Workshops on selected topics will provide a unique and valuable opportunity for pri-vate sector leaders, high-level government delegations and senior officials from the international monetary fund and the world bank group, other development agencies,and heads of nongovernmental organizations to share knowledge on and experiences with best practices in key areas of concern and activity. The focus is on specific international monetary fund and world bank group products, reports and services. Staff will be available to answer questions and discuss their work in these important areas. Workshops are open to all registered annual meetings participants. Seating is limited and on a first-come, first-served basis.

Friday, September 22

11:00 am – 12:30 pm
Workshop COMMUNITY-DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT
Community-driven development can be an important element of poverty reduction strategies, by achieving immediate and lasting results at the “grass-roots level”. Community-driven development has the potential to make allocation of resources more responsive to the needs of the poor, to lead to more sustainable outcomes, and to increase the power of poor communities to interact with government, the private sector, and civil society. While many local successes have been achieved, they have not been multiplied, replicated on the scale required. Against this backdrop, the main objective of the seminar will be to explore sustainable ways to take community-driven development to scale, by fostering partnerships between communities, the private sector, local governments, and civil society.
What are the links between community-driven approaches and poverty reduction?
What are the options of the institutional and organizational arrangements needed for creating the proper incentives to scale up community-driven development, including the necessary mechanisms for decentralization, and macro policies and legal frameworks?
What are the mechanisms for sustainable financing of community-driven programs?
How can community-driven development be used more effectively as a main element of the World Bank’s poverty reduction strategy?
What lessons have been learned from experience?

3:45 – 5:00 pm
Workshop THE COMPREHENSIVE DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK (CDF): LONG-TERM SUSTAINABLE POVERTY REDUCTION UNDER COUNTRY LEADERSHIP
The Comprehensive Development Framework (CDF) builds on the lessons of development experience. It is anchored on four key principles: developing a long-term, comprehensive policy framework through a process of national consultations; building stronger country ownership of the development agenda; promoting more effective partnerships; and advancing a sharper focus on development outcomes. Since its introduction in January, 1999, implementation of the CDF concept and principles has been monitored in the following 12 countries: Bolivia, Côte d’Ivoire, the Dominican Republic, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Jordan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Morocco, Romania, Uganda, Vietnam, and West Bank and Gaza. The workshop will gather development policy makers to focus on: What are the lessons from the pilot and non-pilot countries implementing the CDF approach?
What are the challenges ahead?
How can we move forward?
What is the wider applicability of the CDF approach to other countries including the implications for the practices and procedures of development agencies and developing country governments?

Saturday, September 23

11:00 am – 12:30 pm
Workshop SMALL STATES: ENHANCING EFFECTIVENESS OF DONOR ASSISTANCE
Small developing countries (loosely identified as those developing countries with 1.5 million people or less) face special challenges in the global economy. Limited capacity, undiversified production, susceptibility to natural disasters and environmental change, and, in some cases, remoteness and isolation are some of the characteristics that make small states and economies particularly vulnerable. At the Development Committee meeting in April 2000, ministers welcomed the Commonwealth Secretariat/ World Bank Joint Task Force report, Small States: Meeting Challenges in the Global Economy. This report discussed the special circumstances of small states and recommended that such circumstances be taken into account in the programs of the multilateral trade, finance, and development organizations such as the World Bank Group, International Monetary Fund, Regional Development Banks, World Trade Organization, United Nations Development Programme, and others. This workshop will be of interest to the representatives of small states.
What is the international development community doing to follow up in the priority areas identified in the task force report?
How can the multilateral institutions and other donors harmonize their policies and procedures to reduce the demands on small states’ scarce institutional capacity and more proactively address the needs of the small states?

2:00 – 3:15 pm
Workshop FINANCIAL SYSTEM STABILITY: ASSESSMENT AND POLICY RESPONSES
Recent episodes of financial system crises resulted in serious disruptions of financial intermediation and resource allocation, adverse effects on macro-economic policies and performance, loss of output and wealth, and negative spillover effects for the international community. As a result, a renewed interest has emerged in identifying the factors that make financial systems more resilient to domestic and external shocks and contribute to financial system stability. Moreover, consensus on the need to strengthen the assessment and monitoring of conditions and performance of financial systems grew at a fast pace and it is, by now, well established. The session will focus on the key conditions for financial stability and will take stock of current efforts by the international community and by national authorities to strengthen the assessment and monitoring of financial systems.
What key conditions are required to make financial systems more resilient to adverse shocks and foster financial system stability?
What lessons and challenges in assessing financial system risks and vulnerabilities have emerged in recent years, including assessing observance of international standards, codes, and good practices?
What tools are available to assess financial systems?

