Launch / Delivery @ the WB - FYI only
Are We Delivering?
The President's Delivery Unit will follow progress toward our poverty goals
By Dani Clark, Staff Engagement and Internal Communications, ECR
The President's Delivery Unit will monitor performance on a limited set of targets that are aligned with the World Bank Group's goals. Visit the site and provide feedback.
June 18, 2014; For the past seven months, President Jim Yong Kim and a small team in his office have been quietly working with colleagues across the Bank Group to set up the President's Delivery Unit http://pdu.worldbank.org/ , which is launching its website internally today. The external launch is expected sometime this fall.
The unit will be monitoring performance on a limited set of targets that are aligned with the World Bank Group's goals of ending extreme poverty by 2030 and boosting shared prosperity among the bottom 40 percent of the population in developing countries.
From project outcomes to financial flows and a lot in between, the World Bank Group measures the performance of countless activities. On a meta-level, the corporate scorecard http://scorecard.worldbank.org/ publishes new data every six months. In contrast, the delivery unit will track progress in real-time, building on data taken from the scorecard, other measurement systems, and facts gleaned from units across the World Bank Group.
"This is my commitment to the entire World Bank Group: I am going to stay on top of the most important issues for the Bank so that we can both report to the governing board and tell them how we are doing, (and) so we can say to our clients, and the poor around the world, that we did everything we could," Kim said. "We kept ourselves honest."
The targets, which are time bound to reinforce a sense of urgency, center on three areas: changing business practices, building financial sustainability, and providing world-class solutions for clients. Priorities for delivery include themes such as capital mobilization, development data, simplification of processes, and resources in fragile and conflict-affected situations.
Constant adaptation and improvement is a mantra of Kim's, and in that spirit the delivery unit is still refining targets as data and information become available. Some targets are likely to be expanded in scope and those that are reached may be replaced by new ones.
"The delivery unit will complement and strengthen our existing measurement mechanisms, including the scorecard. It will also make an important contribution to delivering on the goals our clients endorsed," said Managing Director and COO Sri Mulyani Indrawati. "I am particularly pleased that our IDA commitments and speed of delivery, which are a measure of the simplification of our processes, feature so prominently among the indicators."
The scorecard was an important development for the Bank Group when it was instituted in 2011, and still is, says Kim. But Kim wanted a complementary tool that could track progress with more immediacy —to help detect and fix problems at an earlier stage.
"What I most appreciate is the mix of high-level as well as concrete indicators monitored by the PDU," said Pedro Alba, vice president of Budget, Performance Review and Strategic Planning. "It will be an important complement to our other monitoring tools and hence help us correct course more quickly."
a secondee from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation led the work to set up the unit, along with three analyst staffers in the office of the president. Multiple teams and individual experts on a range of subjects have supported the team. The inputs have come from headquarters, country offices, and from the Bank, IFC, and MIGA. Such perspectives have ensured that the delivery indicators "reflect problems we are trying to solve as an institution and bring attention to issues that drive our effectiveness as a Group," she said.
The delivery unit website http://pdu.worldbank.org/ is being released first internally in order to receive feedback from staff before the external launch.
"We call this the President's Delivery Unit, but we want to make this everybody's delivery unit," said Kim, who encouraged staff to send their feedback about the unit and the site.
The delivery unit also will provide critical data and analysis to Kim's biweekly Group Business Review meetings at which he and senior management collectively take stock of the Bank Group's operations, finances, and progress in priority areas.
"By reporting key delivery indicators to the business review meetings on a frequent basis we will help harmonize and focus our shared corporate ambition," said Walker. "This is important because nothing we do happens in a silo."
Hear what President Jim Yong Kim has to say about the delivery unit
Kim's motivation to set up a target-tracking delivery unit should come as no surprise. Most staff know of his experience and belief in setting targets— such as the 3x5 initiative to treat three million people with HIV/AIDS by 2005, and his championing of the Bank Group's twin goals.
Walker's experience in the field as a delivery practitioner and at the Gates Foundation prepared her for the role supporting Kim in building a data-driven unit that helps coordinate efforts and track progress towards the Bank Group's commitments.
"My time at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has taught me that great ideas are only ideas—and can't be great— until they are delivered," she said. "We learned it takes more than impatient optimism to reach the twin goals and we all need to stay focused on how we are getting there."
Visit the President's-Delivery Unit website and provide feedback. http://pdu.worldbank.org/