are clearly under- resourced.
“HR is the one function that gives Sector Boards some cache.”
12. Most participants were unaware of the mandate of the Sector Boards beyond human resources and a few suggested that Sector Boards play a role in quality assurance.
THE REGIONAL MATRIX
“Where it works well, it works well, and maybe one of the reasons is personal chemistry.”
“When sector managers and country directors get along, the system works well.”
“In the Region, it is SMUs [Sector Management Units] versus CMUs [Country
Management Units]. It is not one team but two who are competing. If you have the money, you have a lot of power. That does have to be rebalanced.”
13. Regional matrices’ functionality is seen as highly dependent on the personal relationships between sector managers and country directors. Staff argued that power and resource balances between CMUs and SMUs should be rethought. The balance of resources should still be tilted to the CMUs to ensure responsiveness, but SMUs should have direct access to funds for business development and strategic AAA with no direct bearing on current operations. In addition, participants suggested that work program agreements (WPAs) should be negotiated around block grants which allow sector units flexibility in allocating resources to operations, AAA, and business development as appropriate so long as they deliver the agreed upon products.
SDNMERGER
“The merger was awful for environment and social staff. We [infrastructure] dominate them.
Now we have 60 to 70 percent of country programs.”
“If we have to compete with the energy sectors who bring a lot of business, we don’t have much of a chance. There is no business left. Solid waste has moved to urban, climate change to energy.”
14. Environment and social development specialists think their operations now suffer from comparison with infrastructure projects, particularly when lending volume is a high priority; infrastructure specialists do not disagree. Another
drawback mentioned is the managerial cost that the merger has generated. The main benefit from the merger is the ability to “work cross-sectorally more easily.”
ORGANIZATIONAL IMPEDIMENTS
“There aren’t that many organizational models and they have pros and cons. The matrix has the potential to work. We need to make sure to identify the specific problems. It may be a problem of mandates and incentives, and we don’t pay sufficient attention to incentives across the board.”
“The current structure does not create any major impediments, it is more a question of incentives. For instance, incentives for managers to facilitate and promote rather than constrain or forbid cross support; incentives in the hub to go out to the country teams and be more effective in getting and sharing information; incentives for the TTL [task team leader]
to share knowledge with the hub.”
“On peer review for non-lending, you get there as a peer reviewer, and every person in the room wants the project approved by June 28. If it slips, the TTL loses the budget. Multi-year budgeting is not possible, so you have artificial deadlines.”
“The pressure on lending is even greater. [The] rule used to be in Europe and Central Asia that there are no review meetings in the last quarter. If review is serious, there has to be time to change the product.”
15. All in all, focus group participants argued that organizational impediments are not of a structural nature; incentives are more problematic. Yet, budget
arrangements make it to the top of the list of organizational constraints. Innovation and strategic knowledge generation should not be subject to the fiscal year deadlines (or so they argue), and AAA and lending operations’ quality should not suffer for fear of losing budget allocations.
