Comments and Questions

Overall assessment:This policy / advocacy paper makes a pitch for strengthening the role of MDB’s in a context of a significantly changed development context, notably shaped by the 2030 Agenda, urbanization and demographic transition. The authors call for more harmonization, alignment and co-ordination between the different banks to unlock more and better financing in particular in fragile states, highly debt countries and upper-middle income economies. The paper makes a welcome contribution to the current debate on how to mobilize more and better resources to finance the implementation of the SDGs at country level and they offer some interesting entry points for how the existing system can be improved. The flow works generally well and the proposals are under-pinned with examples and references to the current literature. On the other hand though, the paper has some significant short-comings that should be addressed before publication. My suggestion is – re-submission after revision. Specific comments:In the following I will focus on the main points I would consider important to address/clarify/elaborate on: - Value proposition: in several parts of the document it is stated that MDBs are “the best mechanism today for leveraging public resources” – who is saying this? Is there enough literature, empirical evidence for making since point? – What is the reference system – compared to what other forms? The paper does not address any alternatives to the MDBs in any serious length. I would suggest to add a new section 2 that convincingly point out what the MDBs have been doing, how they changed and what evidence we have that compared to other forms there are “the best mechanism”. As side remark, what the authors are not refereeing too is the creation of the two new MDBs in the last two years – Asian Investment Bank and BRICS Bank – which to some extent goes against their proposal for more harmonisation but seems to go for more proliferation…. – the political economy aspects of MDBs beyond funding could be strengthened. - Setting the context: section 1 could do a much better job in explaining the current new context and how MDBs could help with addressing the convincingly identified challenges. The current section 1 should be re-written to help the reader get the story, like a classical introduction. What is the problem that this paper addresses, how it is done , and what is the outcome.- Addressing co-ordination failures: This is the most important point to address in a revision. The reader can be convinced about the MDBs story and role in financing and the need for better alignment, harmonization and co-ordination. But the offered solutions are a bit shallow and short sited – there is a nice saying in development jargon – everybody is for more co-ordination but no-body wants to be co-ordinated. Section 2 and 3 mainly addresses these points but in a fairly unstructured way, going back and forth between making the case for MDBs , current flaws and possible solutions. A clearer structure of a new section 3 what the issues are and a new section 4 how addressing those could be helpful – or if the authors prefer think about different types of issues and directly thereafter a possible solution. The current list of problems and solution needs to be put into priorities – what are the three main stumbling blocks preventing a better co-ordination as an example – would help the reader a great deal to better understand what the authors propose. At the end of the day, what really matters are the “incentives” that would need to be put in place to push the MDS with their own governance structures for more co-operation. Each of the management of the Banks reports to their own Boards – hence only if some sort of either positive or negative incentives are provided then the management will eventually change its policy. It would be great if the authors could be more specific on what they see as the main trigger for changing existing behaviours. Its good to note that the authors are not proposing yet another super-structure for co-ordination – which would be a recipe for failure just adding more transaction costs – but to strengthen it in existing processes; however, in times where all development organization and the multilateral-system is under great pressure with the need to document that each tax-payers dollar is effectively spend through log-frames et al. one needs to think a bit harder how one really can foster more collaboration etc; for a start, being a bit more honest about the current clash back from the PARIS principles that DAC donors seem to have forgotten would be a start; lastly, and based on own experience, I am heavily doubting that “modern communication technologies” will in any way be helpful, if not ex-ante the incentives problems are addressed; we have already enough data/information platform graveyards, collaborative modern tools where we try to lure people in to share their knowledge etc – while in meeting everybody is happy saying so, when back in office nobody has the time to do it….; put it positively – if the authors could come up with concrete examples that have worked I all for it- Text length: the text is overall long, in parts repetitive and would benefit from making it more “tight”; adding tables or figures would also be useful to beef up the current literature which is a bit short, and mostly refereeing to the publications by the authors – beefing this up would be appreciated In summary, an interesting policy paper geared towards decision makers in the development community. If properly revised, this paper will be very welcome!