The World Bank Togo Public Sector Capacity Strengthening for Service Delivery (P176883) Program Information Document (PID) Concept Stage | Date Prepared/Updated: 08-Sep-2022 | Report No: PIDC247500 Jul 08, 2022 Page 1 of 15 The World Bank Togo Public Sector Capacity Strengthening for Service Delivery (P176883) BASIC INFORMATION A. Basic Program Data OPS TABLE Country Project ID Parent Project ID (if any) Program Name Togo P176883 Togo Public Sector Strengthening for Service Delivery Program Does this operation Region Estimated Appraisal Date Estimated Board Date have an IPF component? WESTERN AND CENTRAL 01-Feb-2023 19-May-2023 Yes AFRICA Financing Instrument Borrower(s) Implementing Agency Practice Area (Lead) Program-for-Results Republic of Togo Presidence de la Republique Governance Financing Proposed Program Development Objective(s) The PforR development objective is to modernize and strengthen public administration processes and capacity, and the management of public resources to support improved delivery of selected social services. COST & FINANCING FIN_SRC_TABLE1 SUMMARY (USD Millions) Government program Cost 250.00 Total Operation Cost 65.00 Total Program Cost 50.00 IPF Component 15.00 Total Financing 65.00 Financing Gap 0.00 FINANCING (USD Millions) Total World Bank Group Financing 65.00 World Bank Lending 65.00 Jul 08, 2022 Page 2 of 15 The World Bank Togo Public Sector Capacity Strengthening for Service Delivery (P176883) Concept Review Decision The review did authorize the preparation to continue 1. This Program for Results (PforR) supports a new government program to strengthen public sector capacity for service delivery in Togo. The Government of Togo (GoT) adopted, in October 2020, a Roadmap Strategy 2020-2025 (Feuille de Route 2020-2025) to modernize and strengthen its public sector to support improved service delivery. The 2025 Roadmap has three major axes: (i) strengthening social inclusion and harmony and consolidated peace; (ii) boosting job creation by strengthening the economy; and (iii) modernizing and strengthening the State’s administrative structures.1 2. The GoT is preparing a Multisectoral Modernization and Economic Governance for Service Delivery Program (MEGSDP) to implement the Roadmap 2020-2025. The MEGSDP aims to modernize and strengthen the capacity of the public administration to deliver quality services to citizens through digital solutions. As per the GoT request, the proposed International Development Association (IDA) operation (US$65 million, Program-for-Results (PforR)) will support the GoT in implementing the MEGSDP. B. Introduction and Context Country Context 3. With 8.4 million people, Togo is a small country in West Sub-saharan Africa (SSA) seeking to transition from a low-income fragile country to an emerging economy. The country is emerging from a period of relative isolation following years of political and economic instability in the 1990s and 2000s. However, significant economic reforms have been made in recent years, including in public financial management (PFM), public investment management (PIM), procurement, and State-owned Enterprises (SOEs) governance, that have contributed to growth in the last decade. 4. Economic growth has not significantly supported poverty alleviation, and the COVID-19 crisis further eroded social conditions. Between 2017-19, Togo experienced economic growth averaging 5 percent (2.4 percent in per capita terms). However, this was lower than that in many peer countries and did not lead to significant improvements in living standards. Although Togo’s poverty rate is decreasing, progress has been slow, and poverty incidence stood at 45.5 percent in 2018/19, corresponding to 3.6 million people. Additionally, estimates suggest that the pandemic has increased poverty by almost 0.3 million people in absolute terms. Over 2019-2020, the extreme poverty rate is estimated to have increased by 0.1 percentage points, and GDP growth declined to 0.7 percent in 2020. 5. Progress has been observed in the education and health sectors, but substantial interregional differences in access to social services remain, and other human development indicators are deteriorating . About 60 percent of the population is under 25 years old, and approximately 57 percent live in rural areas, while the capital Lomé accounts for a quarter of the population. Net enrollment at primary school increased to 94 percent in 2017 from 88 percent in 2009-10. Infant mortality has decreased from 174.4 per 1000 births in 2010 to 132.8 in 2020, and the maternity mortality rate has also dropped from 491 to 401/100,000 live births between 2005 and 2015 , this is lower than both the average for its region (445) and the average for its income group (502). Despite this progress, overall human development remains a 1In turn, these three axes support ten ambitious goals, namely to: (i) provide universal health coverage and access to basic services for all; (ii) provide education that is accessible to the greatest number of people and in line with the labor market; (iii) ensure security, peace, and justice for all; (iv) make agriculture a real engine of growth and job creation; (v) affirm the country’s place as a logistics and servic es hub; (vi) create real extractive and transformative industries; (vii) make Togo a regional reference in digital technology; (viii) strengthen the attractiveness of the country to investors; (ix) strengthen the structures of the State and stabilize its public accounts; and (x) make sustainable development and anticipation of future crises a priority. Jul 08, 2022 Page 3 of 15 The World Bank Togo Public Sector Capacity Strengthening for Service Delivery (P176883) challenge. The Human Development Index (HDI) ranked Togo at 167 out of 188 countries in 2020, with relatively poor access to water and electricity (access to drinking water for 57 percent of households and electricity for 49 percent). 