Forests Sourcebook - HCV Resource Network

Box 6.12
The Use of DPLs to Support Natural Resources Management in Gabon and Cameroon (continued)
■
■
■
and financial transactions, leaving less time and
fewer supervision resources for the operation’s
larger objectives and the underlying structural constraints
that may be hindering procurement and
disbursement processes. By providing for interministerial
review of the results that disbursements are
directly contingent upon, and requiring periodic
audits of fiduciary processes, DPLs can more effectively
and purposefully bring structural improvements
to procurement and disbursement.
While DPLs are usually used as single tranche,
quick-disbursing operations that can help budget
support geared toward domestic financing needs,
they can also be designed as multiyear, multitranche
operations that support sector-wide assistance
programs in response to government requests
when appropriate. The timeframe for disbursement
in the Cameroon and Gabon DPLs is comparable
to those of SILs.
DPL components can be tailored according to Bank
fiduciary concerns in a specific country, and be used
to monitor compliance with the enhanced procurement
and financial practices that have been previously
agreed to with the World Bank in the context
of its major assessments of the country’s financial
accounting, administrative, and procurement procedures.
The Cameroon and Gabon DPLs include
agreements that the government will use dedicated
accounts for monitoring relevant resource flows,
conduct external audits, and share the results with
the World Bank, and use technical assistance as
needed to improve procurement and financial management.
DPLs afford adequate flexibility to address any
likely significant environmental and social issues
appropriately. While DPLs do not trigger World
Bank safeguard policies, OP8.60 requires that the
Bank determine whether policies it supports have
any likely significant effect on the environment,
natural resources, or forests, or any likely significant
poverty and social impact. If there are any
such likely significant effects, the World Bank needs
to ascertain whether it has a clear understanding of
how negative effects can be reduced or positive
ones enhanced through the borrower’s systems,
drawing on relevant country-level or sectoral environmental
and social analysis. Carrying out due
diligence in the Cameroon and Gabon DPLs and
related GEF operations, the Bank teams advised
the governments to conduct full SEAs. In the view
of World Bank staff, these assessments met the
highest standards, including those set by Bank
safeguard policies, and allowed staff to conclude
that likely significant effects of the supported policies
would be addressed appropriately during program
implementation.
Are forest development policy loans suitable to
all situations?
DPLs require particularly advanced policy dialogue on
sector policy reforms and reform implementation.
They can only be built upon strong collaboration
between central economic and technical ministries,
and in the presence of completed or unfolding national
financial management, auditing, and procurement
reforms. In the cases of Cameroon and Gabon, these
conditions were created through long processes of
intersectoral dialogue with the government and strong
collaboration within the country team.
Source: Topa and Debroux 2006.
results of the program. Managing the size of program
matrices is challenging, especially in harmonized donor settings,
with different outcomes in different countries.
Transparency and predictability. In the context of
medium-term World Bank support, progress should be
reviewed regularly and in line with a country’s M&E cycle,
drawing to the extent possible on internal accountability
processes. It is equally important to be explicit about conditions,
triggers, and expected results. In a programmatic
series, it is possible to integrate a review of results into the
next operation (see box 6.14). Aligning these reviews with
government budget cycles is preferable.
Monitoring impacts. An immediate challenge facing the
World Bank and other institutions engaged in operations at
NOTE 6.2: PROSPECTS FOR USING POLICY LENDING TO PROACTIVELY ENABLE FOREST SECTOR REFORMS 225