IFTI Watch
-
26 April 2012
World Bank Approves Social Accountability Fund
The World Bank Board of Executive Directors April 19 “approved in principle” the creation of a $20 million effort “to scale up and support social accountability by beneficiary groups and civil society organizations in developing countries.” The Board in June will review operational details of the proposed Global Partnership for Social Accountability and the Bank […]
-
12 April 2012
World Bank Provides Open Access to Research
The World Bank April 10 announced that it has consolidated more than 2,000 books, articles, reports and research papers in a search-engine friendly Open Knowledge Repository. The Bankwill allow the public “to distribute, reuse and build upon much of its work—including commercially.” The Bank said it is “the first major international organization to require open […]
-
9 April 2012
ADB Made No Breakthroughs in Communications Policy
By Tea Soentoro Network Advocacy Coordinator, NGO Forum on ADB The Asian Development Bank failed to make a breakthrough of providing a policy that improves better access of affected people to information about program and projects that change their lives and livelihoods. This conclusion is derived from assessing the new Public Communications Policy (PCP), a […]
-
9 April 2012
Groups Urge Transparency in Drafting of ASEAN Declaration
Southeast Asian civil society groups April 8 urged the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights to be more transparent in its drafting of an ASEAN Human Rights Declaration. The statement expressed “grave concern and disappointment over the continuing secrecy in the drafting process.” The ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) has yet to release […]
-
6 April 2012
AfDB Seeks Comment on Draft Disclosure Policy
The African Development Bank has issued an only slightly revised draft disclosure policy, which is now open for public comments in advance of a planned May 2 Board discussion. The latest version appears to be largely unchanged from the draft from last June, on which consultations were held. Some critics said it was too narrow. […]
-
13 March 2012
World Bank Reports on Year One of Disclosure Policy
The World Bank has issued a statistics-filled report on the first year of what it now calls its “radical” disclosure policy, which went into effect in July 2010. The amount of information available increased, as did the numbers of requests, the Bank shows. Almost 90 percent (89.1) percent of 705 public access requests were fulfilled […]
-
25 February 2012
Google, the World Bank, and Public-Private Data Partnerships
By Nathaniel Heller Heller is Managing Director of Global Integrity, a Washingon-based nongovernmental organization, and this was posted Feb. 24 on the Global Integrity blog. On Wednesday, several organizations, including Global Integrity, met with the open data team at the World Bank to discuss open data trends as well as concerns over the recently-announced partnership […]
-
10 February 2012
World Bank Consulting on Accountability Concepts
The World Bank is a beginning stakeholder consultations on its Global Partnership for Social Accountability initiative “aimed at strengthening beneficiary feedback and participation by supporting civil society capacity to engage with governments to improve development effectiveness.” Having sought out initial reasons in 2012, the upcoming effort will seek comment on “key concepts” that have been […]
-
6 February 2012
UK Minister Stresses Tying Aid to Transparency
A top United Kingdom minister Jan. 30 said progress on transparency will be an important factor in British foreign aid decisions. Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, spoke at the World Bank about the ascendency of transparency in the U.K. and internationally. The U.K. is in line to co-chair the Open Government Partnership, a multilateral […]
-
3 February 2012
World Bank’s New Lending Tool Less Than Transparent
By Karen Orenstein Orenstein is International Policy Campaigner for Friends of the Earth U.S. This article first appeared Jan 31, 2012, on the FOE blog. The World Bank last week decided to take a significant step backwards on social and environmental protection and transparency. The Bank’s board voted to approve Program-for-Results, also known as PforR, […]
-
27 January 2012
World Bank Evaluator to Release Research Data
The World Bank Independent Evaluation Group Jan. 27 announced that it has made available the data backing up its review of the Bank’s governance and anticorruption efforts (GAC). The, IEG has disclosed “its entire data set of results from its desk review of GAC elements in Bank projects and country programs.” The office further explained, “Disaggregated […]
-
27 January 2012
World Bank Comments on Google Arrangement
By Nathaniel Heller Heller is Managing Director of Global Integrity, a Washingon-based nongovernmental organization, and this was posted Jan. 23 on the Global Integrity blog. A Jan. 20 Heller post describes his conversations with Bank officials on the topic. Last week we covered the unfolding debate over the World Bank’s decision to make Google Map […]
-
20 January 2012
G20 Transparency Lacking, Says Boell Foundation Paper
The policymaking mechanisms of the G-20 group of nations lack transparency and exclude civil society, according to a paper by Nancy Alexander, director of the Economic Governance Program at Heinrich Boell Stiftung Foundation-North America. Alexander also faults on transparency grounds the emerging World Bank Program-for-Results (P4R) strategy. The observations on transparency are contained in a […]
-
20 January 2012
World Bank Document Raises Controversy in Philippines
The disclosure of a World Bank document indicating possible misuse of Bank funds in the Philippines has raised a controversy and raised questions about the handling of such Bank documents. The Bank’s aide memoire details “ineligible expenditures” to support a judicial reform project. New reports indicate that the Bank’s aide memoire was provided to Philippine […]
-
20 January 2012
Worries about Google’s Deal with the World Bank
By Nathaniel Heller Heller is Managing Director of Global Integrity. His article appeared on a Global Integrity blog. Yesterday we tweeted that we were hearing concerns about the recently signed deal between Google and the World Bank that will allow the Bank to provide Google’s Map Maker platform to governments and multilaterals around the world. We’ve […]
-
6 January 2012
IFIs Faulted for Exemptions in Disclosure Policies
International financial institutions (IFIs) have “overbroad regimes of exceptions” in their transparency policies, according to a report issued by the Centre for Law and Democracy. Particularly troublesome are the exceptions relating to internal deliberations and third-party commercial information, according to the CLD report, prepared as a member of the Global Transparency Initiative, an international coalition advocating […]