6. While Togo has made some headway toward a political transition and is focused on improving social outcomes,2 the country remains vulnerable to fragility. Following social unrest in 2017 and calls for greater political plurality, political tensions have subsided in recent years, and presidential, local, and parliamentary elections were held in 2020. Yet, persistent fragility stems from a heavily centralized governance system, low levels of government effectiveness, and regional and rural-urban imbalances, all factors which can fuel social tension and negatively impact private investment. Moreover, security risks in the north could increase as the conflict in the Sahel spreads, while drug trafficking and maritime piracy are still substantial challenges. 7. The GoT, through its ambitious Roadmap 2020-2025 and Digital Strategy 2025, aims to transform the public administration to increase efficiency, improve access to and quality of public services, and expand the State’s presence across its territory. The Government seeks to transform Togo into a regional digital hub, including through a vast program of digitalization of state services intended to improve access and the experience of citizens and businesses, alongside reducing costs. The GoT’s goal is to accelerate growth from an average of 5 percent in the past decade to 7.5 percent to reduce poverty. The 2025 Roadmap includes targeting public investments, controlling indebtedness to sustainable levels, and increasing domestic revenue mobilization. In addition, the COVID-19 global shutdown has demonstrated the need for government continuity across all sectors and the public administration’s readiness to face crises. As part of the response to the COVID-19 crisis, Togo established the digital platform NOVISSI3 to channel cash transfers to the poorest households impacted by diminishing economic activities. This pilot program has demonstrated the capability of the GoT to conduct scaled-up digital reforms successfully. The proposed Program will directly support the Government’s program in this area. Sectoral and Institutional Context of the Program 8. While Togo’s overall governance indicators have improved over the last ten years, considerable challenges remain. The 2020 Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG) shows that Togo’s overall governance indicators have slightly progressed from a score of 45.3 over 100 in 2010 to 50.1 in 2019. Indicators on foundations for economic opportunity and human development have seen the highest growth in the last decade, with scores ranging from 38.6 and 45.6 in 2010 to 49.3 and 55.5 in 2019, respectively. Yet public perception of overall governance has regressed during the same period from 39.1 to 37.5. Also, significant challenges must be addressed to create an enabling environment for effective service delivery at the central and local levels. Notably, the State’s administrative structure remains centralized, and reforms to devolve power to local governments are nascent. Outdated Human Resource Management Practices 9. Public sector performance is hampered by weak motivation and promotion systems and poor civil service management and gaps in Human Resources Management (HRM) information systems. A lack of merit-based promotion and accountability persist within the administration. The public sector also faces challenges in attracting applicants with critical technical skills, deploying frontline staff in rural areas, and controlling absenteeism and fraud. Several factors underlie the suboptimal performance of the civil service: 2 Togo is a member of the Group of Seven Plus countries on fragility (G7+ countries). The G7+ community of countries formed in response to a gap identified by conflict-affected states in the achievement of Millennium Development Goals and service delivery. (https://www.g7plus.org/). 3 The Novissi platform delivers contactless, emergency cash transfers based on machine learning techniques and mobile money. In order to expand Novissi platform coverage, the poorest villages and neighborhoods are selected through high-resolution satellite imagery and nationally representative household consumption data. Within those villages and neighborhoods, the poorest individuals are then prioritized through machine learning algorithms using mobile phone metadata and phone surveys. Machine-learning algorithms trained on mobile call detail records predicted consumption patterns for 5.7 million individuals (70 percent of the population). Between November 2020 and March 2021, 57,000 new beneficiaries were prioritized for contactless, social protection payments through the use of predictive algorithms. Jul 08, 2022 Page 4 of 15 The World Bank Togo Public Sector Capacity Strengthening for Service Delivery (P176883) - Inefficient HRM practices and processes. Job descriptions, career plans, and performance contracts are poorly defined, opportunities for in-service training are sparse, and there is a limited linkage between objective performance evaluation and career advancement. Together, this situation has weakened individual civil servants’ motivation to perform. The GoT seeks to shift the focus of career advancement from seniority-based to merit- based and replace automatic civil servant promotion through a performance evaluation-based system. - Limited number of civil servants with technical and management skills to fill mid to senior management and technical positions within the civil service. The capacity to strategically manage and monitor reform programs is limited, diluting accountability for results. A lack of capacity at the technical level also contributes to weaknesses in the systems and processes used to develop, implement and monitor reform programs. Additionally, Togo is below the SSA average in terms of the share of civil servants with tertiary education (28 percent versus the regional average of 38 percent) and female participation in public employment (20 percent versus the regional average of 34 percent).4 To compensate for this capacity deficit, the GoT is recruiting new talent through the Presidential Excellence Program (PEP), but this program is limited to the Office of the Presidency.5 The Ministry of Public Services has launched a program within the civil service to train a young cadre of civil servants to make the core public administration more dynamic and thus reduce the reliance on parallel recruiting mechanisms. - Weak wage bill control and HRM oversight. The lack of control and oversight of HR creates increases the scope for abuse and favoritism, including double-dipping, ghost workers, high levels of absenteeism, and misuse of paid leave. The lack of