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p. 12 of 25 BACK | NEXT Introduction Background The need for change Practices of other multilateral development banks The World Bank The Inter-American Development Bank The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development The African Development Bank Policy framework Organizational and resource issues Recommendation

Resident Mission Policy : Practices of other multilateral development banks

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The Inter-American Development Bank

IADB has country offices in all 26 of its DMCs. The country offices play a key role in IADB’s overall assistance strategy and are members of a country team. Field-based staff are involved in external relations activities and throughout the project cycle, including country programming, project design, and project implementation. The country offices traditionally had primary responsibility for all project administration. In 1998, IADB introduced several measures to strengthen its country offices, including

1. greater involvement in country programming and project design,
2. business process reforms aimed at reducing routine contract administration procedures and increasing proactive project supervision,
3. enhancements in the level of staffing and technical expertise available, and
4. additional budget provisions for hiring consultants to resolve project implementation problems.

The country office generally has a professional staff complement that consists of a representative, deputy representative, financial specialist, administration officer, and a number of sector specialists; this may vary according to the country’s work program. As a general principle, IADB purchases office space in private buildings to accommodate current staff as well as provide future expansion space. As of December 1998, IADB had 467 of 1,711 total staff (27 percent) in its country offices; this included 148 headquarters-based professional staff (14 percent) of 1,057 total professional staff.

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