Annex C Page 46 of 46 functions within line ministries and agencies. This should help to build sustainable capacity, urgently needed by Bulgaria in this critical pre- and post-accession period.
148. Seventh, the AAA program should be aligned with Government and CAS priorities and as experience and feedback from stakeholders and QAG have indicated, dissemination should be built into the design of the Bank’s AAA instruments. Indeed, dissemination should be considered a standard phase of AAA service delivery, much in the same way as preparation and supervision for lending instruments, and this will require budget planning at an early stage. And analytical and advisory services should be strategically sequenced, to inform lending. Programmatic AAA should be considered for the new CPS to keep the Bank’s advice focused, timely, and relevant. 149. And finally, the Bank’s support to Bulgaria during the new CPS period should emphasize the Bank’s role as “the Knowledge Bank” and draw on the experience of the EU8, the EU25, and Part I countries elsewhere. The last CAS and the Government Program it supported identified desired outcomes in terms of the evolution o f Bulgaria’s continued progress since Bulgaria’s financial crisis of 1996-1997. To ensure strategic relevance going forward, the Bank’s investment lending pipeline will need to focus on issues more specific to Bulgaria’s eventual EU integration and convergence. Some of the new CPS outcomes should therefore be defined in terms of Bulgaria’s relative performance vis-a-vis that o f other countries. The Bank’s knowledge o f EU NMS experience has grown in recent years and according to the Client Survey i s perceived to be a significant share o f its value added, so the Bank i s well positioned to make a contribution in this regard.