FCV Strategy Series · Paper 2 of 6 · MDB Reform Platform
$70 Billion Below Standard
The World Bank’s IDA Delivery Record, 2015–2025: Instruments, Regions, and the Jobs Agenda
The Headline Numbers
Between FY2015 and FY2025, IDA-eligible countries received $103.3 billion in World Bank commitments across 7,772 IEG-evaluated projects matched at 99.97 percent coverage. Of this, $73.5 billion — 67 percent — was committed to projects that did not achieve Satisfactory or better IEG outcome ratings. In FCS countries: $29.1bn of $39.5bn (73.6%) fell below Satisfactory. In the six Global Practices most central to the jobs agenda: $33.6bn of $49.6bn (67.6%) below the threshold.
Annual performance has improved from the nadir years of FY2015–2018 (17–31% S+), with stabilisation in the mid-2020s. But the structural pattern — two-thirds of committed funds below the pass/fail threshold — has not changed across ten years of measurement.
Performance by Instrument
The three main lending instruments show fundamentally different outcome profiles. The divergence is not random — it reflects structural differences in incentive design, accountability architecture, and implementation mechanics.
| Instrument | Projects | S+% | Below-S+% | Total Committed | Below-S+ Committed | FCS S+% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Investment Project Financing (IPF) | 1,090 | 34.1% | 65.9% | $81.7bn | $53.4bn (65.4%) | 29.0% |
| Development Policy Financing (DPF) | 268 | 16.0% | 84.0% | $21.6bn | $16.6bn (77.0%) | 9.6% |
Source: IEG ICRR-PPAR database deduplicated (PPAR preferred over ICRR where both exist). IDA+Blend, FY2015–2025. n=1,358 projects.
IPF is the workhorse, accounting for 81.5 percent of all evaluated projects. Its 34.1% S+ rate within IDA reflects the full weight of the approval culture: long implementation cycles, project team self-evaluation, and incentive structures that reward disbursement over results. DPF — budget support against policy conditions — disbursed rapidly but achieved only 16.0% S+ in IDA overall, and 9.6% S+ in FCS countries. That is: in the settings where the Refreshed FCV Strategy will rely most heavily on DPF as a signalling instrument, the instrument achieves a Satisfactory outcome fewer than one time in ten.
Note on PforR: Programme-for-Results operations are classified under IPF in the IEG database used for this analysis and cannot be separately identified from our dataset. The original 130-page submission to the World Bank’s FCV consultation (February 2026) documented PforR performance separately at approximately 61% S+ — significantly better than IPF overall — reflecting the structural accountability advantage of results-based disbursement. That figure comes from the author’s own analysis of a broader dataset and is not independently verifiable from the IEG file used here. PforR is not immune to institutional failure at design: the Nigeria Saving One Million Lives PforR (P146583, $500 million) was rated Moderately Unsatisfactory by IEG with efficiency Negligible. See the SOML case study.
PforR’s stronger record does not, however, make it immune to institutional failure. The Nigeria Program to Support the Saving One Million Lives Initiative (SOML, P146583) — a $500 million PforR, the world’s largest at approval in 2015 — was rated Moderately Unsatisfactory by IEG with efficiency Negligible, after the management-authored ICR rated it Moderately Satisfactory. The IFSA approved the programme in full knowledge of prior procurement fraud in the implementing ministry, absent internal audit, and with state-level audit explicitly excluded from the programme boundary. $52.9 million in state performance grants — 83 percent of first-year disbursements — sat on the balance sheet as a single unaudited line. Performance bonuses to senior ministry officials appeared in the audited accounts. They were resolved with a PIM revision, not an investigation. The rating remained Moderately Satisfactory throughout. Nigeria will repay $387.6 million over 38 years. The Bank earns its spread regardless of outcome. The full case study — documenting how a PforR can be designed to fail — is available here: Designed to Fail: The SOML PforR Case Study (Nigeria P146583).
A separate analysis of Country Director backgrounds and lending instrument choices finds that economist Country Directors allocate an average of 32% of committed lending to DPOs versus 14% for non-economist CDs — an 18-percentage-point differential representing $540m–$1.4bn per tenure cycle redirected from investment to budget support. Read the full analysis →
Performance in FCS Countries
The Refreshed FCV Strategy is, at its core, a strategy for FCS countries. The data on those countries is the relevant baseline. Between FY2015 and FY2025, FCS countries received $53.3bn in evaluated IDA commitments. $36.3bn — 68 percent — went to below-Satisfactory projects. DPF in FCS reached 19.3% S+. The six jobs-critical Global Practices in FCS averaged 18.8% S+.
The Six Jobs-Critical Global Practices
The Refreshed Strategy is explicitly a jobs strategy. Finance, Competitiveness and Innovation (FCI) is the Global Practice responsible for the MSME agenda at its heart. The six most jobs-relevant GPs show a consistent pattern:
| Global Practice | IDA S+% | IDA+FCS S+% | IDA Committed | IDA Below-S+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Finance, Competitiveness & Innovation (MSMEs) | 22.6% | 16.7% | $8.1bn | $6.3bn (77.9%) |
| Agriculture and Food | 33.6% | 28.3% | $7.3bn | $4.7bn (64.3%) |
| Transport | 22.6% | 18.8% | $10.7bn | $9.6bn (89.4%) |
| Energy & Extractives | 25.0% | 31.1% | $8.4bn | $5.4bn (64.4%) |
| Water | 26.8% | 25.0% | $5.0bn | $3.6bn (72.9%) |
| Social Protection & Jobs | 55.6% | 45.9% | $14.0bn | $7.2bn (51.1%) |
| Combined — 6 Jobs-Critical GPs | 32.4% | ~23% | $49.6bn | $33.6bn (67.6%) |
FCI — the MSME practice — shows 22.6% S+ in IDA and 18.8% in IDA+FCS. The strategy proposes to scale FCI’s FCS presence. The current outcome rate in FCS for the GP being scaled is 18.8% Satisfactory. This is the core financial case for institutional reform before scaling, not after it.
Paper 2: $70 Billion Below Standard — The IDA Delivery Record 2015–2025 · Current
Paper 3: Four Root Causes — Why the Bank Keeps Underperforming
Paper 4: IFC in Fragile States — 11 Percent Satisfactory
Paper 5: IDA21 — What It Gets Right and What It Doesn’t Fix
Paper 6: Eight Recommendations in Priority Order