centralization of personnel data, biometric data, and integration between the HRM system and the payroll system makes implementing regular audits and detecting inconsistencies more difficult. Inefficient Public Expenditure 10. Significant Public Finance Management (PFM) reforms have been implemented, but further improvements are needed. Since 2016, and with the support of the Economic Governance Project (Projet d’appui à la gouvernance économique, PAGE (P158078)), Togo has gradually shifted from incremental budgeting toward program-based budgeting. A new public-private partnership law was adopted in 2021. Also, the Directorate of Public Debt and Financing (Direction de la Dette Publique et du Financement, DDPF) was reorganized, leading to a better recording and management of debt in line with Togo’s Debt Management Strategy. However, key weaknesses remain, including low budget execution and credibility, weak treasury management, and limited transparency in the management of SOEs and Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects, creating fiscal risks. 11. From allocation to execution, weaknesses in budgeting practices significantly reduce the efficiency of public expenditure. The expenditure reporting framework lacks precise information on expenditures by functional classification or region, which impedes analysis of the implicit tradeoffs and good targeting. Budget execution averaged only around 72 percent over the 2009-2018 period, driven mainly by under execution of capital spending that averaged 33 percent in 2009-2016 and 23 percent in 2017-2019. This low execution rate can be explained by several factors, including delays in the public procurement process, the release of counterpart funds for projects financed under external resources, and the lack of monthly or quarterly monitoring of contract performance. Budget execution in the Health & Social Action and Infrastructure sectors was among the lowest among functional categories. While averaging 60.2 percent and 41.3 percent during the 2009-2016 period, the execution rate of Health & Social Action and Infrastructure expenditure declined to 58.5 and 30.3 percent, respectively, in the 2017-2019 period. 4Bureaucracy Lab’s Public Sector Indicators, based on the latest household survey (2011). 5The Presidential Excellence Program recruits university graduates with bachelor’s and master’s degrees and provides them with technical and soft skills to tackle and help resolve development constraints. Jul 08, 2022 Page 5 of 15 The World Bank Togo Public Sector Capacity Strengthening for Service Delivery (P176883) 12. Weaknesses in treasury management also hamper the efficiency of public expenditure. Several government accounts in commercial banks have been transferred to the Treasury Single Account (TSA) to improve treasury management and reduce idle resources and borrowing costs. However, high debt levels have created delays in terms of payments for national and international transactions, which, in turn, contributes to low budget execution rates. Current reforms seeking to synchronize treasury commitments and cash plans have resulted in a marked reduction of payment arrears, but the deviation of actual spending from procurement forecasts persists. Moreover, revenues are not collected directly by the TSA, not all payments are made electronically, and difficulties remain in tracking resources from the Government to persons. 13. Despite meaningful improvements in the legal framework and information systems, procurement continues to be cumbersome, opaque, and tendering processes primarily conducted using paper-based processes. The Government adopted a new public procurement in 2021 that introduced e-procurement. A procurement information system to manage internal processes has been in use since 2015. Nevertheless, there is still a need to reinforce skills and staff capacity to plan, execute, and evaluate procurement processes and control the quality of services and goods received and their distribution to frontline units, such as schools and health centers. According to the 2021 Methodology for Assessing Procurement Systems (MAPS) report, to address issues of persistent delays and high levels of budget deviations between actuals and planned budgets, the actions needed include: (i) greater use of electronic procurement; (ii) improvements to the statistical data collection system; (iii) professionalization of the procurement function; (iv) greater collaboration with the private sector and civil society; and, especially; (v) the introduction of sustainable and green public procurement into the system. Moreover, there is a need to address issues related to the filing and archiving system for procurement and execution documents and the systematic publication establishment of annual reports on procurement activities due six months after the fiscal year’s end, which have not been published since 2016. Access and Quality of Public Services 14. The constraints described in human resource and public finance management, along with weak monitoring and evaluation, contribute to significant challenges to service delivery, particularly in the health and education sectors. Education Sector 15. In Togo, learning outcomes remain relatively low, leading to poor human capital accumulation. With a Human Capital Index (HCI) of 0.43, a child born today in Togo will only achieve 43 percent of their productivity potential. Though higher than Sub-Saharan Africa and Low-Income Country (LIC) averages, this weak performance in educational outcomes undermines its people’s human potential. Due to various factors, many children in Togo drop out of school, and repetition rates are high. Repetition rates were 13.7 percent and 20.2 percent in primary and lower secondary levels, respectively6— higher than most SSA countries, such as Ghana (1.8 percent at primary) and Cameroon (12.1 percent at lower secondary). The average Togolese child is projected to complete approximately 9.7 years of schooling. Factoring in what children effectively learn, actual educational attainment is reduced to six years. These indicators have improved only marginally since the HCI was established in 2017, with expected years of schooling and learning-adjusted years of schooling increasing from 9.1 and 5.6, respectively. 