Portfolio for Human Capital

BOX 6.1 Methodology for Analysis of the World Bank’s South Asia Project Portfolio for Human Capital

In the fiscal year ending June 2020, 99 ongoing projects and pipeline projects were being managed in South Asia by the World Bank’s human development (HD) Global Practices (Health, Nutrition, and Population; Education; and Social Protection). The total financial commitment was US$17.6 billion. Of this universe, 69 projects with total funding of US$15 billion were selected for analysis. Excluded projects included those smaller than US$100 million and pipeline projects in the early stages of preparation—that is, those without draft Project Appraisal Documents. In addition to the projects managed by the HD Global Practices, the review also examined 25 projects, with a total commitment of US$3 billion, from non-HD sectors—such as water and sanitation and agriculture—that involved at least one of the HD Global Practices. These 94 projects used different lending instruments, including traditional investment projects and those with Program-for-Results (P4R) financing, as well as Development Policy Loans (DPLs). The oldest project was approved in fiscal 2013. Because they are disbursed so rapidly, only DPLs with approval dates from fiscal 2018 onward were included in the review. All projects were disaggregated to the most granular level of subcomponents, each of which included the available lending allocation. The 94 projects had 524 project components. Of these, 205 supported technology interventions. The designation of project components as “technology components” was relatively straightforward for investment projects because the component descriptions tend to specifically mention technology. For P4R projects and “disbursement linked indicators” in investment projects, the project results framework was interpreted to attribute outcomes to the described technology inputs and activities. For DPLs, the number and relative importance of policy actions related to technology (for example, on data governance) served to inform the pro rata allocation of the overall loan to the technology component. The total loan commitment for the 205 technology components amounted to US$6.4 billion.

Source: World Bank study team.

populations) and crisis preparedness and response mechanisms. A small number of components were allocated to more than one dimension because they could contribute to both. Although these categories are admittedly broad and require some judgment, they allow assessment of the composition of the portfolio within the framework adopted for this study.

The chapter then moves to an analysis from another angle, namely the level of maturity of the technology components classified as contributing to the build and protect human capital pillar. The technology maturity framework, in line with industry standards, incorporates five levels of maturity, ranging from piloting to systemic impact. The categorization of these components was based on the descriptions in the project documents.