20 March 2009
New study by BIC shows that IFIs have fallen far short of matching project design with discourse when it comes to promoting a culture of accountability through their own project loans.
A new study by the Bank Information Center examines the extent to which the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) incorporate their outwardly promoted ideals and policies on participation and accountability in the design of their projects. The analysis seeks to highlight good practices and deficiencies in project by reviewing official Bank documents of 25 projects in Central and South America IFIs’ own official documents, this study aims to understand how the World Bank operationalizes its “accountability triangle” and how the IDB implements its 2004 “Strategy for Promoting Citizen Participation in the IDB activities” in the formulation and of the IFIs’ own projects.
Read the full study in English:
Accountability and Participation in the Design of World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank Projects: Starting Down the Road from Rhetoric to Action, By Vince McElhinny et al, Bank Information Center, November 2008 (PDF, 812KB)
Read full study in Spanish:
Rendición de cuentas y participación en el diseño de proyectos del Banco Mundial y del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo: De la retórica a las acciones, por Vince McElhinny et al, El Bank Information Center, Noviembre 2009 (PDF, 867KB)
The study’s sample included 25 projects from 9 countries, covering seven sectors: health, education, water and sanitation, decentralization, rural development, cash transfer programs, and social sector reforms. The methodology consisted of extensive analysis of project documents in the design phase (loan documents, project appraisal documents) to identify whether and how key elements of accountability and community participation were integrated into the project design. Specifically, we analyzed how and whether the projects incorporated the following five practices that are critical for fostering greater participation and accountability in Bank projects:
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stakeholder consultation in project design;
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project objectives that explicitly incorporate participation and accountability;
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effective information, dissemination and communications program;
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establishment of transparent and inclusive decision making processes and/or mechanisms during project implementation;
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monitoring and evaluation system that incorporates participation, empowerment and governance indicators and a community feedback loop. Each project was classified as achieving a good, standard-mediocre, or bad ranking in these five areas.
Overall, the assessment revealed a majority of standard-mediocre projects, with an equal number of projects falling in the bad and good practice category. Findings from the study paint a stark difference between the two banks, with the World Bank demonstrating a much better track record in terms of translating its rhetoric into practice. Notably, there was a predominance of rural development projects, based on the community driven development model, in the good practice category. Surprisingly, several social sector policy based loans incorporated key elements of participation and accountability revealing progress by both banks on this issue. Projects that incorporated few or no participation and accountability mechanisms included decentralization, and water and health sector loans. Four IDB projects scored a bad practice rating in each of the five practice categories.