16. Although education expenditures have increased in the last decade in line with Togo’s universal access policy, inefficiencies continue to constrain the sector’s performance. With increases from 29 percent in 2009 to 52 percent in 2019 driven by doubled allocations to preschool and primary education, this was proportional to the evolution of the preschool net enrolment rate, which more than doubled, while net primary enrolment averaged around 94 percent during the decade. The strong emphasis on preschool and primary education is in line with the Government’s efforts to achieve universal primary education by 2030. As such, Togo has the highest public spending per student in West Africa, reaching 6 MICS 2017 Jul 08, 2022 Page 6 of 15 The World Bank Togo Public Sector Capacity Strengthening for Service Delivery (P176883) US$139 in 2016, while it was only US$105 in Benin, US$73 in Guinea, and US$29 in Sierra Leone. Despite this, Sierra Leone had a higher primary net enrollment rate than Togo. While Togo and Benin achieve almost the same completion rate, unit costs remain higher in Togo. This signals the urgent need to improve the efficiency of public spending. 17. Togo loses approximately 0.5 percent of GDP each year through inefficiencies from teacher absenteeism and losses of effective teaching time. When measuring the presence of teachers on unannounced visits, 23 percent of civil servant teachers, 17 percent of auxiliary teachers, and 28 percent of volunteer teachers were absent from school (Service Delivery Indicators (SDI), 2013). A public-school teacher in Grade 4 teaches, on average, 2 hours 38 minutes per day, while the scheduled time for Grade 4 is 5 hours 28 minutes per day. Given the cost of salaries in education at 2.4 percent of GDP and an average absentee rate of roughly 20 percent, addressing the absentee problem could potentially amount to an annual savings of 0.5 percent of GDP. 18. The limited availability of textbooks, especially French reading textbooks, also negatively impacts learning outcomes. For primary education, only 20 percent of schools reported having at least one French textbook and one mathematics textbook (RESEN, 2019) per student. This percentage is significantly lower in secondary education (2 percent), with the above constraints more severe in remote areas. Health Sector 19. Health problems remain high and disproportionately affect low-income children and women. The recent Human Capital Diagnostic notes that child and adult survival rates still undermine Togo’s human capital. Poor health also constrains the opportunities and productivity of low-income individuals, as well as their overall lifetime well-being. Togo’s core health issues stem from public administration and operational constraints, including mismanagement of medicine stock and the quality and presence of health workers. The quality of health services is hindered by a lack of human resources, equipment, arrears, unavailability of drugs, and insufficient governance stewardship in the sector. The latest Service Delivery Indicators Report (SDI 2014) shows that 39.8 percent of the health workers were absent at any point in time, the misdiagnosis rate reached an average of 48.7 percent, while only 23.5 percent of the health workers could properly manage complicated cases for maternal and child care.7 In 2018, according to the World Development Indicators, Togo had 0.49 health workers per 1,000 inhabitants, which lagged significantly behind the World Health Organization (] norm of 2.3, with substantial regional disparity—64.2 percent of health workers were in the Lomé-Commune region as against 4 percent in the Savane region in 2019. According to the 2021 Togo Service Availability and Readiness Assessment (SARA), medicines considered essential were only available in 18 percent of health facilities. Health personnel’s absenteeism is still high and recurrent. Some 40 percent of health workers are absent from their posts, 65 percent of whom have been authorized to take paid leave. In addition, there is a lack of equipment, and hospitals are over-indebted. These factors impact the quality of healthcare services. The COVID-19 pandemic has weighed heavily on the financial situation of hospitals. Besides, the regulation of the private health sector remains a concern, and most existing private health centers are yet to be legally authorized. Therefore, the control of the quality of health care they deliver is beyond the control of the Ministry of Health (MoH), including health information. In 2019, only 12 percent of private facilities were supervised. 20. Inefficiencies in health sector expenditure, coupled with weak governance of the health system, constraint productivity and the delivery of essential health services considerably. The volume of total health spending increased by 36 percent between 2016 and 2019.8 The contribution of households, the primary source of financing health expenditure through direct payments, has been growing steadily. It rose from 57.5percent9 to 64.7percent and then to 66.2percent10 of total health expenditure in 2016, 2018, and 2019, respectively, exposing families to the risk of falling into extreme 7 Service Delivery Indicators Report (SDI 2014) 8 National Health Accounts -2017-2018-2019 9 National Health Accounts -2015 10 National Health Accounts -2017-2018-2019 Jul 08, 2022 Page 7 of 15 The World Bank Togo Public Sector Capacity Strengthening for Service Delivery (P176883) poverty because of high health expenditure. International comparisons demonstrate that Togo could achieve a similar service coverage rate for essential health services with lower expenditure, equal to 0.3 percent of GDP, i.e., Togo could achieve its current level of service by spending US$2.38 per capita less (US$3.35 – US$5.73). Additionally, with the current expenditure level, Togo could improve outcome efficiency by between 6 and 7 percent for essential health service coverage and 9 percent for life expectancy. Improving expenditure efficiency and moving towards digitalization of health sector processes will also improve the inefficiencies created by a paper-based system. Analytical Underpinning and Lessons 21. The proposed Togo Public Sector Capacity Strengthening for Service Delivery PforR (P176883) will support the implementation of axes one and three of the Roadmap 2025 through the new Multisectoral Modernization and Economic Governance for Service Delivery Program (MEGSDP). The MEGSDP aims to modernize and strengthen the capacity of the public sector to deliver quality services to citizens. The proposed operation would support the implementation of the Government’s program, particularly in strengthening the institutional capacity of the public administration to deliver better services while improving the efficiency of public expenditure to increase public resources allocation for social services. 