Miscellaneous Knowledge Notes
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Publication
Leadership Training Toolkit for State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs): Boards and Owners
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2021-06-30)The Leadership Training Toolkit for State-Owned Enterprises (‘SOE Leadership Toolkit’) was developed jointly by the World Bank and IFC (World Bank Group) to support countries’ efforts to build capacity of State ownership entities, SOE boards, and SOE senior management. It addresses the growing need for curricula specifically adapted for SOEs, considering the significant role and impact of SOEs on public finances, the economy and delivery of public services. The SOE Leadership Toolkit is a global public good that can be used by different training providers, such as government training institutions, Institutes of Directors, corporate governance and ESG associations, and professional bodies or universities. It is designed to: • Advance corporate governance reforms by instilling in participants leadership values that can help them work within their companies or organizations to adopt the best practices • Foster a common understanding between state ownership and oversight entities and SOE leadership, by raising awareness of the respective roles and perspectives • Provide flexibility through a modular curriculum that allows a country and training institution to easily tailor programs to suit their specific context and target audience • Engage executive learners through experiential learning and interactive exercises, based on internationally recognized good practices and global priorities such as climate change and gender • Minimize training providers’ investment of time and resources for curriculum development by providing a comprehensive, standardized curriculum that includes handouts, and case studies The 15 training modules are structured in four parts. Each module includes specific topics, case studies and exercises. Cutting across these modules are four themes assuming an important place in today’s corporate governance landscape: 1) gender and diversity, 2) climate risk and resilience, 3) Maximizing Finance for Development, 4) corruption and integrity. -
Publication
Relocation and Resettlement
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-03)This note provides guidance on approaches to relocation and resettlement of people. Although resettlement is ideally avoided, the complexities of unclear, unrecognized, informal, and overlapping land claims in many areas means that it is an issue that investors and governments often need to address. Field research suggests room for improvement in processes and outcomes where resettlement had been undertaken. Critical factors for success included how resettled people perceived that their living situations had changed after resettlement, which includes compensation, access to livelihood opportunities, and social services. Also important was the extent to which people were consulted, where involved in decision making, and had access to grievance mechanisms. -
Publication
Monitoring Investments
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-03)This note provides guidance on how to monitor the performance and impact of agricultural investments, and on which aspects to observe. Ongoing monitoring of investments is a key way to hold investors accountable for contractual commitments and deliver the expected benefits to the country and surrounding communities. It also facilitates early identification of emerging negative impacts or of failing investments, enabling remedial actions. Monitoring is often deficient because of a lack of resources and systematic procedures, which allows negative impacts to escalate beyond what will otherwise be the case. Internal monitoring is likewise good practice for investors and their financiers, though the field research indicated room for improvement. -
Publication
Screening Prospective Investors
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-03)This note provides guidance to governments on how to screen and select prospective investment projects to ensure they maximize the social, economic, and environmental benefits while minimizing the risks. It provides investors information on what can be expected in cases of good screening practice. The acceptance of investors that later fail financially or have poor social and environmental outcomes has had damaging impacts on many countries as well as communities. Screening investors is a critical component of a country’s policy framework to mitigate those risks and to improve the likelihood that investments will have a positive effect on sustainable development priorities. This note summarizes available resources on how to screen agricultural investments and calls on donors, international organizations, and civil society to develop more. It is complemented by note 7: tools for screening investors, which provides a detailed toolkit that can be adapted to host countries’ individual circumstances. -
Publication
Community Engagement Strategies
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-03)This note provides guidance on the overall approach to consulting, engaging, and partnering with local communities, to bridge gaps in information and expectation between communities and investors and create the social license to operate. Engaging with local communities and other stakeholders is both socially responsible and a business imperative; investors that are well integrated with the local community are more likely to be financially successful. Effective engagement is necessary across all phases of the investment project, from the initial mapping, consultations withcommunities, and contract negotiations to the establishment of a grievance mechanism, ongoing community dialogue, and monitoring of both environmental and social impacts. Aligning the expectations and understanding of investors and communities creates the necessary environment for mutual benefit. -
Publication
Investment Contracts
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-03)This note provides guidance on the form and content of contracts between investors and governments pertaining to agricultural investments. The best guarantee of positive benefits from foreign investment is a solid foundation of domestic laws that are properly enforced. In many developing countries, however, the necessary domestic laws may not be in place or may not be sufficiently detailed. Even when they are in place, they may not be implemented or enforced. Contracts can help fill the gaps in domestic laws by providing more detailed guidance on what should be contained in the assessments, and using international standards and best practice as the reference points. However, contracts need to be drafted carefully to maximize benefits and reduce risks. -
Publication
Technology Transfer
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-03)This note provides guidance to governments and investors on how best to support the development and transfer of technologies to local smallholders and communities. New technology can help boost production and productivity in the agriculture sector and, given the growing global demand forfood and fiber and the limits of natural resources, has the potential to substantially raise incomes for smallholders and rural communities. Improving mechanisms to increase the transmission and adoption of technologies is important for building technological capability in developingcountries. The importation and adoption of productivity-enhancing technologies in part depends on investors’ support and training efforts but ultimately will fail if local smallholders acting as partners in the value chain do not achieve gains that warrant the embrace and use of technology. -
Publication
Healthy and Safe Working Environment
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-03)This note provides guidance to investors and governments on good practice in occupational health and safety policies, programs, procedures and processes, a matter of critical importance given thathalf the world’s working population is in agriculture—one of the three most hazardous sectors, with an estimated 170,000 fatalities per year (ILO). To be successful, an agribusiness operationmust rely heavily not only on the skills and competencies of its employees but on their health and wellbeing, requiring an awareness of and adherence to acceptable occupational health and safety standards. -
Publication
Water Access and Management
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-03)This note provides guidance on how to ensure that the impact of agricultural investments on water resources is effectively measured, monitored, and regulated. Water is essential to agricultural production and processing, and has been a driving factor in private and public decisions on where to locate investments. Despite global concerns about water scarcity and pollution, the water use of agricultural investments is in many cases not rigorously measured, monitored, or regulated. Where regulations exist, enforcement is often weak. Some investors improve local water access with community development programs, but such schemes require consultation and careful management. -
Publication
Environmental and Social Impact Assessments
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-03)This note provides guidance on the conduct of environmental and social impact assessments (ESIAs) and the implementation of associated environmental and social management plans (ESMPs). Crop and livestock production, forestry, fisheries, and aquaculture all depend on the use of land, water, and other natural resources that are inextricably linked to rural livelihoods, social systems, values, and culture. ESIAs and ESMPs are key tools for identifying and assessing social and environmental risks and benefits at the planning stage of an investment, and for building risk mitigation measures into project design and implementation. Although usually legislative requirements, too often they have been treated as box-ticking exercises. There remainssignificant room for improvement in the conduct of assessment and the rigor with which findings are incorporated into management plans.