Mrs. TONG Zhong 

 

The global agenda of the World Bank (WB) is to end poverty by decreasing the percentage of people living on less than $1.90 a day to no more than 3% of global population and promote shared prosperity by fostering the income growth of the bottom 40% for every country. This was made known by former World Bank official, Mrs. TONG Zhong while delivering a lecture to the Institute of South-South Cooperation and Development (ISSCAD) at Peking University.

 

Mrs. Tong who worked in the World Bank for 15 years with specialty in Project Management for East Asia, China, South America and Africa, furnished ISSCAD students with a brief history of the organization which according to her was established in 1944 and consists of 189 member countries. “In its formative stages, it dealt with post-world war reconstruction of European countries such as France which then graduated from World Bank support", she said. In the 1970s, the Bank shifted its attention to poverty eradication.

 

Mrs. Tong alluded that the World Bank is decentralized and its projects are coordinated from field offices. Projects are usually managed by the local people with World Bank team offering technical and advisory support.

 

Further clarifying the projects, she indicated that initially, World Bank projects were grouped into fifteen (15) along country and region border lines, however there have been some big reforms which resulted in projects being structured along sectors and themes. Projects organized by sectors include Health and other Social Services, Energy and Mining, Transportation, Water, Sanitation and Flood Management as well as Industry and Trade. Additionally, projects sorted according to themes include Economic Management, Environment and Natural Resource Management, Financial and Private Sector Development, Public Sector Governance, Human Development, Rule of Law, Social Development and Gender and Social Protection and Risk Management.

 

 

Citing a case study of a World Bank project in China, Mrs. Tong elaborated on World Bank project cycle which starts from careful crafting and articulation of Country Partnership Framework (CPF). From the CPF, next is the project identification stage, followed by project preparation then appraisal, negotiation and board approval, signing and loan effectiveness assessment, implementation and supervision, implementation and completion and then evaluation.

 

World Bank engages in post project execution appraisal carried out by a team of technical experts to assess projects even few years after completion, this according to her is to confirm the impact and sustainability of such projects.

 

In her concluding remarks, Mrs. Tong advised government officials and representatives that seek assistance from the World Bank to clearly spell out investment, recurrent and contingency costs at the early stage of project preparation to fast-track approval process and ensure hitch-free execution of projects while advising citizens and government to take ownership of all World Bank financed projects in their respective countries.

 

Reporter: Omole and Gift