22. The proposed operation covers selected areas deemed critical to achieving its development objectives, and its design has been informed by past and ongoing analytical work (see Table 1) below. Specifically, the proposed PforR would support results pertaining to: (i) strengthening HRM for improved delivery of essential government services, including in education and health, digitalization of selected services, and increased citizen oversight; and (ii) improving the quality and efficiency of public expenditure (including, program-based budgeting, and e-procurement system, and modernizing the Government Treasury system). These areas are part of the Government’s program (for more information, see Annex I). Table 1: Analytical Underpinnings of the Program Results Areas Analytical Underpinning Results Area 1 - Togo Systematic Country Diagnostic Update (2022) - TOGO DE4A- Digital Economy Assessment for Africa (2019) - Research Handbook: HRM and organizational effectiveness in the public sector (World Bank -IMF 2022) - Research Handbook: Performance Management in the public sector (World Bank-IMF 2022) - Togo Service Delivery Indicators in Health (2014) - Togo Service Delivery Indicators in Education (2015) - Togo Service Availability and Readiness Assessment (2021) Results Area 2 - TOGO Public Expenditure Framework Assessment (PEFA) (2016) - TOGO TADAT Assessment (2019) - Togo Public Expenditure Review and Integrated State-owned Enterprises Framework (iSOEF) (2020) - IMF PIMA (2016) - World Bank: Procuring Infrastructure PPP in Togo (2018) --TOGO Methodology for Assessing Procurement Systems (MAPS) (2021) --TOGO Economic Governance Project Mid-Term Review (2021) - Togo Public Expenditure Review (2022) Relationship to CAS/CPF 23. The Country Partnership Framework (CPF) for FY17-20, extended to the end of FY22, is the first full World Bank Group (WBG) country strategy for Togo since 1995. The proposed PforR is fully aligned with the CPF, which emphasizes the strengthening of core institutions for service delivery. It responds directly to the CPF’s second objective of “inclusive service delivery� and its foundational and cross-cutting theme of “strengthened governance and consolidated peace.� It Jul 08, 2022 Page 8 of 15 The World Bank Togo Public Sector Capacity Strengthening for Service Delivery (P176883) does so by addressing challenges of poor governance (weak government effectiveness, control of corruption, and accountability) and by seeking to improve value for money in public expenditures, strengthening institutions, and increasing citizen engagement. The proposed Program also aligns with the West and Central Africa Region (AFW) Strategy, in particular its governance priority. The strategy addresses the IDA priorities of jobs and economic transformation and the IDA special theme of Fragility, Conflict, and Violence (FCV). Critical to this special theme and the proposed Program is building the State’s legitimacy and capacity, inclusive institutions, and renewing the social contract between citizens and the State toward achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC). 24. The proposed PforR, linking upstream public administration performance and downstream service delivery, aims to draw synergies and complementarities with World Bank projects in social sectors. The Program builds on the Improving Quality and Equity of Basic Education Project (P172674). Synergies will be explored with the Essential Quality Health Services for Universal Health Coverage Project (P174266) and the pilot program that tested the preparation and launch of a digital platform for the management of health database (DHIS2) in the southern region of the country. These projects focus on deploying front-line staff to underserved areas and improving the distribution of learning materials and medicine. The new Program will support these efforts by improving financial management and procurement practices in these line ministries and enhancing personnel management practices with an emphasis on improving the quality of data used to allocate staff and reducing absenteeism. Rationale for Bank Engagement and Choice of Financing Instrument 25. The GoT has requested11 Bank support for the implementation of its MEGSDP. The program, which is currently being elaborated, anchors the implementation of Togo’s Development Roadmap 2020-2025, a strategic document that lays out the GoT’s transversal vision toward addressing the country’s main development challenges and supporting the digitalization and strengthening of the Togolese State. The MEGSDP will focus on the Roadmap’s first and third axes: "strengthening social inclusion and harmony and consolidating peace� and “modernizing and strengthening the State’s administrative structures.� These objectives align with the Bank’s CPF and fall within its comparative advantage. 26. Bank support to the MEGSDP provides strong value-addition given its leadership and convening role in support of related reform agenda. Over the last five years, the Bank has led key engagements through it’s the PAGE project. Co- financed by the World Bank and the European Union, the PAGE has supported the implementation of the GoT’s 2018-22 National Economic Development Plans, focusing on PIM, Domestic Resource Mobilization (DRM), and public accountability and monitoring mechanisms for better service delivery in priority sectors. The proposed Program would be well-positioned to build on the progress made and the continued challenges (to priority areas) identified by the PAGE. Moreover, given the transversal nature of the governance challenges to be addressed by the EGMSDP and their implications for service delivery, the Bank is also uniquely positioned to leverage synergies with its sectoral expertise and engagements, particularly in education and health. 