Information disclosure at the international financial institutions (IFIs) has changed dramatically in the past decade. The World Bank was the first of these institutions to establish an information disclosure policy, in 1994.
Other institutions have since followed the Bank’s lead, developing and instituting disclosure policies of their own. Currently, the World Bank and four of the major regional development banks - the African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Inter-American Development Bank - have established requirements related to disclosure of information, a marked difference from 10 years ago.
Additionally, in the past several years many of the banks have revisited their disclosure policies to address rising concern with access to information at their institution. A review of the World Bank’s Disclosure Policy, publicly announced in the fall of 2000, resulted in the greater disclosure of structural adjustment documents, background information for projects under preparation and evaluation documents produced by the Bank’s Operations and Evaluations Department (OED). Once again instigated by the work of the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and Asian Development Bank (ADB) have either recently completed or are in the process of reviewing their institutional Disclosure Policies.