This activity supported the organization of training events outside of World Bank's headquarters by GPOBA's Knowledge and Learning team. OBA experts conducted sesssions targeting World Bank Country Office Staff and other development partners. These training  events  were  focused  on  building OBA awareness within the external development community with the aim of mainstreaming OBA within other development agencies, partners,  and other relevant audiences.  This activity was part of the Broad Learning pillar of GPOBA’s Knowledge and Learning  Program,  one of  the three business lines of GPOBA’s Center of Expertise in FY12. 

This activity's purpose was to increase the knowledge and understanding of OBA/RBFproject design and implementation among existing and potential  practitioners, and to further mainstream OBA approaches. 

This activity was closed and met deliverables as planned, including 5 OBApproaches (OBA in FCS, OBA in Solid Waste, Mali Renewable Energy, Philippines Health and Kenya Commercial Finance, along with a Lessons Learned on Bangladesh Solar Home Systems.   

The impact evaluation was to assess the development impacts of the Reproductive Health Vouchers in Western Uganda Project.

The project aimed to provide diagnoses and treatment of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) and safe child birth-related services.

The safe child birth component included ante-natal and post-natal visits as well as birth attendance by trained professionals, and provision of caesarean section. The project employed a voucher scheme targeting rural and poor peri-urban populations living in the areas of approved providers in the greater Mbarara region in western Uganda.

The project was expected to provide: Safe delivery - Decrease infant mortality - Decrease maternal mortality - Decrease maternal injuries related to delivery - Decrease child morbidity related to low birth weight and lack of prenatal care / skilled delivery - Increase productivity resulting from reduced morbidity Sexually transmitted diseases (STD) - Decrease morbidity of high risk target groups due to treatment - Decrease future morbidity due to behavioral change - Decrease productivity loss due to STDs.

This activity investigated financing, structuring and implementating of sustainableirrigation schemes in developing countries targeting low- income farmers,  and explores ways to introduce OBA, with these objectives:

• Develop a better understanding of sustainable small-scale irrigation schemes
• Evaluate the scope of OBA for supporting poor farmers.
• Develop contractual arrangements to support sustainable small-scale irrigation schemes benefiting from OBA.

The  deliverables  were  completed. As an outcome, GPOBA  developed its first OBA grant in irrigation with IFC in Burkina Faso, for which the GPOBA Panel of Experts approved the Project Concept Note with a provisional amount of $4.4 million.
The Concept Note was aligned with World Bank Group's Sahel Initiative with its pledge of $1.5 billion to help the countries of the Sahel  region  tackle political, food, climatic, and security vulnerabilities.

The objective was to document the lessons from an Implementation and Completion Report (ICR) of the GPOBA-funded project completed in June 2012 which implemented a Rural Water Supply  pilot  in  Vietnam  via  community-based service  delivery  with  the  support  of  an  NGO.

The activity included three deliverables:
  Beneficiary assessment.
  Policy note consolidating best practices and lessons in rural water supply.
  Practitioners’  handbook  with  methodology and do’s and  don’ts for  donors,  governments, NGOs, private sector and  the independent verification process.

This activity had two phases: .
  Phase 1 –  Assessment of OBA in fragile states – with summary of experience,  including the factors for success/failures, and remedy actions, and recommendations for designing OBA programs in fragile states.
  Phase 2 –  Project Identification  – early leads for the project pipeline.

The study objectives were to prepare:
  a rapid assessment (baseline analysis) of the Moroni Municipal Solid  Wastes value chain (collection, transport, disposal etc.) with preliminary ideas of OBA/RBF,
  a feasibility study for the waste collection and management and a landfill,
  documentation for selecting an operator for waste collection and for the landfill;
  recommendations  on  OBA  and  RBF  design, taking  into account specifics of slums, environmental,  health  and social considerations, GHG emissions, and issues with Moroni city governance.

This was a joint World Bank-IFC initiative to scale up off-grid household renewable energy access in rural Nepal.  The objectives of the initiative were:
  Recommend  technical assistance and  investment options for scaling up rural mini-/ micro-hydropower;
  Recommend options for scaling up renewable technologies (PV, biogas, biomass cook stoves, improved water mills), and the role of OBA/RBF instruments;
  Recommend opportunities for micro-finance institutions,  financial  intermediaries  and  the private sector;
  Outline the World Bank Group prospects for support  to  the  Government's  recent  National Rural  Renewable  Energy  Program  and  Central Renewable Energy Fund.

This activity consisted of two in-country training events to be organized by the GPOBA Knowledge and Learning team and conducted by OBA experts. The targeted audiences were World Bank Country Office Staff in Cotonou and Dakar, other development partners (ODPs) and local government representatives in the West Africa region. These training events were focused on building awareness and operational knowledge of OBA within the external development community. During FY13, GPOBA planned to conduct three in-country training events;this objective would be met after delivering training sessions in the two upcoming country offices.

The objective was to document OBA project lessons in improving water access of poor household in the East Zone of Metro Manila and determine the  sustainability of the program. The work would feed into the design of a  scale-up  program  of  the  Government  of  the Philippines  and the Implementation Completion  Report  that  was  under  preparation.

Specifically, this project would determine:
  The  benefits  of  providing  subsidized  piped- water    supply    connections    to    low-income households;
  Outcomes     and     impacts     of     providing subsidized  piped-water  supply  connections  to low and poor income households specifically to women and children;
  If  the  provision  of  subsidized  piped-water connections   to   poor-income   households   is sustainable; and
  Factors    contributing    to    or    that    would influence     the     sustainability     of     providing subsidized  piped-water  supply  connections  to poor households.