27. The choice of PforR further enhances Bank support of the MEGSDP of the GoT’s Roadmap 2020-2025. The Roadmap lends itself well to the PforR approach, as many projects are already identified and formulated based on clear objectives and pre-determined results. The PforR, on the other hand, offers several significant benefits for the implementation of the MEGSDP, including: - First, it provides a coordination structure, which is critical given that a government reform program of this scale will require robust coordination amongst the various implementing units and line ministries. - Second, it serves as a platform for deepening the result-orientation across ministries by providing the incentives needed for enhanced compliance with PFM systems’ implementation at the service delivery and decentralized 11 On August 13, 2021, the World Bank received a request from the GoT for the financing of its Togo Strategy Roadmap 2025. Jul 08, 2022 Page 9 of 15 The World Bank Togo Public Sector Capacity Strengthening for Service Delivery (P176883) levels. Specifically, the PforR disbursement modality, which links the achievement of results to disbursement, is particularly appropriate for incentivizing improvements in the service delivery chain, which need to be tangible to be felt and perceived by service recipients. - Third, the instrument is appropriate for placing incentives at multiple critical points along the service delivery chain to resolve governance bottlenecks at the central, intermediate, or local government levels. - Fourth, the process of developing a Government Program has created broad ownership of the results-oriented approach and allows the Government to integrate other World Bank and Development Partner investments strategically into a broader program of service delivery improvements supported by the PforR. - Fifth, the instrument’s flexibility allows for an innovative results-based financing approach to strengthening institutional capacity and facilitating management for service delivery. - Lastly, the PforR allows for a shift in focus of World Bank engagement from upstream technical advice and financing of inputs to supporting specific and verifiable systems improvements. 28. In addition, an Investment Project Financing (IPF) component is envisaged within the PforR to provide technical assistance in a targeted and strategic manner on priority issues. The IPF component may, in particular, provide support for the development of studies or analyses on subjects of interest and support the implementation of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems, audit reports, and data collection for the PforR. C. Program Development Objective(s) (PDO) and PDO Level Results Indicators Program Development Objective(s) 29. The Program Development Objective is to strengthen public administration capacity and the management of public resources to support improved delivery of selected social services. PDO Level Results Indicators 30. The following tentative results indicators are proposed to monitor the achievement of the PDO: - Reduced absenteeism in selected services (health and education) - Increased number of civil servants trained through Civil Service Excellence Program appointed to senior and key technical positions (of which, percentage of women) - Increased share of secured digital payments to beneficiaries of Social Protection Programs - Increased share of electronic payments of taxes - Increased number of primary schools with textbooks - Increased expenditure with gender tags - Increased share of public investment with climate change considerations - Increased beneficiary satisfaction rate with selected services (health and education) Jul 08, 2022 Page 10 of 15 The World Bank Togo Public Sector Capacity Strengthening for Service Delivery (P176883) D. Program Description PforR Program Boundary 31. The Proposed PforR will support the GoT in implementing its Strategy Roadmap 2020-2025, captured through its MEGSDP. The GoT has an ambitious plan to modernize its public sector by strengthening the capacity and processes of the civil service to improve the access and quality of services to its citizens in priority sectors such as education and health and to improve state presence across its territory. The proposed PforR will support the implementation of axis 1 to “strengthen inclusion and social harmony to ensure peace� and axis 3 to “modernize the country and strengthen its structures� of the overall government strategy and MEGSDP. 32. The MEGSDP will be implemented over a period of three years with a possible extension of two years, with an estimated cost of US$250 million, out of which IDA would finance US$65 million with prior results financing and advance. The 2022 prior results will be finalized during Program preparation, and an advance of up to 25 percent will also tentatively be provided upon PforR effectiveness to jump-start reform activities. 33. The program will support Axis 1 and Axis 3 of the Government’s Roadmap. It will include the following Results Areas: (i) Strengthening the Public Administration for Service Delivery; and (ii) Improving Public Financial Management for Service Delivery. 34. Results Area 1: Strengthening the Public Administration for Service Delivery. This results area seeks to modernize and improve the capacity and processes of the public administration for it to support increased access and quality of services. - Digital foundations of improved wage bill control and evidence-based HRM: This action is supported by DLI 1 and aims to improve the information systems and use of biometric data to detect fraud and improve the quality of information used in HRM. The establishment of a unified civil service database, the integration of the human resource management information system (HRMIS) with the payroll module, and the implementation of a biometric census for civil servants and pensioners will allow better control personnel spending. Higher quality data will also be the basis for improved workforce planning and training. - Updated career framework and streamlined and harmonized HRM processes: The revision of the career progression process, pay policy for the different statuses of public administration