Q&A with John Virdin, Director, Ocean and Coastal Policy Program _Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University_ _In this Q&A, CEA spoke with John Virdin

about the priority-setting process, staffing structure, and funding flows for marine investments at the World Bank (the Bank). This interview provides a glimpse into the functioning of a key

development aid institution by identifying how the Bank supports developing country governments to reform fisheries, reduce poverty, and improve fisheries management and governance._

_Before transitioning to Duke University in early 2015, Virdin worked at the Bank for over a decade, including supporting the development of programs that provided more than US $125 million

(concessional loans), or receive grants. These concessional loans offer the governments funds that wouldn’t otherwise be available, because they can borrow below market rate, at zero or

very low interest and with payments stretched over 25 to 40 years. All of these IDA loans and grants will typically be based on a three-year strategy developed by the Bank with each

government, usually called a “country partnership framework.” In many cases, the development banks and other donors will collaborate to develop joint strategies to support a given country,

based on principles of donor harmonization. So this means that development banks’ lending decisions are largely decentralized and driven by discussions between the banks and governments

(usually the ministry of finance), and dictated by these multi-year strategies aimed at reducing poverty over that timeframe. If the fisheries sector is going to be financed by the Bank or

any of the development banks, it will usually need to be prioritized in the Bank’s multi-year strategy for support to each country. CEA: HOW DO FISHERIES “MAKE THE CUT” ON THE INVESTMENT

LIST FOR DEVELOPMENT BANKS? VIRDIN: A lot of the effort upstream in developing a project is to talk with the ministry of finance and other relevant government agencies and to make sure that

the countries are prioritizing fisheries on their shortlist in the multi-year strategy. If fisheries do not make the cut in the shortlist of development priorities for the ministry of

finance, and then subsequently into the Bank’s support strategy, then it doesn’t happen. This is a demand-driven and decentralized process; you really have to work at the country level to

drive demand for fisheries reform on the ground. CEA: WHAT DOES THE STAFFING STRUCTURE AT THE BANK LOOK LIKE? WHO IS INVOLVED IN MAKING DECISIONS RELATED TO FISHERIES INVESTMENTS? VIRDIN:

The Bank’s technical staff are organized into global practices. In addition, there are country departments headed by Country Directors who are responsible for leading the day-to-day dialogue

with the governments and determining the Bank’s lending strategy in that particular country. The Country Director is the Bank’s key decision maker for projects. He or she must sign off on

all lending by the World Bank in the respective country, which is based on priorities articulated by the minister of finance and captured in the Bank’s multi-year strategy for the country

(i.e., the country partnership framework). Once that happens, the relevant technical staff from the global practices work with the country department and the government agencies to develop

the investment. CEA: CAN YOU COMMENT ON THE UNIQUE TIMELINES THAT GUIDE THE WORK OF THE BANK AND PHILANTHROPY? VIRDIN: The Bank can make a long-term commitment in principle if not in actual

funding. It might say, “This will be a series of loans for ten years, and we’ll guarantee funding for the first five years now.” One of the challenges is that fisheries reform is on the

decadal, not annual scale. Yet the Bank and other development banks are still a bank, and need to get money out the door to countries. So they have built-in incentives to do a smaller number

of projects with a higher commitment amount, and to get it out the door fast — for example, a roads project. This is often more attractive than smaller projects to support governance of

common pool resources like fisheries or forestry, which are areas that foundation might be able to help support. CEA: DO YOU SEE ANY COMPLEMENTARITY IN THE SCALE OF THE BANK’S FUNDING

COUPLED WITH THE POTENTIALLY MORE FLEXIBLE FUNDING OF FOUNDATIONS? VIRDIN: Absolutely. The Bank’s money is allocated to governments, and the results achieved are only as good as the efforts

that governments put into implementing them. For example, Peru must fix its own fisheries, and the Bank staff can only encourage government accountability in reaching that goal and provide

support to the government teams spending the funds. In comparison, foundations have a lot more flexibility in that they do not have to go through the government or a three-year financing

plan. They can just go out and directly fund research, local universities, and civil society. The two sectors can fund different types of things over different timescales, but you still must

work at the country level. The big picture is that the Bank has large amounts of capital for governments to work with, to support the transition costs of fisheries reform over time. There

