IDA Reform Analysis · April 2026 · mdbreform.com
Why Is the World’s Largest Concessional Fund Delivering Satisfactory Outcomes on Only 31% of Its Portfolio?
$117 Billion Below Standard, 2015–2026 — and the Case for a Challenge Fund for IDA22
↓ Download the Full Paper (PDF)IDA turns 65 this year. Since 1960 it has disbursed more than $500 billion in grants and concessional loans to the world’s poorest countries. IDA21, approved in March 2025, commits $100 billion for FY2026–2028 — the largest replenishment in the institution’s history. Fifty-nine donor countries contributed $23.7 billion, which IDA’s hybrid financing model multiplied fourfold.
This paper asks the question that IDA’s replenishment reports have never asked with equivalent directness: what has that money actually delivered? The answer, drawn from the Independent Evaluation Group’s database of over 12,000 evaluated projects, is one of persistent institutional ambition and persistent delivery shortfall.
The paper tracks IDA through all 21 replenishments — from IDA1’s $912 million in 1961 to IDA21’s $100 billion in 2025. It documents performance by region, lending instrument, and Global Practice. The Macroeconomics, Trade and Investment Global Practice, which manages the largest IDA portfolio at $26.9 billion, achieves Satisfactory outcomes 11.7 percent of the time. In Western and Central Africa, $30.0 billion of $40.3 billion committed — 74.4 percent — went to projects rated below Satisfactory.
The paper makes the case for a Challenge Fund as the central structural reform for IDA22: 25 percent of IDA resources — approximately $25 billion — allocated competitively to non-Bank implementing partners against independently verified results, evaluated on the same IEG standard as Bank projects. In a world where USAID has closed and hundreds of experienced implementing organisations are actively seeking capital, the case for preserving the Bank’s monopoly over IDA delivery has never been weaker. The Challenge Fund does not replace the Bank. It benchmarks it.
The paper consolidates ten structural reform recommendations drawn from three prior analyses — the FCV Strategy submission, the IFC and PSW assessment, and the Board governance paper — and sets them out in priority order for the IDA22 Deputies.