A strategy paper on the Bank's approach to governance and public sector institutional reform has been prepared. It follows from the 1997 World Development Report, The State in a Changing World , and calls for more Country Assistance Strategies to be designed around the core goal of improving public sector performance. It discusses new upstream analytical approaches, new lending instruments, and changes in organization and staffing that might help us be more effective in reaching this goal. The thematic groups are proving to be extremely valuable vehicles to share experiences and enhance cooperation across the Bank. Overseeing Bank staff training is a major part of our work.
Recruitment is another major area of responsibility.
Through advertising and tapping of professional networks we are developing a pipeline of candidates for Bank employment in our various areas of specialty. To encourage mainstreaming of the anticorruption agenda, we have formalized a process of upstream consultation with country teams working on CASs in countries with particularly high levels of corruption. We also organized an external review of the draft business plan for the Africa Capacity Building Initiative. We are currently surveying the Bank's activities in tax policy and administration, an area that has been somewhat neglected in recent years. The Public Sector strategy paper envisions several new products to increase our effectiveness in institution-building.