Findings and Lessons from AfDB Crisis Response Budget Support Operations

This note highlights relevant findings and lessons from evaluations of Program-Based Operations (PBOs), otherwise known as budget support. Its aim is to help the African Development Bank (“AfDB” or “The Bank”) in providing support to African countries for their policy responses to the global COVID-19 pandemic. The lessons are meant to inform the design of the Bank’s Crisis Response Budget Support (CRBS) interventions to assist countries in combating COVID-19 and mitigating its negative effects.

The last evaluation of AfDB PBOs, completed in 2018 by Independent Development Evaluation (IDEV), found that the Bank’s budget support showed positive results in creating fiscal space and allowing countries in crisis situations to deliver critical basic services to the most vulnerable citizens. In the past ten years, the Bank has used CRBS seven times to provide rapid responses to crises in the Central African Republic, Malawi, Mali (twice each) and Madagascar. In addition, in the context of the Ebola outbreak in 2014, the Bank has used sector budget support to provide rapid response to four West African countries, namely Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire (see the separate lessons note here).

IDEV reviewed the experience with all eight operations and prepared the lessons compiled in this note. These include:

• Convincingly justify the choice of CRBS as a response.
• Waiver of eligibility criteria must be transparent.
• For structural reforms, CRBS can only be the starting point for multi-year engagement.
• CRBS can be a basis for future policy dialogue.
• CRBS requires attainable conditionalities.
• CRBS results frameworks should be of good quality.
• Bank coordination and teamwork on CRBS is key.
• Identify CRBS risks and mitigation at design stage.
• Donor coordination is critical for emergency support.
• Flexibility to changing needs on the ground is crucial.
• Ownership and leadership are critical for sustainability.
• Budget support is best combined with technical assistance.
• Use CRBS to advance social accountability.