MDB Reform Platform · FCV Strategy Series · April 2026
World Bank FCV Strategy: The Delivery Record
A six-paper analysis of what the data says about the institution being asked to execute the Refreshed FCV Strategy
Nigeria is on the World Bank’s FCS list. In 2025, 4,654 people were killed in violent conflict and 4,722 were kidnapped. The national power grid collapsed more than 230 times between 2010 and 2025 — three times in January 2026 alone. The young men who held a World Bank communications consultant captive for fifteen days in a forest near Benin City said the same thing the data says: no job, no money, no hope. The government has failed them. They were not wrong about the diagnosis.
The money has been there. Between FY2015 and FY2025, $103.3 billion in IDA commitments went to evaluated projects. $70 billion — 67.8 percent — went to projects that did not achieve Satisfactory outcomes. In FCS countries: 73.6 percent. In the six sectors on which every jobs agenda depends: 77.6 percent below the threshold. The Wappenhans Report identified the approval culture in 1992. The Zedillo Commission named the Board governance failure in 2009. The IEG has documented the outcome pattern every year since. The same failure modes recur in project completion reports for thirty consecutive years without resolution.
The agenda cannot wait for institutions that have been operating for 80 years to get their delivery architecture together at the pace they have managed for the past three decades. The strategy is right. The $100 billion is committed. What is missing is the institutional accountability without which no strategy survives contact with the delivery machinery that has produced this record. These six papers say precisely what must change, in what order, by when, and with what consequence if it does not.
The Bank’s Strategy Documents
World Bank Group · Phase II Consultation Document
Towards a Refreshed WBG Strategy for Engaging in FCV Settings
The World Bank Group’s own consultation document — the document that invited written public comment and that this six-paper series responds to. Sets out the four strategic shifts: anticipate fragility earlier, differentiate engagement by FCS type, mobilise the full WBG for jobs, and enhance the operational toolkit.
IEG · Independent Evaluation Group · November 2025
An Evaluation of the World Bank Group Strategy for Fragility, Conflict, and Violence, 2020–2025
The IEG’s independent evaluation of the outgoing 2020–2025 FCV Strategy. Key finding: the strategy lacked a theory of change and was not supported by an implementation plan detailing actions and responsibilities. The evaluation directly informs this series.
Full Submission · February 2026 · Parminder Brar
MDB Reform: Suggestions for Consideration — Full 130-Page Analysis
The complete submission to the World Bank’s Phase II FCV Strategy consultation, including all annexes, instrument-level analysis, IFC and MIGA performance data, IDA21 architecture assessment, and the full accountability architecture review. The six papers above are the distilled version of this document.
The Six Papers
Overview · The Core Argument
The Strategy Is Right. The Delivery Platform Is Broken.
Why the Refreshed FCV Strategy will not achieve its ambitions without an equally specific institutional reform programme. The gap between strategic intent and delivery record is structural, persistent, and financially very large. This paper sets up the argument that the remaining five papers document.
IDA Delivery Record · The Data
$73.5 Billion Below Standard: The IDA Delivery Record 2015–2025
1,358 deduplicated IDA projects. $103.3bn committed. 67.8% below Satisfactory. By instrument: IPF 34.1% S+, DPF 16.0% S+ (9.6% in FCS). By the six jobs-critical Global Practices: FCI 22.6% S+, MTI/DPOs 19.5% S+. In FCS: 73.6% below-Satisfactory on $39.5bn committed. The financial scale of the delivery gap, documented year by year and sector by sector.
Institutional Pathologies · Root Causes
Four Root Causes: Why the Bank Keeps Underperforming
Quality at Entry at 29.1% S+. 40.5% of IDA projects meet zero of five quality criteria. 80% of outcome variation attributable to Bank-level decisions, not country context (Denizer-Kaufmann-Kraay, 2013). The four institutional pathologies — approval culture, ICR self-evaluation, supervision underfunding, Board co-optation — that have been documented since 1992 and not resolved.
IFC · Private Sector in Fragile States
IFC in Fragile States: 11 Percent Satisfactory
IFC’s FCS investment outcome rate: 11% Satisfactory (CY2020–22). Additionality realised in 33% of FCS projects. PSW deployed $2.5bn in IDA18 without producing a net increase in IFC FCS commitments. Seven structural constraints — shortage of bankable projects, prohibitive operating costs, negative risk-adjusted returns, institutional sustainability — that no amount of concessional capital can resolve without prior enabling environment work.
IDA21 · Architecture and Gaps
IDA21: What It Gets Right and What It Doesn’t Fix
$100bn. 25 Policy Commitments. New FCV classification framework. GFPP project preparation funding. Third-party implementation discretion. FCS Scorecard disaggregation. These are real advances. But IDA21 contains no operational Policy Commitments on Quality at Entry, supervision, or Bank performance in FCS — and PSW additionality remains structurally unresolved. The accountability asymmetry that holds borrowers accountable for 20% of outcome variation while holding the Bank accountable for none of the 80% it controls.
Recommendations · Eight in Priority Order
Eight Recommendations in Priority Order
Four immediately actionable (FCV Strategy launch / IDA21 Year 1): delivery baseline with financial accountability; FCI/MSME reform before scaling; IFC FCS baseline disclosure; mandatory PSW additionality assessment. Four structural (Board-level): FCS operational Policy Commitments; FCS Results Gap Protocol; systematise third-party implementation; align Board governance with portfolio oversight. Each with what it requires and when.
Parminder Brar is the founder of mdbreform.com and a former World Bank Country Manager and Lead Governance Specialist. He worked