Abstract
Over the last decade, earmarked voluntary contributions to international development organizations (referred to as multi-bi financing in this chapter) have become a significant source of donor funding. Reinsberg discusses how multi-bi financing channeled through trust funds shapes the organizational practices of multilateral agencies, using evidence from a large number of interviews conducted at the World Bank. The analysis covers seven types of possible consequences raised by a primarily policy-driven literature, including differences in the portfolio of activities of trust funds and core resources, the alignment of trust-funded activities with development needs, undue donor influence upon agency operations, insufficient recovery of maintenance costs, long-term budget implications, transaction costs and administrative burdens, and institutional fragmentation.
I thank Chris Humphrey, Christina Kükenshöner, Timo Mahn, Katharina Michaelowa and participants in the German Development Institute conference, “Fragmentation or Pluralism? The organisation of development cooperation revisited”, for their helpful comments. Financial support from the Swiss Network for International Studies is gratefully acknowledged.
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Reinsberg, B. (2016). The Implications of Multi-bi Financing for Multilateral Agencies: The Example of the World Bank. In: Klingebiel, S., Mahn, T., Negre, M. (eds) The Fragmentation of Aid. Rethinking International Development series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55357-7_13
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