employees, the introduction of performance appraisals, and institutional arrangements across ministries and agencies will be harmonized through the support of DLI 2 and complementary TA. The current legal and institutional framework for the public administration is outdated and requires reform to align it with the Government’s transition to performance-based programming. Functional and organizational review of the HRM institutional arrangements in selected ministries will support the harmonization of HRM institutional arrangements and practices, which will be incentivized through the DLI. - Professionalization of senior management and talent acquisition: The Togolese Government requires qualified professionals to implement its Roadmap. DLI 3 will strengthen the capacity and performance of civil servants in executive and key technical positions through the revision of the legal framework and training strategy (including the re-entry process and retention policy). A senior executive program will be implemented to train professionals currently serving in the Togolese administration. These civil servants will be selected on a competitive basis similar to the Presidential Excellence Program and provided additional technical and soft skills along with non-financial incentives, and placed in senior management and key technical positions to support the implementation of strategic priorities. A special focus will be given to improving gender balance and opportunities for women. The program will be part of the mainstream civil service and help phase out parallel contracting mechanisms. Jul 08, 2022 Page 11 of 15 The World Bank Togo Public Sector Capacity Strengthening for Service Delivery (P176883) - Increasing Public Accountability and Citizen Engagement. The Program will support citizen engagement in the budget preparation and execution processes and citizen feedback on quality and access to public services. Through DLI 4, the Program will support the scaling up and institutionalization of the monitoring and citizen engagement mechanism piloted by the PAGE project. The activity will contribute to the institutionalization of the successfully implemented citizen report cards in primary education, health, and agriculture and urban water, and the adoption by other priority sectors and subsectors of these mechanisms to better capture and understand citizen views on sector service delivery, and generate actionable data for sector stakeholders and policy makers. Civil Society Organization (CSO) capacity to monitor budget execution in three sectors will be enhanced, as well as their capacity to enter into evidence-based dialogue with the GoT on service delivery performance. The activities will include the development of citizen report cards for priority sectors, a framework for follow-up joint action plans led by the concerned Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and involving all key stakeholders, and competitive grants provided to civil society groups to monitor budget execution, public procurement, and tracking of inputs provided to and outputs of frontline service providers in priority sectors. - Adoption of user-friendly platforms in selected services. The Program will support the development of digital interfaces for users of selected services in education and health, leveraging mobile technologies. It will be implemented within the framework of the Government of Togo’s Digital Strategy 2025, and considering the lessons of the cash transfer program NOVISSI, the COVID-19 vaccine card and an application for secondary school exams. 35. Results Area 2: Improving Public Expenditure Efficiency for Service Delivery. The GoT continues to pursue fiscal and public financial management governance reforms centered around improving DRM and efficiency in public procurement and public expenditures. Targeted key Program results will include increasing the efficiency of public expenditure management, including implementing program-based budgeting, modernizing the treasury system, and increasing value for money in public procurement. - Improving effectiveness and efficiency of budgeting and public expenditure: Effective budget allocation and execution continue to be hampered by limited data and an outdated classification and expenditure reporting framework. Specific actions include the full implementation of program-based budgeting, including (i) gender- based budgeting and the optimization of expenditure, and (ii) climate change tagging. - Modernizing the Togolese Treasury: Treasury payments for national and international transactions are often delayed, contributing to low budget execution rates. Specific actions supported seek to harmonize the treasury procedures and processes to WAEMU standards, including updating its legal framework and the implementation of the Treasury Single Account Support improvement of the Public Accounting and Treasury Management Systems, including digital payments systems (G2P and P2G). - Enhancing efficiency in public procurement management: Delays in public procurement contribute to low budget execution. And as such, increasing the timeliness, transparency, and efficiency of public procurement procedures is essential to improve budget execution. Specific actions include improving the procurement system’s accountability, integrity, and transparency through the implementation of e-procurement and open contracting. These actions will be supported under DLI 7 with the recent enactment of a new legal framework. 36. In addition to the government-wide capacity enhancements, both results areas contribute to improving education and health services through sector-specific results in HRM, budget management, treasury practices, procurement, and citizen engagement. The various interventions will contribute to increasing budget credibility and expenditure efficiency, which, in turn, will improve budget execution in line ministries. In each area, special attention will be given to the education, health, and social protection sectors, with disbursement-linked results (DLRs) and TA support dedicated to their respective sectors. To address governance challenges on procurement timeliness and value for money, Jul 08, 2022 Page 12 of 15 The World Bank Togo Public Sector Capacity Strengthening for Service Delivery (P176883) limiting the availability of textbooks in classrooms and medicines, these ministries are prioritized in the rolled-out of the streamlined procurement processes through DLI 7. Effective HRM will improve health staff and teachers’ presence and performance in underserved areas through DLI 2. Mobile payments (DLI 6) and digital services will reduce their need to leave their post to collect salaries and carry out administrative processes. In addition, the Program will support the adoption of user-friendly digital tools for parents and students, which will expand on the existing platform for student registration for secondary school exams and the payment of school fees and health patients and scale up the existing citizen engagement initiatives through DLIs 4 and 5. 