is a fundamental opportunity that foundations can meet: to drive demand at the government level for fisheries reform. This takes a lot of sustained engagement and consensus building. One

alternative is for foundations to set up a seed fund to support the type of things that the Bank doesn’t traditionally fund and to leverage development aid funding. This might mean working

with the Bank to support macro/bioeconomic analysis upstream within the Bank and facilitate country-level analysis to identify good concepts and make the case for fisheries to be on the

shortlist for investment funds. This approach is not guaranteed by any means and would take a long time to develop. Foundations wouldn’t have as much control over spending as they normally

have. CEA: LET’S SAY A FOUNDATION IS INTERESTED IN WORKING WITH THE BANK. CAN YOU SKETCH OUT IN PRACTICAL DETAIL WHAT THIS WOULD LOOK LIKE AND HOW YOU START BUILDING THOSE RELATIONSHIPS?

VIRDIN: You need to start working together more on a day-to-day level. There might be five to ten Senior Fisheries Specialists at the Bank (maybe more) who are guiding strategy and lending

on fisheries projects around the world. Find out who these people are, and then start working with them at the country level. It’s important to recognize that most people in these positions

have busy schedules, so they may not immediately have the white space to have a monthly call with a foundation to talk about alignment. But if you can get connections to Bank staff at the

country level, then a foundation could independently fund grantees in a way that supports the Bank’s work in that country. Or they could form a foundation donor collaborative in a country,

such as the Indonesia Marine Funders Collaborative [i]. I would say the Bank is receptive to interacting with foundations, but it will be largely ad-hoc, informal, and based on opportunities

and relationships. It’s difficult to do this across several countries; you really need to build one-off relationships. At a systematic level, this might look like a multi-donor trust fund

that would provide funding across multiple governments. CEA: WHAT ABOUT STUDIES LIKE THE SUNKEN BILLIONS? IS IT VALUABLE FOR FOUNDATIONS TO PROVIDE FUNDING TO SUPPORT THIS TYPE OF RESEARCH

TO INFLUENCE FUNDING PRIORITIES AND POLICY GOALS? VIRDIN: The Sunken Billions is helpful for raising the profile of fisheries and putting concepts in the hands of project teams. But you need

to realize that all other sectors at the Bank are doing their own version of The Sunken Billions to make the case for their respective lost “billions.” The Bank is facing 15 of these

reports and it needs to whittle this down to four sectors on which to focus across its full lending portfolio. While big research projects like The Sunken Billions provide helpful framing,

it might be more worthwhile for foundations to develop concrete policy notes at the country level and to support sustained policy engagement through activities like in-country capacity

building workshops and dialogue with governments. CEA: WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE BANK’S PRIORITIES FOR THE NEXT FIVE TO TEN YEARS? VIRDIN: In my own view, priorities may become very place-based

and geographically oriented, not policy oriented at the global scale — based on the Bank’s delivery model. Personally, I’d suggest three main priorities: * LOOK FOR THE BIGGEST BANG FOR THE

BUCK: Where are the places with the need and opportunity to rebuild the largest portion of the world’s fisheries and reduce the most poverty? I would literally take out a map and look for

opportunities to grow the portfolio. * HORIZONTALLY CONNECT THE DOTS (SOUTH-SOUTH COORDINATION): Are there opportunities to promote South-South learning and exchanges, and to set up

structured processes for staff from, say the Solomon Islands to speak with Senegalese leaders? Connect leaders from the bright spots, rather than have it as a North-South-driven process. *

COMMUNICATION: Show that this is not hypothesis. You can invest in fisheries at scale, and it will pay off. I think we’ve gotten past the point of making the case that fisheries reform is

needed and will have net economic benefits. We need large-scale demonstrations of how to apply this in the tropics, and the development banks are well-positioned to help do this. [i] _The

IMFC is a donor collaborative that provides marine funders a platform to discuss their mutual interest in the long-term health of Indonesia’s marine ecosystems. Through this exchange,

foundations have attempted to learn directly from fellow Indonesian colleagues, international experts, and each other about marine conservation work in Indonesia. The John D. and Catherine

T. MacArthur Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, the Margaret A. Cargill Foundation, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation have been core members of the collaborative since 2012.

Other foundations have occasionally joined these dialogues._