Best Practices

General Operational Policies*

BASIC GUIDELINES

General Policy

The Bank may make available technical advice and assistance, particularly for:

• The preparation, financing, and execution of development plans and projects, including studies on priorities and the development of loan proposals for specific national or regional development projects.

• The development and training, through seminars and other forms of instruction, of personnel specializing in the formulation and implementation of development plans and projects.

The terms "technical assistance" and "technical cooperation" are used synonymously in the Bank.

Objective

The purpose of the Bank's technical cooperation activities is to contribute to the transfer of such know-how and expertise as may be relevant to the economic and social development of the developing member countries.

Technical Cooperation Operations

From the standpoint of its relationship to other Bank operations, technical cooperation may be classified as follows:

PART OF A LOAN: Assistance identified, in a separate cost category, as technical cooperation in Annex A to a loan contract.

PARALLEL TO A LOAN: Technical assistance processed in conjunction with a Bank loan, but not part of the cost of the project(s) financed through that loan.

INDEPENDENT OF A LOAN: Technical assistance not directly related to a loan.

Eligibility

COUNTRIES. The Bank provides technical assistance to its developing member countries. For purposes of applying its lending and technical assistance policies, the Bank has arranged countries by group according to their relative level of development in the region (see OP­307).

REGIONS. The Bank also provides subregional or regional technical cooperation when two or more countries, or the region as a whole, stand to benefit from the assistance.

INSTITUTIONS. The following institutions of the borrowing member countries of the Bank are eligible to receive technical assistance:

• National governments and their political subdivisions.

• The rest of the public sector, nongovernmental organizations (ONGs), and private entities with the legal authority to borrow funds and receive technical assistance.

• Regional and subregional organizations composed of member countries that are beneficiaries of Bank operations.

SECTORS. Technical assistance may be provided to different national economic sectors, with particular focus on areas such as human resources and the environment.

Fields of Activity

PREINVESTMENT. The Bank provides technical assistance for the countries in the field of preinvestment, helping them at various stages in the preparation of specific investment projects.

• Basic Studies. Economic and social studies to identify priority areas, and studies of sectors, subsectors, and geographic areas to identify potential projects.

• Prefeasibility Studies. Studies designed to examine viable project alternatives from the technical and economic standpoints.

• Feasibility Studies. In-depth studies of the viable alternative that emerged from the prefeasibility study. If the alternative is found to be acceptable, steps are taken to prepare the final design of the project.

• Final Design. The orderly presentation of data relating to the project, duly adjusted. The design should also contain all the details relating to the feasibility, design, organization, and execution of a project in its technical, financial, and legal aspects.

INSTITUTION STRENGTHENING. The Bank provides technical assistance for the creation, organization, and strengthening of institutions involved in the economic and social development process, particularly those with responsibility for executing development plans and projects and those with responsibility for preinvestment activities. Technical assistance for institution-building mainly bears on matters related to the creation or modification of institutions, organization, the design of systems and procedures, staff training, and the adoption of new technology.

INVESTING EXECUTION. The Bank provides technical assistance for institutions in charge of carrying out projects financed through Bank loans to ensure that:

• the techniques best suited to the management of financial and human resources are adopted;

• the technical and economic objectives of projects are attained.

DEVELOPMENT PLANNING. Technical cooperation in this field comprises activities that contribute to the improvement of:

• Institutional capacity to prepare general, sector, subsector, and regional development plans.

• Coordination of institutions that work in the field of planning.

• Formulation of development policies and criteria for identifying high priority projects.

• Formulation of national preinvestment programs and preparation of specific technical-cooperation requests.

MOBILIZATION OF RESOURCES. The Bank provides technical assistance for studies and measures related to the mobilization and management of domestic resources in general, fiscal policy and management, and programming the use of external financial resources.
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Prevailing Reference Documents:
AT­80­10, March 1974,
AB­1704, August 1994.

* The operational policies of the Inter-American Development Bank are intended to provide operational guidance to staff in assisting the Bank's borrowing member countries. Over the course of the Bank's more than 40 years of operations, the approach to developing operational policies has taken various forms, ranging from the preparation of detailed guidelines to broad statements of principle and intent. Many policies have not been updated since they were originally issued, and a few reflect emphases and approaches of earlier years which have been superseded by specific mandates of the Bank's Governors, the most recent being the Eighth Replenishment mandates of 1994. In accordance with the Bank's information disclosure policy, the Bank is making all of its operational policies available to the public through the Public Information Center. Users please note that the Bank's operational policies are under a process of continuous review. This review process includes preparation of best practice papers summarizing experience at the Bank and other similar institutions, and sector strategy papers.

General Operational Policies Sectoral Opertional Policies Information Disclosure Policy Procurement Policy