PEN 1991 Sector Review 20 formulate policy, and coordinate activities among sectors.

3.39 As opposed to 'pure' PHN operations, the majority of which are managed by one line ministry, social sector operations take a more holistic approach to poverty alleviation, which facilitates coordination and collaboration among the line ministries responsible for various aspects of social sector activity. Such operations also encourage greater economy and coherence in social sector investment by consolidating and rationalizing activities in information collection and analysis, and in the development and implementation of policies, programs and institutional reforms, such as redefining the roles of government (central and local), NGOs, the private sector, and communities in social sector activity. Because these operations are coordinated by a central ministry, they generally have high visibility and strong political support -- conditions that can be difficult to achieve and that make a large contribution to project success and sustainability. Strong political support is also likely to facilitate a reallocation of public resources to the social sectors and, within social sectors, to basic services serving the poor and vulnerable groups. Management arrangements for these projects are designed to foster good intersectoral coordination and oversight, with an emphasis on using existing units to implement them: while the projects are coordinated by central ministries, activities are implemented by line ministries.

3.40 The Venezuela and Zaire projects provide good examples of well designed social sector operations. The Venezuela project will assist the government to implement its Social Sectors Action Program, which shows a strong commitment to poverty alleviation. The program seeks to expand the national capacity to design, plan, implement, and monitor social programs and to develop a social sector strategy that will redirect social expenditures into well targeted and efficient programs. A presidential committee for poverty alleviation, with representatives of the ministries and institutions involved in social sector plaaning and a Fund for Social Investment, modeled after the sector funds described above, provide for intersectoral coordination and institutional pluralism. The Zaire Social Sector project will support social sector reform by increasing and carefully monitoring budgetary allocations to primary health care and education, rationalizing the roles of government and nongovernmental institutions in social services financing and delivery, and providing an adequate framework and data base for larger investments in the social sectors. It will also fill some of the basic PHN needs of disadvantaged population groups.

# _c. Sector Adjustment Operation_

3.41 The lbgo Population and Health Sector Adjustment operation is ihe first and only one of its kind in the PHN sector. It will support a comprehensive package of sector policy reforms that emphasize basic health and family planning services, panicularly for poor and vulnerable groups (underserved rural areas and women and children). Through balance of payments support that will be released in three tranches upon satisfactory completion of a series of reform measures, this project will support improvements in sector planning and management of sector resources; institutional reform, including beneficiary participation in the management of services; and increased resource mobilization through cost recovery.

# _d Emergency Recovery Operation_

3.42 The Yemen Emergency Recovery project, the only one of its kind this year, was put together rapidly to address the social services needs of migrants returning to Yemen because of the recent Gulf crisis. While the Bank has an ongoing dialogue with Yemen on medium-term economic planning and policy formulation, this operation is an emergency one only and does not address long-term social sector issues.

# _3. Issues_

3.43 As the focus of PHN operations has rapidly evolved away from the well defined investment project towards the broader support of national policies and programs, the importance and complexity of institutional and organizational issues which need to be addressed have increased. Consequently, PHN operations require increasingly greater attention to sector- or subsector-level institutions and their structures and functions, as opposed to the project implementation unit (PIU) only. While