Accountability makes development banks more effective

Every dollar entrusted to a development bank carries an obligation to improve lives and demonstrate that it has. The evidence that allows the public to hold us accountable must also guide the decisions that make us effectiv The stakes are rising. The OECD reports that official development assistance dropped by 23% in 2025, its largest recorded fall, with a further decline projected for 2026. Countries face mounting pressure on development finance, and every allocation carries a greater opportunity cost. Public confidence depends on a credible answer to a direct question: what difference does our work make? For too long, reporting and delivery have been treated as separate tasks. Teams implemented projects; results systems documented performance, often after the main decisions had been taken. Reporting and delivery must instead become parts of the same discipline: achieving outcomes. This conviction brought the Islamic Development Bank Group, the African Development Bank Group and the World Bank Group together in Jeddah for our Results Knowledge Exchange Day. Building on our dialogue in Abidjan, we examined how results frameworks can guide decisions, withstand scrutiny and adapt as priorities evolve. Accountability strengthens effectiveness through three disciplines: clear commitments, credible evidence and corrective action. Clear commitments drive focused effort and accountability Accountability begins by making clear what we intend to change, for whom and by when. That clarity gives citizens and shareholders a basis for judging performance and management a basis for choosing where to invest, what to prioritize and which trade-offs to make. This is the outcome reflex: making the question “What will this decision do for outcomes?” instinctive. This requires selectivity. A manageable set of meaningful outcomes can concentrate attention and connect institutional ambition to daily decisions. Targets should reflect country and institutional priorities and be supported by evidence on quality, distribution and sustainability. Otherwise, an institution can hit the target while missing the point. Frameworks must evolve with strategy while maintaining focus and comparability over time. The same logic applies across the multilateral development bank system. When several banks support a country's energy transition, job creation or inclusive productivity, shared objectives help governments coordinate contributions. This works best when solutions are country-led and embedded in national systems. Mission 300, the joint African Development Bank Group–World Bank Group effort built around government-led national energy compacts, shows how shared targets and reporting can make collective progress visible. Stronger country data systems can reduce duplication, reveal gaps and improve coordination around outcomes that countries own. Credible evidence improves decisions A public commitment becomes credible when others can examine the evidence behind it. Methods should be transparent, limitations explicit and claims proportionate to what the data establish. Every reported result should be traceable through an agreed indicator and documented method to its source data, preferably from national systems. Results achieved must be distinguished from results expected, and country-level progress from results our operations helped deliver. Where several partners contribute, harmonized approaches can explain each institution's contribution, avoid double counting and make results easier to compare and use. These disciplines strengthen management as well as accountability. Independent evaluation can expose weak assumptions before they shape new investments. Feedback from affected communities can reveal whether services reported as available are reliable and accessible. Scrutiny helps us understand both whether progress occurred and why. Private capital illustrates this connection. Comparable measures of mobilization make financial contributions easier to assess. Examining how that capital supports firms, services and jobs helps identify which interventions should be scaled. Our institutions bring complementary experience to this work. The IsDB Group is developing a common Group results framework through its Group Impact Framework for Transformation. The African Development Bank Group's Results Management Framework tracks its contribution to Africa’s development progress through a streamlined set of indicators, while MapAfrica opens project and results data to public scrutiny. The World Bank Group's Scorecard connects public reporting with operational decisions. Learning across these approaches can strengthen both the claims we make and the choices we take. Corrective action improves delivery Accountability becomes operational when evidence leads to timely course correction. When delivery falls short, institutions must respond by reallocating resources, revising an intervention or addressing a constraint before performance deteriorates further. Evidence creates value only when it changes decisions. Consider an electricity investment. Financing approved, infrastructure built and connections made are important measures of progress. But if connected businesses still face outages that limit growth, evidence should redirect attention toward reliability and utility performance. The same information that explains disappointing outcomes to the public also helps management identify what needs fixing. This demands a culture in which candor leads to action. If accountability rewards only favorable numbers, it can encourage easy targets, delayed disclosure and avoidance of difficult development challenges. A credible system must demand rigorous evidence and a serious response to setbacks. The African Development Bank Group's latest Annual Development Effectiveness Review, for example, traced shortfalls in some completed operations to weaknesses in design and results tracking – evidence that is informing measures to strengthen quality, results and learning. Changing course when evidence demands it is an act of accountability. Digital systems and well-governed artificial intelligence can help teams identify bottlenecks sooner and bring evidence into decisions. Their value depends on sound data, human judgment and the authority to act. Faster information improves delivery only when institutions respond to what it reveals. From accountability to effectiveness Clear commitments anchored in country priorities focus effort. Credible and traceable evidence makes claims verifiable and improves decisions. Corrective action improves delivery by ensuring institutions respond when results fall short. Together, these disciplines connect the public's right to know with our responsibility to achieve results. For our three institutions, strengthening accountability is part of strengthening the effectiveness of the MDB system. Building on our dialogues in Abidjan, Nairobi and Jeddah, we will continue working together on harmonized indicators, including for jobs and private capital mobilization, and on stronger country data systems that governments can use for their own decisions. One such example of this collaboration is PIUneer (Project Implementation Units for Results), an initiative led by MDBs and development partners, which aims to equip results professionals with shared skills and standards to turn evidence into action. The public should be able to see what changed because we acted, and what we changed because we learned. Outcomes are where those two obligations become one.