As an institution charged with fighting global poverty, the World Bank has found itself on the firing line of late. Critics cite a persistent lack of transparency and failure to include local insights in decision-making that affects the poor directly, among other grievances. But supporters note a number of reforms over the past two decades, including a current review of the Bank's information disclosure policy, and a series of "safeguards" on sensitive issues such as environmental impacts and effects on indigenous peoples.
Long-term governance reforms are central to the Bank's legitimacy as a global public institution. At the same time, there are numerous shorter-term actions the World Bank can take to greatly improve its accountability to the poor. Four key recommendations are provided here, with a more comprehensive set available in Herz and Ebrahim (2005):
[This article was provided with permission from Harvard Business School Working Knowledge.]