15 September 2009
A workshop co-organized by the Bank Information Center (BIC), the World Bank’s Inspection Panel, and the IFC and MIGA’s Office of the Compliance/Ombudsman (CAO) was held in Marrakech, Morocco in late July 2009, and lasted three fruitful days.
The workshop entitled “Holding Development Banks Accountable in North Africa” included participants from Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania and of course Morocco, all of whom brought a variety of interests and experiences to the table such as women’s rights, ecological sustainability, and transparency, among other issues.
BIC’s MENA program manager, Amy Ekdawi, kicked off the workshop with an interactive presentation about the international financial institutions (IFIs) with a focus on the World Bank Group (WBG), the structures of power that exist within the various institutions, and the role that civil society can play in the development decision-making process. While most people in the room had heard of the WBG and the institutions that fall under it, they were definitely more familiar with the World Bank than they were with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) or the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) and were thus naturally more interested in what was familiar to them.
The second day of the workshop was dedicated to the concept of accountability at the development banks and how civil society organizations (CSOs) can hold the institutions accountable when they encounter problematic projects associated with them. Here, the Inspection Panel, CAO, and the African Development Bank’s Independent Review Mechanism (IRM) all gave extremely informative and practical presentations and fielded a barrage of non-stop questions – which were often directed at Inspection Panel Chairman Werner Kiene. Although participants were more interested in the Inspection Panel, associated with the public sector of the WBG (consisting of the International Development Association (IDA), and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) which together make up the World Bank), the private arm of the WBG consisting of IFC and MIGA, is also a highly important player in the global political economy and are deserving of an equal level of attention.
The final day was an opportunity for individuals to build networks and develop plans for how they could monitor WBG projects and programs together in the future. In this session, participants organized themselves by country and brainstormed ideas on how to become more involved in the oversight of World Bank/IFC projects in their respective countries. They also discussed how to develop and maintain working relationships with the World Bank country offices.
That day, there was also a brief presentation by CAO on the IFC’s Performance Standards and Policies, and BIC/MENA explained about the upcoming review on these Performance Standards, the first consultation for which, will be held in early October in Istanbul during the Civil Society Policy Forum of the World Bank/International Monetary Fund Annual Meetings. Although most of the Morocco workshop participants will not be attending these meetings, BIC expects that there will be world-wide consultations, similar to those that took place for the review of the World Bank’s Policy on the Disclosure of Information earlier this year. It is for this reason that this section was included in the workshop.
Outcomes
One of the most important things to come out of this workshop was a solid network of individuals in Morocco concerned with transparency at the WBG. After the workshop in Marrakech, many of the Moroccan participants held a meeting in Rabat a few days later to discuss practical ways of moving forward with monitoring transparency at the World Bank. They decided to form a network and develop a more concrete program with a specific action plan to firstly monitor the World Bank’s involvement in Morocco and secondly, to raise awareness among citizens about the Bank’s activities in the country. BIC is currently working on a country study of WBG involvement in Morocco to be used as a resource for this network.
This was an opportunity for individuals from North African civil society who are working on development issues, to come together and share their experiences with others as well as relay to BIC, the Inspection Panel and CAO what their major concerns are with issues related to accountability at the WBG. For many, the pressing issues had to do with the fact that social and environmental safeguards were not adequate. For others, a major problem was the lack of information available to them or accessible to them.
Although BIC’s MENA program has had to select a limited number of countries in the region to focus its work on (Yemen, Egypt and Morocco are the current focus countries), meeting participants from other non-focus countries in the region (Algeria, Tunisia and Libya) and from a country outside of the official MENA region (Mauritania) was important to exchange information and add to their informational resources with respect to the IFIs’ involvement in their countries. BIC has promised to provide help whenever asked.
In general, this was the first introduction that BIC has had with civil society in North Africa (excluding Egypt) and so it was a great way to meet new people who may turn out to be close partners in the future.
Interpretation – A major reason for success
There are several determinants of a good workshop, including the setting, the participants themselves of course, the presenters, the logic of the agenda, and more. One of the biggest contributing factors to the success of this workshop, although it had all of the above, was the presence of interpretation. While the presentations were a combination of English, Arabic and French, some of the participants spoke only Arabic, and some only French, while many spoke both but were more comfortable in one language over the other. Although it was a hefty additional expense, we booked interpretation services for the first two days (we did not have the funds for the third day), and we soon realized that had we not made this investment, the workshop would have been so much more difficult and not half as productive or lively. Suddenly, we did not have a case where the interpretation was brought in for the sake of the groups organizing the event, but rather for the civil society participants.
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