GEI Projects

14. INTERNAL ORGANISATION AND EXTERNAL PRESSURES IN THE WORLD BANK: THE CASE OF ENVIRONMENTAL ‘GOOD PRACTICE’

Principal Researcher

Professor ROBERT WADE
Institute of Development Studies
University of Sussex

Contact

Professor Robert Wade
Institute of Development Studies
University of Sussex
Falmer
Brighton BN1 9QN
Tel: 01273 678 667
Fax: 01273 621 202

Duration

1 January 1996 – 31 June 1996

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

This project takes as a case study what appears to be a dramatic institutionalization of new values, of a long-run perspective, in the World Bank. Over the past eight years or so the environmental component of the Bank’s technical work has risen to great prominence inside and especially outside the Bank. The Bank now claims to employ roughly 300 environmental specialists, up from about five in 1986. It has a large central environment department, complemented by four regional environmental divisions. It publishes a book-length annual report on its environmental work. Its World Development Report 1992 presented the Bank’s understanding of development/environment interactions, legitimizing them as part of the Bank’s core concerns. Staff numbers, publications, and also lending volumes are some of the indicators the Bank cites to back its claim to be the world’s leading agency on environment and development issues – issues that are now near the top of the agenda of international action.

At the same time the Bank’s allegedly poor record on environmental matters constitutes the main focus for criticism of the Bank. Indeed, the campaign to close the organization down, called Fifty Years Are Enough, is led by environmental NGOs.

The project has focused not on the appropriateness of the Bank’s environmental work but rather on how it does it, on the linkage between broad ‘environmental sustainability’ goals and actions on the ground.

STUDY DESIGN

The central questions are:

What are the trends in the institutionalization of the environmental establishment in the Bank? That is, what are the trends in staff numbers, lending, publications, etc. (the Bank’s own figures have to be taken sceptically, because, given the political context, it has a strong interest in boosting the apparent amount of its environmental work.)

Why has this institutionalization happened – what are the causes of the very large expansion of environmental skills and environmentally-related activities since 1987?

The answer to (a) clearly involves US environmental NGOs, their ability to pressure the US Congress, and Congress’ ability to pressure the Bank. Which raises the further question, of what this history says about the international character of the Bank, about its insultation from or beholdenness to the wishes of its most powerful member.

Once the environmental establishment was created, how much influence has it had at the level of project-lending decisions?

How does the influence of the environmental establishment compare with that of other technical/social specialists? Of particular interest are the other cross-cutting (non-sectoral) issues, such as poverty and gender. How, for example, does the influence of environmental specialists compare with that of gender (or ‘women in development’) specialists?

How are the Bank’s environmentally-relevant policies formed? That is, what is the organization for formulating draft policies, for eliciting reactions, and for building consensus across a large, often fractious organization? What role have environmental specialists played in, say, the Forestry Policy Paper (1991), or the Water Resources Management Policy Paper (1993)?

POLICY IMPLICATIONS

The research will contribute to discussions about the future role and organization of the World Bank; and is relevant to efforts of other national and international agencies to inject long-term environmental thinking into their short-term operations.