Photo: flickr user Silvietta4ta/ cc
CGD has an active program of research and analysis of the World Bank, the world’s largest development institution and a leading source of funds, ideas, and expertise for development. Leadership succession, and the selection process that accompanies it, offers an opportunity for the bank’s shareholders—the nations of the world—and the international development community to take stock of its performance and identify opportunities for improvement. Bob Zoellick’s completion of his term in June 2012 is one such opening.
During leadership successions at the World Bank in 2007 and the IMF in 2011, CGD conducted online surveys to solicit views on the selection process. Both found remarkable unity among respondents on the need to make the process more open, transparent, and merit-based. In 2008 the Development Committee, the intergovernmental body that oversees the bank, expressed a consensus view on governance reform of the institution along similar lines, though it stopped short of what many consider to be a vital component: opening the process to include candidates who are not American. In a February 2012 blog post, Nancy Birdsall offers advice to the U.S. government on how to balance its paper commitment to governance reform against political realities in an election year.
Other CGD work offers new ideas about what the World Bank is and ought to be and practical suggestions for making the World Bank more effective, accountable, and legitimate in a rapidly changing global economy. For example, Birdsall calls for a restoration of the founders’ original vision of the bank as a global credit union, and in another piece with Arvind Subramanian she argues the bank should use more of its considerable technical and financial resources to address global public goods challenges such as runaway climate change, the development of new health and agriculture technologies, and the need to make markets for new financial and other products. Birdsall, Bill Savedoff, and Alan Gelb have contributed to a lively debate around the bank’s new results-based lending instrument, Program-for-Results, which was approved by the World Bank’s Board of Directors in January 2012.
One of the most pressing issues facing the World Bank over the next decade is the likelihood that more than half of the countries now eligible for loans from its soft lending window, the International Development Association (IDA), will graduate out of IDA-eligibility by 2025. The remaining countries will be almost entirely African, and a majority will be countries currently designated fragile or post-conflict. Todd Moss and Ben Leo examined the implications for IDA’s operational and financial models, and proposed three options for IDA going forward. Alan Gelb explored ways for IDA to create incentives for results and flexibility in fragile states. CGD is convening a Future of IDA Working Group to think through these options and to help spark new ideas.
Past work also includes a 2005 report of a CGD task force chaired by Birdsall and Devesh Kapur (who is a co-author of this 1997 authoritative history of the World Bank). The report laid out five bold but practical recommendations for restoring the legitimacy and increasing the effectiveness of the World Bank. Much of that work remains relevant today.
To receive regular updates on CGD’s work on the World Bank during the 2012 leadership transition, including announcements of new blog posts, sign up here.
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After an unprecedented competition, with three official nominees, the World Bank announced on Monday that the board had selected Jim Yong Kim, the Korean-born U.S. nominee, as the next president of the World Bank. My guest on this week’s Wonkcast is CGD president Nancy Birdsall, who discusses...
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Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala presented her vision for the future of the World Bank at an event organized by CGD and Washington Post Live, urging that the selection of the next president be based on merit. A second event will be held on Tuesday afternoon with José Antonio Ocampo.
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Following Robert Zoellick’s announcement that he will step down from the World Bank presidency at the end of June, the World Bank board has called for member countries to submit nominations for his successor, with a fast-approaching deadline of March 23rd. The board has said it will then...
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Ghana’s recent recalculation of its GDP led to an overnight $500 per capita jump, putting in motion unexpectedly rapid graduation from the International Development Association (IDA) and ultimately a new relationship with the World Bank. In this week’s Wonkcast, I speak with Todd Moss,...
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Nancy Birdsall urges Senator Leahy to support approval by the United States of the proposed new lending instrument at the World Bank, Program for Results Financing (P4R).
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In this working paper, the authors examine four categories of existing resource-mobilization options and recommend which might best be used to finance global public goods.
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By 2025, the number of IDA client countries will likely shrink substantially and primarily be smaller in size and overwhelmingly African. This working paper predicts how these changes will impact IDA's operational and financial models and recommends the World Bank begin addressing the implications...
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This paper offers a proposal to improve performance-based allocation systems of International Development Association (IDA) donors and others to better address the needs of fragile states and better link development allocations with performance.
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With high deficits across the developed world, aid budgets are tight and likely to remain so. However, a simple change in how the World Bank organizes its lending could free up an extra $7.5 billion for the world’s poorest countries over the next three years. My guest on this Wonkcast is Ben Leo,...
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CGD research fellow Ben Leo estimates that the World Bank could provide an extra $7.5 billion to the poorest countries over the next three years by adjusting the balance sheets of IDA and IBRD, its main lending arms.
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Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala presented her vision for the future of the World Bank at an event organized by CGD and Washington Post Live, urging that the selection of the next president be based on merit. A second event will be held on Tuesday afternoon with José Antonio Ocampo.
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In this CGD Essay, Birdsall and Subramianian argue that the World Bank faces twin crises of relevance and legitimacy in a rapidly changing world. The solution, they argue, is for the bank to become a more active catalyst for generating global public goods and knowledge and a more reluctant lender...
