3 July 2007
Civil society groups are calling for candidates with clear commitments to accountability and deep understanding of civil society and grassroots impacts of World Bank investments.
The World Bank is in the midst of hiring a new member of its Inspection Panel. Civil society groups are calling for candidates with clear commitments to accountability and deep understanding of civil society and grassroots impacts of World Bank investments. The unique character and responsibility of the panel requires a transparent and inclusive selection process.
The current Chairperson of the panel, Edith Brown Weiss, is completing her 5 year term and will be stepping off the panel as of August 31, 2007. When the Bank announced the vacancy for this position, it did provided only a four week window for applications and did not widely circulate the announcement. BIC and CIEL (Center for International Environmental Law) protested, prompting the Bank to extend the application deadline by several weeks. Given that civil society groups are important stakeholders in the panel’s work, BIC and CIEL also called for a role for civil society in the selection process of new panel members. This request was rejected by the Bank. Audaciously, the Bank stated that civil society organizations should not be involved in the selection process as they may be potential “interested parties” in future panel cases, ignoring the central role Bank management—an “interested party” if there ever was one—plays in the selection process.
The selection committee is comprised of the Chinese Executive Director Ms. Jiayi Zou (Chair of CODE), the German Executive Director Eckhard Deutscher (Dean of the Board), the Bank’s General Counsel Ana Palacio, and Bank Vice President Jeffrey Gutman.
Reportedly, the selection committee has short-listed four candidates for the vacancy, though no information has been publicly shared on applications or status of the hiring process.
Procedures outlined in 2003 for the selection of Inspection Panel members states that the process “should be orderly, timely and transparent.” The current process has lacked from transparency from the start.
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