The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) approved its most recent Information Disclosure Policy in November 2003.
This was quickly followed by the release of an Implementation Plan that outlined the steps to be taken and key dates in the phasing-in of the new policy’s requirements. The Implementation Plan contained information on the disclosure-related responsibilities of the various IDB departments, a list of instructional manuals and publications to be produced for IDB staff and the general public, staff training that would take place at country offices and headquarters, outreach seminars to be conducted with civil society, disclosure guidelines for specific documents and material from IDB intranet databases, and the annual evaluation of the experience with implementing the policy’s provisions.
The revised Information Disclosure policy required IDB staff, starting in January 2004, to make the full text of Environmental Assessments available in electronic format on the Internet. New documents to be disclosed under the Policy included Project Completion Reports, Tranche Disbursement Memoranda, HIPC Initiative–related documents, and PRSPs. A number of reports from the IDB’s databases were also to be newly disclosed, initially in January 2004 and continuing progressively through the end of the year. This included Information on Loan Disbursement Status, Information on Loan Repayments, Board of Executive Directors’ work programs, and Board Committee Chairmen’s reports.
More recently, a set of Implementation Instructions (what the Implementation Plan had called an “Information Disclosure Handbook”) was prepared by the Bank’s Office of External Relations (EXR). The most recent updates to this were done in July 2005. The Instructions document provides detailed guidance on the IDB disclosure requirements for five specific kinds of information:
- Operational Information
- Project Information (with a separate subsection describing instructions for the disclosure of information related to private-sector operations)
- Institutional Information
- Financial Information
- Legal Information
It also outlines procedures assigning responsibility to particular units of the Bank, usually the unit originating the information in question, for disclosure, and provides dates by which specific types of documents need to be disclosed to the public.
The Implementation Instructions document was supposed to have been informed by a series of EXR-facilitated informational seminars aimed at CSOs, as well as a series of training sessions aimed at IDB staff (with an emphasis on its operational staff). However, for a number of reasons including a lack of necessary budget, the civil society meetings were never held.(1) The IDB had also promised to publish a helpful “flow chart” depicting which documents would be available to the public at each stage of the project cycle, but apparently this was never done.
(1) However, EXR staff have expressed an interest in holding these meetings in the near future, budget allowing.
The Policy was amended by the Board in July 2006 to include a provision regarding availability of information regarding companies or individuals sanctioned by the Bank in connection with fraud or corruption.