37. Investment Project Financing: Technical Assistance: The proposed PforR operation is the first of its kind in Togo. As a result, it is necessary to support the Government with complementary Technical Assistance in the form of an IPF component that will continue to strengthen its capacity and provide specialized support and high-level technical expertise, including diagnostics, analytical pieces, and advisory services to support improvements in governance. Additionally, the TA component will provide critical support to project implementation through a Third-Party Verification Agency combined with TA to the Cour des Comptes (Supreme Audit institution) on the verification of the PforR, as well as periodic Financial Audit of the IPF component. E. Initial Environmental and Social Screening 38. Environmental and social impacts of the Program. A desk review of the proposed Program suggests that the activities as currently described should not pose any significant threats or cause adverse impacts. The risk at the concept stage is rated as Moderate, pending additional details. The activities will need to be further refined (in terms of scale, location, etc.) so that associated environmental and social impacts can be adequately assessed and rated (low, moderate, substantial, high). 39. Environmental and Social Systems Assessment (ESSA). The ESSA will assess the relevant systems of GoT, the capacity of the President’s office, and other institutions in charge of the program implementation in environmental and social management. Any gaps or areas of improvement in these systems will be addressed in a mutu ally agreed Program Action Plan. Examining the systems and capacity would include a review of the management of similar past projects. E&S focal points will be appointed from those implementation institutions to help in the data collection as well as in the systems assessment. 40. Environmental and Social Framework application to IPF component. The TA component, following the IPF procedures, will be implemented by Permanent Secretariat for the Monitoring of Policy Reforms and Financing Programs - SP-PRPF (Secrétariat Permanent pour le suivi des Politiques de Réformes et des Programmes Financiers). The SP-PRPF has experience implementing the Economic Governance Project (P158078). However, for this TA under the PforR, a separate PIU will be established within SP-PRPF and staffed with environmental safeguards and social development specialists. Continuous capacity building must be done to enable the project’s key stakeholders and its PIU to fully play their roles to meet the requirements of the environmental and social standards deemed relevant for this proposed project. Training of E&S specialists on the implementation of the ESF prior to the preparation of E&S documentation for the project will be conducted. 41. Environmental and social risks of IPF component (Moderate). Risks related to environmental and social safeguards aspects attributable to the project’s activities are deemed Moderate due to: (i) electronics waste and associate waste linked to supplies and equipment (packaging in plastic, in cartons and wood, etc.) management; (ii) occupational and Community Health and Safety due to consultants, field validators, monitors, trainers, and others who are considered “project workers;� and (iii) SEA/SH may arise from power relationships (hierarchy, positioning, economic benefits, etc.) in the context of the proximity of female and male workers as well as workers and communities during census for data collection. Mitigation measures include the (i) recruitment of E&S safeguards specialists in the PIU to be established within the SP-PRPF and collaboration with the safeguard specialists of other World-Bank-financed projects to timely elaborate Jul 08, 2022 Page 13 of 15 The World Bank Togo Public Sector Capacity Strengthening for Service Delivery (P176883) safeguard documents required by the Bank’s relevant E&S Standards (ESCP, SEP, LMP, etc.) and (ii) structured capacity reinforcement to the PIU, SP-PRPF and other involved institutions’ focal points for efficient implementation of safeguard measures. . Legal Operational Policies Triggered? Projects on International Waterways OP 7.50 No Projects in Disputed Areas OP 7.60 No Summary of Screening of Environmental and Social Risks and Impacts of the IPF Component . . CONTACT POINT World Bank Name : Lorena Vinuela Designation : Senior Public Sector Specialist Role : Team Leader(ADM Responsible) Telephone No : 5220+31478 / Email : lvinuela@worldbank.org Name : Sadia Aderonke Afolabi Designation : Governance Specialist Role : Team Leader Telephone No : 5220+87628 / Email : safolabi1@worldbank.org Name : Saidou Diop Designation : Lead Governance Specialist Role : Team Leader Telephone No : 5336+6751 / Email : dsaidou@worldbank.org Borrower/Client/Recipient Borrower : Republic of Togo Contact : Stephane Akaya Title : Permanent Secretary Telephone No : 0022890133082 Email : stephane.akaya@gmail.com Implementing Agencies Jul 08, 2022 Page 14 of 15 The World Bank Togo Public Sector Capacity Strengthening for Service Delivery (P176883) Implementing Presidence de la Republique Agency : Contact : Stephane Akaya Title : Secretaire Permanent Telephone No : 01122890133082 Email : stephane.akaya@gmail.com FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT The World Bank 1818 H Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20433 Telephone: (202) 473-1000 Web: http://www.worldbank.org/projects Jul 08, 2022 Page 15 of 15