3:45 – 5:00 pm
Workshop PROMOTING WOMEN IN BUSINESS AND THE ECONOMY: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE BOTTOM LINE AND FOR DEVELOPMENT
New evidence from a World Bank Policy Research Report on gender and development shows that gender equality fosters economic growth and poverty reduction. Likewise, in the private sector, the experience of several major corporations shows that gender equality in the workplace is good for the bottom line. Given the new evidence presented in the Policy Research Report, this workshop will further explore the links to gender equality both in the private sector and in terms of poverty reduction. The authors of the Policy Research Report will highlight their main findings, and panelists from government and the private sector will discuss steps that development community donors and business should take – or avoid – to ensure the promotion of women and growth of national economies and private enterprises. This workshop is aimed at decision-makers in both the public and private sectors with an interest in promoting diversity, empowering key client groups, and ensuring growth.
What is the rationale for gender equality in economic development and in the private sector?
What do we know about the benefits and costs of gender equality for the bottom line and for development?
What lessons can be drawn from the development community’s experiences in terms of promoting gender equality?
What are specific steps that corporations can take to promote women that will also improve their competitive advantage, and empower key client groups?

Sunday, September 24

9:30 – 11:00 am
Workshop CORPORATE GOVERNANCE:THE USE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FOR THE PROTECTION OF SHAREHOLDERS RIGHTS
Corporate governance has worldwide importance. The corporation has a vital role to play in promoting economic development, and social progress. After the recent global financial crises that unleashed unprecedented volatility in markets and led to currency adjustments, defaults and capital flight with the brunt borne by the poor, reform on governance can no longer be viewed as a national or local issue only. Globalization has brought the need for international efforts to ensure that growth is sustained and shared. On June 21, 1999, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank to sponsor the Global Corporate Governance Forum and to cooperate on establishing a range of corporate governance roundtables. The workshop will present the developments that have taken place in this domain since the signing of the MOU followed. A panel discussion will then follow on the use of information technology for the protection of shareholders’ rights.
What has happened since the signature of the MOU between the World Bank and the OECD?
How can information technology be used to pro-tect shareholders rights, for example, allowing shareholders to vote by e-mail?

2:00 – 3:30 pm
Workshop AFRICA IN THE 21 ST CENTURY
Contrary to popular belief, Africa’s economic performance has improved in the second half of the 1990s. This workshop will review Africa’s achievements and priority areas for action as it moves into the new century. These include improving governance and preventing conflict, investing in people, accelerating economic diversification, and developing more effective aid relationships. The workshop will be based on a collaborative research report involving the World Bank, the African Development Bank, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the African Economic Research Consortium, and the Global Coalition for Africa.
What are the next steps toward accelerated growth and poverty reduction?
Can Africa claim the 21 st century?

4:00 – 5:30 pm
Workshop COLLABORATION BETWEEN THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND AND THE WORLD BANK IN POSTCONFLICT COUNTRIES: THE CASE OF EAST TIMOR
East Timor – the first state of the 21 st century – is moving rapidly from near-destruction to a phase of reconstruction and development. The pace of this change crucially depends on the availability of indigenous institutional capacity, which is scarce and which takes time to build. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have been part of the process and are assisting East Timor to reach the path of sustainable development. The workshop will focus on: How can the Bretton Woods institutions together with the United Nations and the international community at large assist East Timor to handle its own development?
What lessons have been learned so far from the collaboration effort to rebuild East Timor?
Are these lessons applicable to other postconflict situations?

Monday, September 25

11:00 am – 12:30 pm
Workshop UNLOCKING THE HIDDEN VALUE OF FINANCIAL AND ECONOMIC DATA IN SPREADSHEETS
Spreadsheets are here to stay as powerful and easy-to-use tools for analyzing financial and economic data. But when vital corporate or institutional time series data become locked within a tangled web of incomprehensible spreadsheets, data sharing is thwarted, efficiency plummets, and data integrity becomes questionable. In this session, the presenters will demonstrate and discuss how a low-cost solution to this widespread problem was implemented in two central banks within a few months’ time. The seminar is aimed toward senior officials interested in financial and economic data management issues including organization-wide data sharing, advanced data analyses, and more transparent data publication.
Are there proven solutions to this difficult problem that don’t involve a multiyear, multimillion dollar data warehousing project or mass revolt among analysts?
Can staff continue to take advantage of the familiarity, convenience and power of spreadsheets, while linking their spreadsheets to a well-structured, back-end database?
How can this same technology be used to augment the analytical capabilities of Excel to include standard time-series techniques, such as potential output estimation, seasonal adjustment and basic forecasting, all of which can aid economic analysis and policy formulation?
What is required to apply this solution, that has proved to be so effective in these two central banks, in other organizations?

2:00 – 4:00 pm
Workshop DEVELOPING POVERTY REDUCTION STRATEGIES – SOME EARLY LESSONS AND EXPERIENCES
This workshop will include senior policymakers from countries taking part in the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers program. Donors and non-governmental representatives will discuss the experiences to date. Bank and Fund staff will respond to questions on a series of emerging issues.
Has the process of participation and consensus building influenced the content and quality of strategies?
Have participatory processes been designed to be inclusive without undermining democratic institutions?
Has the process succeeded in achieving greater donor collaboration? Is there a “best practice”?