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Critics allege that the World Bank is deeply flawed. Yet the world needs a strong World Bank to help manage development and the related global challenges of the 21st century. Do the Bank's shortcomings put its future at risk? If so, can the Bank be rescued? Rescuing the World Bank, a new book that...
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A Better Globalization: Legitimacy, Governance, and Reform by Kemal Dervis is a reformist manifesto that argues that gradual institutional change can produce beneficial results if it is driven by an ambitious long-term vision and by a determination to continually widen the limits of the possible.
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By 2025, the number of IDA client countries will likely shrink substantially and primarily be smaller in size and overwhelmingly African. This working paper predicts how these changes will impact IDA's operational and financial models and recommends the World Bank begin addressing the implications...
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This report was prepared by a Working Group convened by the Center for Global Development to identify key priorities the Paul Wolfowitz at the start of his tenure at the World Bank on June 1, 2005. It argues that Wolfowitz's biggest challenge will not be managing the Bank, with its 10,000 staff,...
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In this working paper, the authors examine four categories of existing resource-mobilization options and recommend which might best be used to finance global public goods.
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Nancy Birdsall urges Senator Leahy to support approval by the United States of the proposed new lending instrument at the World Bank, Program for Results Financing (P4R).
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CGD's online survey of views on selecting the World Bank's next president received nearly 700 responses from people representing 71 nations; all world regions; high-, middle- and low-income countries; a variety of professional affiliations; and all adult age groups. In a new working paper analyzing...
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This paper offers a proposal to improve performance-based allocation systems of International Development Association (IDA) donors and others to better address the needs of fragile states and better link development allocations with performance.
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Owen Barder, Senior Fellow and Director for Europe As director for Europe, Owen Barder is leading CGD's effort to internationalize its policy outreach. His research focuses on transparency and accountability in aid and the political economy of development policies. He was a British civil servant for more than 20 years and is the former director of...
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Nancy Birdsall, President Nancy Birdsall is the Center for Global Development's founding president. From 1993 to 1998, she was executive vice president of the Inter-American Development Bank, the largest of the regional development banks, where she oversaw a $30 billion public and private loan portfolio. Before that she...
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Alan Gelb, Senior Fellow Alan’s recent research includes aid and development outcomes, the transition from planned to market economies, and the special development challenges of resource-rich countries. He was previously director of development policy at the World Bank and chief economist for the Bank’s Africa region.
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Devesh Kapur, Non-Resident Fellow Devesh Kapur is the Director of the Centre for Advanced Study of India, he holds the Madan Lal Sobti Professorship for the Study of Contemporary India, and he is an associate professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania. His research examines local-global linkages in political...
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Todd Moss, Vice President for Programs and Senior Fellow Todd Moss works on U.S.-Africa relations and financial issues facing sub-Saharan Africa, including policies that affect private capital flows, natural resource management, debt, and aid. He oversees the Center’s fundraising efforts and relations with external partners.
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Vijaya Ramachandran, Senior Fellow Vijaya Ramachandran's areas of expertise include private-sector development, entrepreneurship, and foreign direct investment. She also manages CGD's work on fragile states, which focuses on the delivery of post-conflict assistance. Her latest book is Africa's Private Sector: What's Wrong with the...
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From World Bank to World Development Cooperative
- Oct 15, 2007
In this CGD Essay, Birdsall and Subramianian argue that the World Bank faces twin crises of relevance and legitimacy in a rapidly changing world. The solution, they argue, is for the bank to become a more active catalyst for generating global public goods and knowledge and a more reluctant lender...
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The World Bank: Toward a Global Club
- May 22, 2007
In this Essay, CGD president Nancy Birdsall describes the World Bank as a global club with a structure close to that of a credit union in which the members are nations. Its mission, as originally conceived–-to promote broadly shared and sustainable global prosperity--serves the common interests...
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Rescuing the World Bank
- Sep 5, 2006
Critics allege that the World Bank is deeply flawed. Yet the world needs a strong World Bank to help manage development and the related global challenges of the 21st century. Do the Bank's shortcomings put its future at risk? If so, can the Bank be rescued? Rescuing the World Bank, a new book that...
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A Better Globalization: Legitimacy, Governance, and Reform
- Mar 1, 2005
A Better Globalization: Legitimacy, Governance, and Reform by Kemal Dervis is a reformist manifesto that argues that gradual institutional change can produce beneficial results if it is driven by an ambitious long-term vision and by a determination to continually widen the limits of the possible.
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Why it Matters Who Runs the IMF and the World Bank - Working Paper 22
- Jan 1, 2003
In this paper I set out the economic logic for why good global economic governance matters for reducing poverty and inequality and argue that a step towards better global governance would be better representation of developing countries in global and regional financial institutions.
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The World Bank: What Should Its Future Be?
- Oct 18, 2007
This half-day CGD conference will bring together leading thinkers
and policy makers from developing and donor countries for detailed discussion on the future of the World Bank. The conference concludes with remarks and an open discussion with World Bank president Robert Zoellick.
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What Next for the World Bank?
- Sep 23, 2005
How should the world's largest and most influential development institution address the challenges of the 21st Century? Ten distinguished speakers gathered on the eve of the World Bank/IMF 2005 Annual Meetings to offer fresh ideas. World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz and CGD President Nancy...
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