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Accountability in Complex Organizations: World Bank Responses to Civil Society

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Listed:
  • Alnoor Ebrahim

    (Harvard Business School, General Management Unit)

  • Steve Herz

    (Lotus Global Advocacy)

Abstract

Civil society actors have been pushing for greater accountability of the World Bank for at least three decades. This paper outlines the range of accountability mechanisms currently in place at the World Bank along four basic levels: (1) staff, (2) project, (3) policy, and (4) board governance. We argue that civil society organizations have been influential in pushing for greater accountability at the project and policy levels, particularly through the establishment and enforcement of social and environmental safeguards and complaint and response mechanisms. But they have been much less successful in changing staff incentives for accountability to affected communities, or in improving board accountability through greater transparency in decision making, more representative vote allocation, or better parliamentary scrutiny. In other words, although civil society efforts have led to some gains in accountability with respect to Bank policies and projects, the deeper structural features of the institution - the incentives staff face and how the institution is governed- remain largely unchanged.

Suggested Citation

  • Alnoor Ebrahim & Steve Herz, 2007. "Accountability in Complex Organizations: World Bank Responses to Civil Society," Harvard Business School Working Papers 08-027, Harvard Business School.
  • Handle: RePEc:hbs:wpaper:08-027
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    Cited by:

    1. Eastwood Lauren E, 2011. "Resisting Dispossession: Indigenous Peoples, the World Bank and the Contested Terrain of Policy," New Global Studies, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-33, April.
    2. Shuching Chou & Fengyi Lin, 2011. "Bank's risk-taking and ownership structure - evidence for economics in transition stage," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(12), pages 1551-1564.
    3. Arjan de Haan & Ward Warmerdam, 2012. "The politics of aid revisited: a review of evidence on state capacity and elite commitment," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series esid-007-12, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    4. Shuching Chou & Tze-Yu Yen & Yen-Hui Kuo, 2011. "Internet Information Relevance of Financial Institutions: Evidence from Taiwan," Review of Pacific Basin Financial Markets and Policies (RPBFMP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 14(04), pages 647-670.

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